!"
remarked Donal to himself. "Here I am with a friend already!"

The cobbler was submitting the shoes, first the sickly one, now the
sound one, to a thorough scrutiny.

"Ye dinna think them worth men'in', I doobt!" said Donal, with a touch
of anxiety in his tone.

"I never thoucht that whaur the leather wad haud the steik," replied
the cobbler. "But whiles, I confess, I'm jist a wheen tribled to ken
hoo to chairge for my wark. It's no barely to consider the time it'll
tak me to cloot a pair, but what the weirer 's like to git oot o' them.
I canna tak mair nor the job 'ill be worth to the weirer. An' yet the
waur the shune, an' the less to be made o' them, the mair time they tak
to mak them worth onything ava'!"

"Surely ye oucht to be paid in proportion to your labour."

"I' that case I wad whiles hae to say til a puir body 'at hadna anither
pair i' the warl', 'at her ae pair o' shune wasna worth men'in'; an'
that wad be a hertbrak, an' sair feet forby, to sic as couldna, like
yersel', sir, gang upo' the Lord's ain shune."

"But hoo mak ye a livin' that w'y?" suggested Donal.

"Hoots, the maister o' the trade sees to my wauges!"

"An' wha may he be?" asked Donal, well foreseeing the answer.

"He was never cobbler himsel', but he was ance carpenter; an' noo he's
liftit up to be heid o' a' the trades. An' there's ae thing he canna
bide, an' that's close parin'."

He stopped. But Donal held his peace, waiting; and he went on.

"To them 'at maks little, for reasons good, by their neebour, he gies
the better wauges whan they gang hame. To them 'at maks a' 'at they
can, he says, 'Ye helpit yersel'; help awa'; ye hae yer reward. Only
comena near me, for I canna bide ye'.--But aboot thae shune o' yours, I
dinna weel ken! They're weel eneuch worth duin' the best I can for
them; but the morn's Sunday, an' what hae ye to put on?"

"Naething--till my kist comes; an' that, I doobt, winna be afore
Monday, or maybe the day efter."

"An' ye winna be able to gang to the kirk!"

"I'm no partic'lar aboot gaein' to the kirk; but gien I wantit to gang,
or gien I thoucht I was b'un' to gang, think ye I wad bide at hame
'cause I hadna shune to gang in! Wad I fancy the Lord affrontit wi'
the bare feet he made himsel'!"

The cobbler caught up the worst shoe and began upon it at once.

"Ye s' hae't, sir," he said, "gien I sit a' nicht at it! The ane 'll
du till Monday. Ye s' hae't afore kirk-time, but ye maun come int