anner,
saying to Jamieson,--

"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and
the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power
to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me,
"it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep
peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated
to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae
to mak your bed here in the mill."

While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing
like a bell.

"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and
stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."

Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder,
I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and
told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to
eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the
trap-door, in came his wife.

"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied
to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and
they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your
covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and
that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills,
as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to
get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they
say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."

"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the
miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home,
so what hae I to dread?"

"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's
coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners
Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to
see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running
through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's
the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."

"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things
I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."

"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A
cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to
happiness, submitting himsel in no m