You may be sure I did not turn to let the good Kirsty see my face.  She wasna sae angry as she pretended, maybe, but I’m thinkin’ she’d maybe ha’ scratched me a bit in the face o’ me, just to get even wi’ me, had she known I was so close!

I’ve heard such tales before and since the time I heard Kirsty say what she thocht o’ me.  Many’s the man has had me for an explanation of why he was sae late.  I’m sorry if I’ve made trouble t’wixt man and wife, but I’m flattered, too, and I may as well admit it!

Ye can guess hoo Mac took that story.  I was sae unwise as tae tell it to him, and he told it to everyone else, and was always threatening me with Kirsty Lamont.  He pretended that some one had pointed her oot to him, so that he knew her by sicht, and he wad say that he saw her in the audience.  And sometimes he’d peep oot the stage door and say he saw her waiting for me.

And, the de’il!  He worked up a great time with the wife, tellin’ aboot this Kirsty Lamont that was so eager to see me, till Nance was jealous, almost, and I had to tell her the whole yarn before she’d forgie me!  Heard ye ever the like o’ such foolishness?  But that was Mac’s way.  He could distil humor from every situation.

CHAPTER IX

Yon were grand days, that I spent touring aboot wi’ Mac, singing in concerts.  It was an easy going life.  The work was light.  My audiences were comin’ to know me, and to depend on me.  I had no need, after a time, to be worrying; we were always sure of a good hoose, wherever we went.  But I was no quite content.  I was always being eaten, in yon time, wi’ a lettle de’il o’ ambition, that gnawed at me, and wadna gie me peace.

“Man, Harry,” he’d say, “I ken weel ye’re doin’ fine!  But, man canna ye do better?  Ca’ canny, they’ll be tellin’ ye, but not I!  Ye maun do as well as ye can.  There’s the wife to think of, and the bairn John—­ the wee laddie ye and the wife are so prood on!”

It was so, and I knew it.  My son John was beginning to be the greatest joy to me.  He was so bricht, sae full o’ speerit.  A likely laddie he was.  His mither and I spent many a lang evening dreaming of his future and what micht be coming his way.

“He’ll ne’er ha’ to work as a laddie as his faither did before him,” I used to say.  “He shall gang to schule wi’ the best in the land.”

It was the wife had the grandest dream o’ all.

“Could we no send him to the university?” she said.  “I’d gie ma een teeth, Harry, to see him at Cambridge!”

I laughed at her, but it was with a twist in the corners o’ ma mooth.  There was money coming in regular by then, and there was siller piling up in the bank.  I’d nowt to think of but the wee laddie, and there was time enow before it would be richt to be sending him off—­time enow for me to earn as muckle siller as he micht need.  Why should he no be a gentleman?  His blood was gude on both sides, frae his mither and frae me.  And, oh, I wish ye could ha’ seen the bonnie laddie as his mither and I did!  Ye’d ken, then, hoo it was I came to be sae ambitious that I paid no heed to them that thocht it next door to sinfu’ for me to be aye thinkin’ o’ doing even better than I was!