draft of late, along o'
pretendin' to heathen ways an' thoughts what I never really held with;
but 't is all wan now an' I lay I'll soon set the account right, wi' a
balance in my favour, tu. Seein' how shameful I was used, ban't likely
no gert things will be laid against me."

"And auld Lezzard will go to the Union?"

"A very fittin' plaace for un, come to think on 't. Awver-balanced for
sheer greed of gawld he was. My! what a wild-goose chase! An the things
he've said to me! Not that I'd allow myself--awuly from common humanity
I must see un an' let un knaw I bear no more malice than a bird on a
bough."

They drank, Billy deeper than usual. He was marvellously excited and
cheerful. He greeted God like an old friend returned to him from a
journey; and that night before retiring he stood stiffly beside his bed
and covered his face in his hands and prayed a prayer familiar among his
generation.

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on,
Four cornders to my bed,
Four angels overspread
Two tu foot an' two tu head,
An' all to carry me when I'm dead.
An' when I'm dead an' in my graave,
An' all my bones be rotten.
The greedy worms my flaish shall ate,
An' I shall be forgotten;
For Christ's sake. Amen."

Having sucked from repetition of this ancient twaddle exactly that sort
of satisfaction the French or Roman peasant wins from a babble of a dead
language over beads, Billy retired with many a grunt and sigh of
satisfaction.

"It do hearten the spirit to come direct to the Throne," he reflected;
"an' the wonder is how ever I could fare for near two year wi'out my
prayers. Yet, though I got my monkey up an' let Jehovah slide, He knawed
of my past gudeness, all set down in the Book o' Life. An' now I've
owned up as I was wrong; which is all even the saints can do; 'cause
Judgment Day, for the very best of us, will awnly be a matter o' owning
up."

CHAPTER XIV

A HUNDRED POUNDS

The maddening recollection of things done wrought upon Clement Hicks
until it bred in him a distracted frenzy and blinded his judgment. He
lost all sense of proportion in his endeavour to come at a right course
of action, and a mind long inclined towards one road now readily drifted
upon it. To recover the position had been quite possible, and there were
not wanting those ready and eager to assist him; but at this crisis in
his fortune the man lost all power of reflection