be of old Will Overton. I
wasn't aware, by-the-bye, that Will was dead till Bauldy told me. '_He
was a great fellow my friend Will_,' he rang out in yon deep voice of
his. '_The thumb-mark of his Maker was wet in the clay of him_.' Man,
it made a quiver go down my spine."

"Oh, Bauldy has been a kenned phrase-maker for the last forty year,"
said Tarmillan. "But every other Scots peasant has the gift. To hear
Englishmen talk, you would think Carlyle was unique for the word that
sends the picture home--they give the man the credit of his race. But
I've heard fifty things better than 'willowy man' in the stable a-hame
on a wat day in hairst--fifty things better--from men just sitting on
the corn-kists and chowing beans."

"I know a better one than that," said Allan. Tarmillan had told no
story, you observe, but Allan was so accustomed to saying "I know a
better one than that," that it escaped him before he was aware. "I
remember when Bauldy went off to Paris on the spree. He kept his mouth
shut when he came back, for he was rather ashamed o' the outburst. But
the bodies were keen to hear. 'What's the incense like in Notre Dame?'
said Johnny Coe, with his een big. '_Burning stink!_' said Bauldy."

"I can cap that with a better one still," said Tarmillan, who wasn't to
be done by any man. "I was with Bauldy when he quarrelled Tam Gibb of
Hoochan-doe. Hoochan-doe's a yelling ass, and he threatened Bauldy--oh,
he would do this, and he would do that, and he would do the other thing.
'_Damn ye, would ye threaten me?_' cried Bauldy. '_I'll gar your brains
jaup red to the heavens!_' And I 'clare to God, sirs, a nervous man
looked up to see if the clouds werena spattered with the gore!"

Tozer cleared a sarcastic windpipe.

"Why do you clear your throat like that?" said Tarmillan--"like a craw
with the croup, on a bare branch against a gray sky in November! If I
had a throat like yours, I'd cut it and be done wi't."

"I wonder what's the cause of that extraordinary vividness in the
speech of the Scotch peasantry?" said Allan--more to keep the blades
from bickering than from any wish to know.

"It comes from a power of seeing things vividly inside your mind," said
a voice, timorous and wheezy, away down the table.

What cockerel was this crowing?

They turned, and beheld the blushing Gourlay.

But Tarmillan and Tozer were at it again, and he was snubbed. Jimmy
Wilson sniggered, and the other youngsters enjoyed his discomf