Apprentices and clerks then showed a great deal of deference to their masters, and Elder Semple demanded the full measure due to him.  Something, however, in the carriage, in the faces, in the very, tones of his servants’ voices, offended him; and he soon discovered that various small duties had been neglected.

“Listen to me, lads,” he said angrily; “I’ll have nae politics mixed up wi’ my exports and my imports.  Neither king nor Congress has anything to do wi’ my business.  If there is among you ane o’ them fools that ca’ themselves the ‘Sons o’ Liberty,’ I’ll pay him whatever I owe him now, and he can gang to Madam Liberty for his future wage.”

[Illustration:  He was standing on the step of his high counting-desk.]

He was standing on the step of his high counting-desk as he spoke, and he peered over the little wooden railing at the men scattered about with pens or hammers or goods in their hands.  There was a moment’s silence; then a middle-aged man quietly laid down the tools with which he was closing a box, and walked up to the desk.  The next moment, every one in the place had followed him.  Semple was amazed and angry, but he made no sign of either emotion.  He counted to the most accurate fraction every one’s due, and let them go without one word of remonstrance.

But as soon as he was alone, he felt the full bitterness of their desertion, and he could not keep the tears out of his eyes as he looked at their empty places.  “Wha could hae thocht it?” he exclaimed.  “Allan has been wi’ me twenty-seven years, and Scott twenty, and Grey nearly seventeen.  And the lads I have aye been kindly to.  Maist o’ them have wives and bairns, too; it’s just a sin o’ them.  It’s no to be believed.  It’s fair witchcraft.  And the pride o’ them!  My certie, they all looked as if their hands were itching for a sword or a pair o’ pistols!”

At this juncture Neil entered the store.  “Here’s a bonnie pass, Neil; every man has left the store.  I may as weel put up the shutters.”

“There are other men to be hired.”

“They were maistly a’ auld standbys, auld married men that ought to have had mair sense.”

“The married men are the trouble-makers; the women have hatched and nursed this rebellion.  If they would only spin their webs, and mind their knitting!”

“But they willna, Neil; and they never would.  If there’s a pot o’ rebellion brewing between the twa poles, women will be dabbling in it.  They have aye been against lawfu’ authority.  The restraints o’ paradise was tyranny to them.  And they get worse and worse:  it isna ane apple would do them the noo; they’d strip the tree, my lad, to its vera topmost branch.”

“There’s mother.”

“Ay, there’s your mother, she’s a gude example.  She’s a Gordon; and thae Gordon women cried the ‘slogan’ till their men’s heads were a’ on Carlisle gate or Temple Bar, and their lands a’ under King George’s thumb.  But is she any wiser for the lesson?  Not her.  Women are born rebels; the ‘powers that be’ are always tyrants to them, Neil.”