“Well, you know best,” said the minister.

“You see, the hoose was taen, at ony rate,” continued Sanders.  “An’ I’ll juist ging in til’t instead o’ Sam’l.”

“Quite so.”

“An” I cudna think to disappoint the lassie.”

“Your sentiments do you credit, Sanders,” said the minister; “but I hope you do not enter upon the blessed state of matrimony without full consideration of its responsibilities.  It is a serious business, marriage.”

“It’s a’ that,” said Sanders; “but I’m willin’ to stan’ the risk.”

So, as soon as it could be done, Sanders Elshioner took to wife T’nowhead’s Bell, and I remember seeing Sam’l Dickie trying to dance at the penny wedding.

Years afterward it was said in Thrums that Sam’l had treated Bell badly, but he was never sure about it himself.

“It was a near thing—­a michty near thing,” he admitted in the square.

“They say,” some other weaver would remark, “’at it was you Bell liked best.”

“I d’na kin,” Sam’l would reply, “but there’s nae doot the lassie was fell fond o’ me.  Ou, a mere passin’ fancy’s ye micht say.”

JESS LEFT ALONE

From ‘A Window in Thrums’

There may be a few who care to know how the lives of Jess and Hendry ended.  Leeby died in the back end of the year I have been speaking of, and as I was snowed up in the school-house at the time, I heard the news from Gavin Birse too late to attend her funeral.  She got her death on the commonty one day of sudden rain, when she had run out to bring in her washing, for the terrible cold she woke with next morning carried her off very quickly.  Leeby did not blame Jamie for not coming to her, nor did I, for I knew that even in the presence of death the poor must drag their chains.  He never got Hendry’s letter with the news, and we know now that he was already in the hands of her who played the devil with his life.  Before the spring came he had been lost to Jess.

“Them ’at has got sae mony blessin’s mair than the generality,” Hendry said to me one day, when Craigiebuckle had given me a lift into Thrums, “has nae shame if they would pray aye for mair.  The Lord has gi’en this hoose sae muckle, ‘at to pray for mair looks like no bein’ thankfu’ for what we’ve got.  Ay, but I canna help prayin’ to Him ’at in His great mercy he’ll tak Jess afore me.  Noo ‘at Leeby’s gone, an’ Jamie never lets us hear frae him, I canna gulp doon the thocht o’ Jess bein’ left alane.”

This was a prayer that Hendry may be pardoned for having so often in his heart, though God did not think fit to grant it.  In Thrums, when a weaver died, his women-folk had to take his seat at the loom, and those who, by reason of infirmities, could not do so, went to a place, the name of which, I thank God, I am not compelled to write in this chapter.  I could not, even at this day, have told any episode in the life of Jess had it ended in the poor house.