“It’s a kind, friendly letter,” I remarked, as I handed it back.  “He speaks very nicely about you all.”

“If only for the sake of the bairns, sir, I’m very thankful that we’ve foond sae guid a friend,” she said with much feeling.

Jeemsie peeped in at the door just then.  He was quite a handsome little chap, with regular features and a rather intelligent face.

“Jeemsie will be provided for now,” I said, beckoning the child to me.  He came, shyly smiling, and put his hand in mine.

“Yes, thank God!” was the poor mother’s reply.  “It’s been a trouble to me to know what to do for him, and especially what’ll happen to the bairn when I’m taken.  But Father Fleming says his cousin can put him to some kind of institution for a year or two, where they can teach him to read and write and coont as well as any bairn wi’ all his senses.  For he’s nae daft!” she exclaimed, with motherly pride.  “He’s just as sensible as can be aboot most things.  He kens as weel as Tam aboot searching for the eggs, and he loves to fetch water from the well in his little pail for me, bless him!”

“Yes, it’s a great thing for the child that his cousin is coming to look after you all.  Jeemsie will be made a man of.  I once knew a postman who was afflicted like Jeemsie, and he did his work better than any of the other men in the same office.  The postmaster was quite proud of him.  He couldn’t talk, poor man, so there was no danger of his wasting time in gossip.”

I took my leave after chatting a while, and rejoiced as I pictured to myself on the way home the lightening of so many burdens which had pressed heavily on the shoulders of that brave little woman.

A week later and we heard through Willy that Mr. Gowan had arrived at Larrigie Inn.

“An’ a freer mon wi’ his money, Mistress Dobie says, ye’d niver wish to see,” was his estimate of the newcomer.  “He was treatin’ the fellows wi’ drams a’ roond, the nicht he cam’; he wes sae glad to be bock i’ the auld place.  He wes a loon o’ fafteen when him an’ his farther went an’ to mak’ their fortune in Ameriky, ye ken.”

“I don’t like to hear about that dramming business,” was Val’s comment to me later.  “There’s too much of that kind of thing already about here.  However, we must make allowance for the man’s natural joy at seeing his old haunts once more.”

“Including the inn, I suppose!  But he was too young when they left to have cultivated a very intimate acquaintance with that one!”

Gowan proved to be but one of our own rough crofters who had acquired so thin a veneer of civilization that it scarcely concealed the reality beneath.  With a somewhat boisterous geniality he made instant friends with all of his former class in the neighborhood.  With Val and myself he was not altogether at his ease.  An abrupt awkwardness of manner, which we put down to shyness, characterized our intercourse, which was of rare occurrence.