ie.

"Ay, and he's thinking about it," said Blinder, "night and day, night
and day. What a town there'll be about that letter, smith!"

"There will. But I'm to take it to Aaron afore the news spreads. He'll
never gang to London though."

"I think he will, smith."

"I ken him well."

"Maybe I ken him better."

"You canna see the ugly mark it left on his brow."

"I can see the uglier marks it has left in his breast."

"Well, I'll take the letter; I can do no more."

When the smith opened the door of Aaron's house he let out a draught of
hot air that was glad to be gone from the warper's restless home. The
usual hallan, or passage, divided the but from the ben, and in the ben a
great revolving thing, the warping-mill, half filled the room. Between
it and a pile of webs that obscured the light a little silent man was
sitting on a box turning a handle. His shoulders were almost as high as
his ears, as if he had been caught forever in a storm, and though he was
barely five and thirty, he had the tattered, dishonored beard of black
and white that comes to none till the glory of life has gone.

Suddenly the smith appeared round the webs. "Aaron," he said, awkwardly,
"do you mind Jean Myles?"

The warper did not for a moment take his eyes off a contrivance with
pirns in it that was climbing up and down the whirring mill.

"She's dead," he answered.

"She's dying," said the smith.

A thread broke, and Aaron had to rise to mend it.

"Stop the mill and listen," Auchterlonie begged him, but the warper
returned to his seat and the mill again revolved.

"This is her dying words to you," continued the smith. "Did you speak?"

"I didna, but I wish you would take your arm off the haik."

"She's loath to die without seeing you. Do you hear, man? You shall
listen to me, I tell you."

"I am listening, smith," the warper replied, without rancour. "It's but
right that you should come here to take your pleasure on a shamed man."
His calmness gave him a kind of dignity.

"Did I ever say you was a shamed man, Aaron?"

"Am I not?" the warper asked quietly; and Auchterlonie hung his head.

Aaron continued, still turning the handle, "You're truthful, and you
canna deny it. Nor will you deny that I shamed you and every other
mother's son that night. You try to hod it out o' pity, smith, but even
as you look at me now, does the man in you no rise up against me?"

"If so," the smith answered reluctantly, "if so, it's agains