ncounter.

"I have missed you nearly all winter from the church on the Sabbath
day," I replied, leaving no room for further uncertainty.

Geordie capitulated slowly: "I'll grant ye I've no' been by-ord'nar
regglar," he admitted, "but I hae a guid excuse. I haena been ower weel.
Ma knee's been sair. To tell ye the truth, minister, half the time
'twas a' I could dae to get doon to curl."

I sighed heavily and said no more, for Geordie was hopelessly sincere in
his idea of first things first.

The very next night I was sitting quietly in my study, talking to
Margaret and Angus, though I was beginning to suspect already that they
had come to endure my absence with heroic fortitude.

About eleven o'clock the door-bell rang, and I answered it myself. It
was Geordie's distracted wife. Leading her to the drawing-room, I asked
her mission, though her pale and care-rung face left little room for
doubt.

"Wad ye think it bold o' me, sir, gin I was to ask you to find Geordie
an' fetch him hame? He's off sin' yestere'en."

"Why, it was only yesterday evening I saw him on the ice."

"Ay, sir, but he winned the game, an' that's aye a loss for Geordie; he
aye tak's himsel' to the tavern when he wins. Oh, sir, ma hairt's fair
broken; it's a twalmonth this verra nicht sin' oor wee Jessie dee'd, an'
I was aye lippenin' to that to bring him till himsel'; but he seems waur
nor ever--he seeks to droon his sorrow wi' the drink."

I had often marvelled at this; for Geordie's last word to his little
daughter had been a promise to meet her in the land o' the leal. But it
is not chains alone that make a slave.

After a little further conversation, I sent the poor woman home,
assuring her that I would do the best I could for Geordie. Which promise
I proceeded to fulfill. Two or three of his well-known resorts had been
visited with fruitless quest, when I repaired to the Maple Leaf, a
notoriously sunken hole, which thus blasphemed the name of the fairest
emblem of the nations. I observed a few sorry wastrels leaning in
maudlin helplessness upon the bar as I pressed in, still cleaving to
their trough--but Geordie was not among them. I was about to withdraw,
when I heard a familiar voice, above the noise of a phonograph, from one
of the rooms just above the bar. It was Geordie's.

"Gie us 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,'" I heard him cry, with drunken
unction. "Gin ye haena ane o' the psalms o' Dauvit i' yir kist o' tunes,
mak' the creetur pla