ill the hoast took me. Then on a sudden
he looked up from his papers, came quickly over to me, put his own
white handkerchief to my mouth, and quietly said, "Come into my room,
laddie!" Ay, he was a good man and a faithful, Sir James, if ever
there was one. He told me that with care I might live five or six
years, but it would need great care. Then a strange prickly coldness
came over me, and I seemed to walk light-headed in an atmosphere
suddenly rarefied. I think I know now how the mouse feels under the
air-pump.'

'What's that?' queried Saunders.

'A cruel ploy not worth speaking of,' continued the Stickit Minister.
'Well, I found something in my throat when I tried to thank him. But I
came my ways home to the Dullarg, and night and day I considered what
was to be done, with so much to do and so little time to do it. It was
clear that both Harry and me could not gang through the college on the
little my faither had left. So late one night I saw my way clear to
what I should do. Harry must go, I must stay. I must come home to the
farm, and be my own "man"; then I could send Harry to the college to be
a doctor, for he had no call to the ministry as once I thought I had.
More than that, It was laid on me to tell Jessie London that Robert
Fraser was no better than a machine set to go five year.

'Now all these things I did, Saunders, but there's no use telling you
what they cost in the doing. They were right to do, and they were
done. I do not repent any of them. I would do them all over again
were they to do, but it's been bitterer than I thought.'

The Stickit Minister took his head off his hand and leaned wearily back
in his chair.

'The story went over the country that I had failed in my examinations,
and I never said that I had not. But there were some that knew better
who might have contradicted the report if they had liked. I settled
down to the farm, and I put Harry through the college, sending all but
a bare living to him in Edinburgh. I worked the work of the farm, rain
and shine, ever since, and have been for these six years the "stickit
minister" that all the world kens the day. Whiles Harry did not think
that he got enough. He was always writing for more, and not so very
pleased when he did not get it. He was aye different to me, ye ken,
Saunders, and he canna be judged by the same standard as you and me.'

'I ken,' said Saunders M'Quhirr, a spark of light lying in the quiet of
his