I had one rival I didn’t like, though, as I look back the noo, I can see I was’na too kind to feel as I did aboot puir Jock.  Jock coul no stand it to have anyone else applauded, or to see them getting attention he craved for himself.  He could no sing, but he was a great story teller.  Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, ’twould have been all richt enough.  But, no—­Jock must pretend he’d been everywhere he told about, and that he’d been an actor in every yarn he spun.  He was a great boaster, too—­he’d tell us, without a blush, of the most desperate things he’d done, and of how brave he’d been.  He was the bravest man alive, to hear him tell it.

They were askin’ me to sing one day, and I was ready to oblige, when Jock started.

“Bide a wee, Harry, man,” he said, “while I’ll be tellin’ ye of a thing that happened to me on the veldt in America once.”

“The veldt’s in South Africa, Jock,” someone said, slyly.

“No, no—­it’s the Rocky Mountains you’re meaning.  They’re in South Africa—­I climbed three of them there in a day, once.  Weel, I was going to tell ye of this time when we were hunting gold——­”

And he went on, to spin a yarn that would have made Ananias himself blush.  When he was done it was time to gang back to work, and my song not sung!  I’d a new chorus I was wanting them to hear, too, and I was angry with puir Jock—­more shame to me!  And so I resolved to see if he was as brave as he was always saying.  I’m ashamed of this, mind ye—­ I’m admitting it.

So, next day, at piece time, I didn’t join the crowd that went to the auld cabin.  Instead I did without my bread and cheese and my cold tea—­ and, man, I’m tellin’ ye it means a lot for Harry to forego his victuals!—­and went quickly along to the face where Jock was working.  It happened that he was at work there alone that day, so I was able to make my plans against his coming back, and be sure it wouldna be spoiled.  I had a mask and an old white sheet.  On the mask I’d painted eyes with phosphorus, and I put it on, and draped the sheet over my shoulders.  When Jock came along I rose up, slowly, and made some very dreadful noises, that micht well ha’ frightened a man as brave even as Jock was always saying to us he was!

Ye should ha’ seen him run along that stoop!  He didna wait a second; he never touched me, or tried to.  He cried out once, nearly dropped his lamp, and then turned tail and went as if the dell were after him.  I’d told some of the miners what I meant to do, so they were waiting for him, and when he came along they saw how frightened he was.  They had to support him; he was that near to collapse.  As for me, there was so much excitement I had no trouble in getting to the stable unseen, and then back to my ain gate, where I belonged.

Jock would no go back to work that day.

“I’ll no work in a haunted seam!” he declared, vehemently.  “It was a ghost nine feet high, and strong like a giant!  If I’d no been so brave and kept my head I’d be lying there dead the noo.  I surprised him, ye ken, by putting up a fight—­likes he’d never known mortal man to do so much before!  Next time, he’d not be surprised, and brave though a man may be, he canna ficht with one so much bigger and stronger than himself.”