g Cyril Gilbraith, whom he was teaching to tie flies
and fear God, beside him; or Jim Mason, postman by profession, poacher
by predilection, honest man and sportsman by nature, hurrying along with
the mail-bags on his shoulder, a rabbit in his pocket, and the faithful
Betsy a yard behind. Besides these you might have hit upon a quiet
shepherd and a wise-faced dog; Squire Sylvester, going his rounds upon
a sturdy cob; or, had you been lucky, sweet Lady Eleanour bent upon some
errand of mercy to one of the many tenants.

It was while the Squire's lady was driving through the village on a
visit* to Tammas's slobbering grandson--it was shortly after Billy
Thornton's advent into the world--that little M'Adam, standing in the
door of the Sylvester Arms, with a twig in his mouth and a sneer fading
from his lips, made his ever-memorable remark:

"Sall!" he said, speaking in low, earnest voice; "'tis a muckle wumman."

Note:* It was this visit which figured in the Grammoch-town
_Argus_ (local and radical) under the heading of "Alleged
Wholesale Corruption by Tory Agents." And that is why, on
the following market day, Herbert Trotter, journalist,
erstwhile gentleman, and Secretary of the Dale Trials, found
himself trying to swim in the public horse-trough.

"What? What be sayin', mon?" cried old Jonas, startled out of his usual
apathy.

M'Adam turned sharply on the old man.

"I said the wumman wears a muckle hat!" he snapped.

Blotted out as it was, the observation still remains--a tribute of
honest admiration. Doubtless the Recording Angel did not pass it by.
That one statement anent the gentle lady of the manor is the only
personal remark ever credited to little M'Adam not born of malice and
all uncharitableness. And that is why it is ever memorable.

The little Scotsman with the sardonic face had been the tenant of the
Grange these many years; yet he had never grown acclimatized to the
land of the Southron. With his shrivelled body and weakly legs he looked
among the sturdy, straight-limbed sons of the hill-country like some
brown, wrinkled leaf holding its place midst a galaxy of green. And as
he differed from them physically, so he did morally.

He neither understood them nor attempted to. The North-country character
was an unsolved mystery to him, and that after ten years' study.
"One-half o' what ye say they doot, and they let ye see it; t'ither half
they disbelieve, and they tell ye