am content to renounce them and him.'

"'See ye and stick to it then!' said Anton, and went after Walter Ker
and John Young, who stood together as though they had gotten a dead
stroke.

"'Ye saw visions, did ye?' he said. 'See ye if this be a vision?'

"And he gave them certain dour strokes on their bodies, for they were
strong carles and could bide the like--not like the poor feckless loon
of a colleger.

"'Did ye see a light shining in the moss late yestreen?' he asked them.

"'It was but glow-worms!' said Walter Ker.

"'It was, aiblins, Wull-o'-the-Wisp?' said John Young.

"'Ay, that's mair like the thing, noo!' said Auld Anton, with something
like a smile on his face.

"So saying he drove all the women (save two or three that had scattered
over the moss) before him, till we came to the place of the ordinary
Societies' Meeting at Howmuir, from which we set out.

"Here were assembled sundry of the husbands of the women--for the black
shame of it was, that the most part of them were wives and mothers of
families, of an age when the faults of youth were no longer either
temptation or excuse.

"To them he delivered up the women; each to her own husband, with
certain advice.

"'I have wrestled with the men,' he said, 'and overcome them. Wrestle ye
with the women, that are your own according to the flesh. And if ye
think that my oaken stave is too sore, discharge your duty with a birch
rod, of the thickness of your little finger--for it is the law of the
realm of Scotland that every husband is allowed to give his wife
reasonable correction therewith. But gin ye need my staff or gin your
wives prefer it, it is e'en at your service.'

"So saying, he threw his plaid over his shoulder, and made for the door.

"'Learn them a' the sweet singin',' he said. 'John Gib was grand at it.
He sang like a mavis oot by there, on the moor at the Deer-Slunk.'"

This was the matter of Sandy's cheerful tale about John Gib and Auld
Anton Lennox.

And this cured Sandy of some part of his extremes, though to my thinking
at times, he had been none the worse of Auld Anton at his elbow to give
him a lesson or two in sweet singing. I might not in that case have had
to buy all over again the bonny house of Earlstoun, and so had more to
spend upon Afton, which is now mine own desirable residence.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HOME OF MY LOVE.

Anthony Lennox presently took me by the hand, and led me over to where
in the Duchrae kitc