engaged
on a war of extermination in the Den."

"Ah, those exploits, I fancy, are confined to Saturday nights, and
unfortunately his Saturday debauch does not keep him sober for the rest
of the week, which we demand of respectable characters in these parts.
For the last day or two, for instance, he has been in mourning."

"I had not heard of that."

"No, I daresay not, and I'll give you the facts, if you'll fill your
glass first. But perhaps--" here the dominie's eyes twinkled as if a
gleam of humor had been left him after all--"perhaps you have been more
used of late to ginger wine?"

The visitor received the shock impassively as if he did not know he had
been hit, and Cathro proceeded with his narrative. "Well, for a day or
two Tommy Sandys has been coming to the school in a black jacket with
crape on the cuffs, and not only so, he has sat quiet and forlorn-like
at his desk as if he had lost some near and dear relative. Now I knew
that he had not, for his only relative is a sister whom you may have
seen at the Hanky School, and both she and Aaron Latta are hearty. Yet,
sir (and this shows the effect he has on me), though I was puzzled and
curious I dared not ask for an explanation."

"But why not?" was the visitor's natural question.

"Because, sir, he is such a mysterious little sacket," replied Cathro,
testily, "and so clever at leading you into a hole, that it's not
chancey to meddle with him, and I could see through the corner of my eye
that, for all this woeful face, he was proud of it, and hoped I was
taking note. For though sometimes his emotion masters him completely, at
other times he can step aside as it were, and take an approving look at
it. That is a characteristic of him, and not the least maddening one."

"But you solved the mystery somehow, I suppose?"

"I got at the truth to-day by an accident, or rather my wife discovered
it for me. She happened to call in at the school on a domestic matter I
need not trouble you with (sal, she needna have troubled me with it
either!), and on her way up the yard she noticed a laddie called Lewis
Doig playing with other ungodly youths at the game of kickbonnety.
Lewis's father, a gentleman farmer, was buried jimply a fortnight since,
and such want of respect for his memory made my wife give the loon a
dunt on the head with a pound of sugar, which she had just bought at the
'Sosh. He turned on her, ready to scart or spit or run, as seemed
wisest, and in a klin