y, and tell them that
Christ had saved the souls o' men, but that birds and beasts were
perishable as the dew o' heaven. And now ye have a black-gowned man in
Threepdaidle who threeps on the same overcome. Ye may a' ken something
o' your ain kitchen midden, but certes! ye ken little o' the warld
beyond it."

Now this angered the man, and he rebuked the bird. "These are great
mysteries," he said, "which are no to be mentioned in the ears of an
unsanctified creature. What can a thing like you wi' a lang neb and
twae legs like stilts ken about the next warld?"

"Weel, weel," said the whaup, "we'll let the matter be. Everything to
its ain trade, and I will not dispute with ye on Metapheesics. But if
ye ken something about the next warld, ye ken terrible little about
this."

Now this angered the man still more, for he was a shepherd reputed to
have great skill in sheep and esteemed the nicest judge of hogg and
wether in all the countryside. "What ken ye about that?" he asked.
"Ye may gang east to Yetholm and west to Kells, and no find a better
herd."

"If sheep were a'," said the bird, "ye micht be right; but what o' the
wide warld and the folk in it? Ye are Simon Etterick o' the Lowe Moss.
Do ye ken aucht o' your forebears?"

"My father was a God-fearing man at the Kennelhead and my grandfather
and great grandfather afore him. One o' our name, folk say, was shot
at a dykeback by the Black Westeraw."

"If that's a'" said the bird, "ye ken little. Have ye never heard o'
the little man, the fourth back from yoursel', who killed the Miller o'
Bewcastle at the Lammas Fair? That was in my ain time, and from my
mother I have heard o' the Covenanter who got a bullet in his wame
hunkering behind the divot-dyke and praying to his Maker. There were
others of your name rode in the Hermitage forays and turned Naworth and
Warkworth and Castle Gay. I have heard o' an Etterick. Sim o' the
Redcleuch, who cut the throat o' Jock Johnstone in his ain house by the
Annan side. And my grandmother had tales o' auld Ettericks who rade
wi' Douglas and the Bruce and the ancient Kings o' Scots; and she used
to tell o' others in her mother's time, terrible shockheaded men
hunting the deer and rinnin' on the high moors, and bidin' in the
broken stane biggings on the hill-taps."

The shepherd stared, and he, too, saw the picture. He smelled the air
of battle and lust and foray, and forgot the Sabbath.

"And you yoursel'," sa