ould hae telt her instead to ring the bell an' hae
the cloth laid for the breakfast. Ay, that's the wy to mak the like o'
Mary respec ye."

Pete and I left them talking. He had written a letter to David
Alexander, and wanted me to "back" it.

CHAPTER X

A MAGNUM OPUS

Two Bibles, a volume of sermons by the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, a few
numbers of the _Cheap Magazine_, that had strayed from Dunfermline, and
a "Pilgrim's Progress," were the works that lay conspicuous ben in the
room. Hendry had also a copy of Burns, whom he always quoted in the
complete poem, and a collection of legends in song and prose, that
Leeby kept out of sight in a drawer.

The weight of my box of books was a subject Hendry was very willing to
shake his head over, but he never showed any desire to take off the
lid. Jess, however, was more curious; indeed, she would have been an
omnivorous devourer of books had it not been for her conviction that
reading was idling. Until I found her out she never allowed to me that
Leeby brought her my books one at a time. Some of them were novels,
and Jess took about ten minutes to each. She confessed that what she
read was only the last chapter, owing to a consuming curiosity to know
whether "she got him."

She read all the London part, however, of "The Heart of Midlothian,"
because London was where Jamie lived, and she and I had a discussion
about it which ended in her remembering that Thrums once had an author
of its own.

"Bring oot the book," she said to Leeby; "it was put awa i' the bottom
drawer ben i' the room sax year syne, an' I sepad it's there yet."

Leeby came but with a faded little book, the title already rubbed from
its shabby brown covers. I opened it, and then all at once I saw
before me again the man who wrote and printed it and died. He came
hobbling up the brae, so bent that his body was almost at right angles
to his legs, and his broken silk hat was carefully brushed as in the
days when Janet, his sister, lived. There he stood at the top of the
brae, panting.

I was but a boy when Jimsy Duthie turned the corner of the brae for the
last time, with a score of mourners behind him. While I knew him there
was no Janet to run to the door to see if he was coming. So occupied
was Jimsy with the great affair of his life, which was brewing for
thirty years, that his neighbours saw how he missed his sister better
than he realized it himself. Only his hat was no longer ca