he farmer of Cauldshaws, having
driven all his remaining sheep together, sat down to watch. Seeing the
minister, he stood up and excitedly waved him back. But Douglas
Maclellan from the Machars never gave him a look, and his shouting was
of less effect than if he had been crying to an untrained collie.

The minister looked long up the stream, and at a point where the rocks
came very close together, and many stunted pines were growing, he saw
one which, having stood on the immediate brink, had been so much
undercut that it leaned over the gully like a fishing-rod. With a keen
glance along its length, the minister, jamming his dripping soft felt
hat on the back of his head, was setting foot on the perilous slope of
the uneven red-brown trunk, when Ebie Kirgan caught him sharply by the
arm.

'It's no' for me to speak to a minister at ordinar' times,' he
stammered, gathering courage in his desperation; 'but, oh, man, it's
fair murder to try to gang ower that water!'

The minister wrenched himself free, and sprang along the trunk with
wonderful agility.

'I'm intimated to preach at Cauldshaws this night, and my text is,
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might!"' he shouted.

He made his way up and up the slope of the fir tree, which, having
little grip of the rock, dipped and swayed under his tread. Ebie
Kirgan fell on his knees and prayed aloud. He had not prayed since his
stepmother boxed his ears for getting into bed without saying his
prayers twenty years ago. This had set him against it. But he prayed
now, and to infinitely more purpose than his minister had recently
done. But when the climber had reached the branchy top, and was
striving to get a few feet farther, in order to clear the surging linn
before he made his spring, Ebie rose to his feet, leaving his prayer
unfinished. He sent forth an almost animal shriek of terror. The tree
roots cracked like breaking cables and slowly gave way, an avalanche of
stones plumped into the whirl, and the top of the fir crashed downwards
on the rocks of the opposite bank.

'Oh, man, call on the name of the Lord,' cried Ebie Kirgan, the ragged
preacher, at the top of his voice.

Then he saw something detach itself from the tree as it rebounded, and
for a moment rise and fall black against the sunset. Then Ebie the
Outcast fell on his face like a dead man.

* * * * *

In the white coverleted 'room' of the farmtown of C