able. "Ay," he
said dryly in his throat; "verra good, baker, verra good!--Who's yellow
doag's that? I never saw the beast about the town before!"

"Nor me either. It's a perfect stranger!"

"It's like a herd's doag!"

"Man, you're right! That's just what it will be. The morn's Fleckie lamb
fair, and some herd or other'll be in about the town."

"He'll be drinking in some public-house, I'se warrant, and the doag will
have lost him."

"Imph, that'll be the way o't."

"I'm demned if he hasn't taken the Skeighan Road!" said Sandy Toddle,
who had kept his eye on the minister. Toddle's accent was a varying
quality. When he remembered he had been a packman in England it was
exceedingly fine. But he often forgot.

"The Skeighan Road! the Skeighan Road! Who'll he be going to see in that
airt? Will it be Templandmuir?"

"Gosh, it canna be Templandmuir; he was there no later than yestreen!"

"Here's a man coming down the brae!" announced Johnny Coe, in a solemn
voice, as if a man "coming down the brae" was something unusual. In a
moment every head was turned to the hill.

"What's yon he's carrying on his shouther?" pondered Brodie.

"It looks like a boax," said the Provost slowly, bending every effort of
eye and mind to discover what it really was. He was giving his
profoundest cogitations to the "boax."

"It _is_ a boax! But who is it though? I canna make him out."

"Dod, I canna tell either; his head's so bent with his burden!"

At last the man, laying his "boax" on the ground, stood up to ease his
spine, so that his face was visible.

"Losh, it's Jock Gilmour, the orra man at Gourlay's! What'll _he_ be
doing out on the street at this hour of the day? I thocht he was always
busy on the premises! Will Gourlay be sending him off with something to
somebody? But no; that canna be. He would have sent it with the carts."

"I'll wager ye," cried Johnny Coe quickly, speaking more loudly than
usual in the animation of discovery--"I'll wager ye Gourlay has
quarrelled him and put him to the door!"

"Man, you're right! That'll just be it, that'll just be it! Ay,
ay--faith ay--and yon'll be his kist he's carrying! Man, you're right,
Mr. Coe; you have just put your finger on't. We'll hear news _this_
morning."

They edged forward to the middle of the road, the Provost in front, to
meet Gilmour coming down.

"Ye've a heavy burden this morning, John," said the Provost graciously.

"No wonder, sir," said Gilmour, with bi