“And you’ll try for the student, Jess?” asked the young man.  “I suppose he would not need to ask twice for a kiss?”

“Na, for I would kiss him withoot askin’—­that is, gin he hadna the sense to kiss me,” said Jess frankly.

“Well,” said Greatorix, somewhat reluctantly, “I’m sure I wish you joy of your parson.  I see now what the canting old hound from the Dullarg Manse meant when he tackled me at the loaning foot.  He wanted Winsome for the young whelp.”

“I dinna think that,” replied Jess; “he disna want him to come aboot here ony mair nor you.”

“How do you know that, Jess?”

“Ou, I juist ken.”

“Can you find out what Winsome thinks herself?”

“I can that, though she hasna a word to say to me—­that am far mair deservin’ o’ confidence than that muckle peony faced hempie, Meg, that an ill Providence gied me for a sis ter.  Her keep a secret?—­the wind wad waft it oot o’ her.”  Thus affectionately Jess.

“But how can you find out, then?” persisted the young man, yet unsatisfied.

“Ou fine that,” said Jess.  “Meg talks in her sleep.”

Before Agnew Greatorix leaped on to his horse, which all this time had stood quiet on his bridle-arm, only occasion ally jerking his head as if to ask his master to come away, he took the kiss he had been denied, and rode away laugh ing, but with one cheek much redder than the other, the mark of Jess’s vengeance.

“Ye hae ower muckle conceit an’ ower little sense ever to be a richt blackguard,” said Jess as he went, “but ye hae the richt intention for the deil’s wark.  Ye’ll do the young mistress nae hurt, for she wad never look twice at ye, but I cannot let her get the bonny lad frae Embra’-na, I saw him first, an’ first come first served!”

“Where have you been so long,” asked her mistress, as she came in.

“Juist drivin’ a gilravagin’ muckle swine oot o’ the or chard!” replied Jess with some force and truth.

CHAPTER XVI.

The cuif before the session.

“Called, nominate, summoned to appear, upon this third citation, Alexander Mowdiewort, or Moldieward, to answer for the sin of misca’in’ the minister and session o’ this parish, and to show cause why he, as a sectary notour, should not demit, depone, and resign his office of grave digger in the kirk-yard of this parish with all the emoluments, benefits, and profits thereto appertaining.—­Officer, call Alexander Mowdiewort!”

Thus Jacob Kittle, schoolmaster and session clerk of the parish of Dullarg, when in the kirk itself that reverent though not revered body was met in full convocation.  There was presiding the Rev. Erasmus Teends himself, the minister of the parish, looking like a turkey-cock with a crumpled white neckcloth for wattles.  He was known in the parish as Mess John, and was full of dignified discourse and excellent taste in the good cheer of the farmers.  He was a judge of nowt [cattle], and a connoisseur of black puddings, which he considered to require some Isle of Man brandy to bring out their own proper flavour.