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and Guide, Spirit o' the Christ, enlichten them, inspire them, and lead them on to victory!"

These twelve months following beheld the slow and sore Evolution of a Human Soul, struggling out of its Animal surroundings, and asserting for itself a higher life than that of the Brute. Castlebraes had been quietly taken into confidence, and every Villager pledged on his honour to help but not to hinder. They watched the unfolding of Heart and Soul in poor Wull, as a half-crazed botanist watches the budding and flowering of some plant that blossoms only once in a lifetime.

"It was michty fine," said the Miller to the Leddy, ere they retired to rest one evening, "to see the Laird o' Tinlie this nicht. He cam' on a' the Castlebraes lads, at the end o' the Schule Green, some playin' quoits, and ithers lookin' on at the players. Whan the game was finished, he saftly whispered us roond him, and tauld ower what passed 'twixt Angell Jenn and us the nicht afore. It was gettin' gey dark; but there was a tear in his throat, if no’ in his ee, and ma hert gaed dunt -duntin', as he pled wi' us lads to help in savin' a droonin' man. Then he changed his note, and daured ony cooard amang them to tempt puir Wull, or to hing a fiftysax punder roon his neck, an' him soomin' for bare life, in the michty waters. At last, his voice grew hoarse wi' something, an' there was a kind o' angry sough in his words, as if in battle cry, whan he sternly declared—'I'm neither Teetotaller nor Saint; but the man that tempts puir Wull, after what I've heard and seen,—that man I shall count my mortal enemy till the day of my death!""

Then the Miller slapped his dusty leg, and gazed before him with tremendous glee, as he added:

"Ken ye wha was the only man that had the wut tae answer? The rest o' us had a' tint oor tongues. But oot cried Moudie Jamie-the greatest drouth in a' the Pairish, next to Wull himsel'-'Weel dune, Tinlie! Castlebraes 'll staun' by ye. I can tak' a dram ony day, an' smack ma lips ower 't tae. But I'll gie puir Wull a heeze oot o' the ditch, an' chow the tongue oot o' ma heid afore I hurt him.'

Next Market Day at The Toun came the great peril, for Wull seldom drank any save on these occasions. On the first of these days, the Laird had several "Bee Skeps to theek," besides "a Yett or twa to mend," and some "Stable doors to paint." He was uncommonly particular to have them done, there and then, and could not wait till the morrow, as visitors were coming home with him from the Market, and everything had to be toshed up and tidy. With an unconcealed grudge, Wull agreed.

He found himself plied with soup at "Twal 'Oors," and hot coffee at "Fower 'Oors," and a tankard of cooling milk beside him all day long. Things began to look just a little queer, when the Laird himself returned from The Toun earlier than usual, and explained that his friends had postponed their expected visit for a month, while at the same time retailing to him the Market news and praising very unstintedly his day's work at Tinlie. And so, the first week for fifteen years passed by without a drunken splore, with its consequent racking headache and maddening thirst.

On the next Market Day, Wull's customers had

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to be seen, and various accounts had to be settled, for "theekin'," for "basket-makin'," and a hundred handy jobs" for which he was famous; besides, fresh orders for the like had to be taken to keep the pot boiling at home. It was very surprising how, all that day, some Castlebraes man was always within hail, turn wherever Wull would. Also, how one after another of his customers apologised for paying his account on the Plainstanes, as they had not time "to taigle ower a dram." But most exhilarating of all was the sight of Moudie Jamie, wiling Wull away to Bean Bell's Eating House, on the pretence "o' an awfu' heidache," that forbad him. "tastin'," and insisting on Wull joining him in a "Tousie Tea" and plenty till't!

The Miller had witnessed this ruse, with immense joy. Accordingly, as he passed Moudie and Wull, on their way homewards through Lochar Moss, two hours later, he stopped his trot, and cracked couthily and cheerily with them for half a mile. When he parted from them, touching his old mare with the whip, he just glinted kindly at Wull and said:

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Betty 'll be a prood Wumman, this nicht!"

As old Nancy trotted away, Moudie Jamie began soliloquizing as innocently as a child :

"A richt cheery sowl is the Miller! And a finer Wumman never steppit on a flure-heid than is the Miller's Leddy! Man Wull, I like tae ken fowk that fin' their ain happiness in makin' ithers happy. If Moudie ever could be a Saunt, that's the kind he wad try for!"

Wull's forest of saughs got speedily clean exhausted. Everybody in Castlebraes wanted "Tattie

Baskets," and everybody insisted on having Wull's "ain mak"." His beds of roses, and sweet-william, and daisies, became the envy of all his neighbours; -and would he not come to them, the very first day he was free, and "redd up their Gairdens, and tidy the Flooer-Plots"? It was amazing, and even ridiculous, to see how indispensable Wull's services had become, to Laird and Farmer and Cottar all alike. But the genuineness of their neighbourly kindness was unchallengeable; and Wull's very face and features, his very words and looks, took on a different hue, from the sunshine of human love and the dew of brotherly deeds that fell all around him from day to day.

Long ere June Twelfth came round, the desire for Drink had died out of Wull's system for ever. A deep disgust at Drunkenness, and all its accompaniments and surroundings, had taken its place, and was settled into his soul. The Market Day had ceased to be a temptation. The Soul, evolving, had begun also to evolve beautiful environments for itself. A tiny Book-Case, the work of his own clever hands, hanging now on the wall above his arm-chair at the Ingle Neuk, was filled with muchprized volumes, some full of wisdom, some full of fun, but nearly all arrived there by the engineering of Angell Jenn. Betty was now as snod as any Queen, and had her Dresser glorious with crockery of the loudest colours, and her floor chalked and squared and diamonded, with many a fantastic pattern, in the most unmistakable hues of red and white and blue. The Clay Biggin' got new paint on door and window, new thatch on the roof, and

new wonders of climbing roses and honeysuckle on the walls. People stopped, as they passed the Village Green, and marvelled at Wull's taste for flowers; while Betty was always proud to show them off, and ready to take strangers round to see the Garden at the back, where the daisies and the geraniums and the violets and the finer roses flourished. The Pig-Stye of the Village had become a Paradise. A new Soul was evolving itself therein, and was making all things around it new.

Angell Jenn's silent ascendancy through all this was for me an endless wonder. You scarcely heard her word, or marked her presence; yet her spirit was dominating all.

"Noo, Jamie ma man, ye'll tell thae carelesstongued Loons no tae talk ony mair o' Drucken Wull and Dirty Bett, but tae use aye the couthie and neebourly names, Wullie and Betty. It'll maybe help a wee, for them to respec' themsel's, when they see ithers respec' them."

She dropped this word into Moudie Jamie's ear, and left it to work its way. The Castlebraes lads, in the Killogie and at the Quoits, had it burned into their souls in less than twenty-four hours, with a finishing appeal, "for the sake o' Angell Jenn." The The very Bairns on the Village Green, somehow, felt the spell; and from that date, the terms, "Drucken" and "Dirty," as formerly applied to Wull and Bett, were blotted from the vocabulary of Castlebraes; and the kindlier Doric sounds alone. were heard-Wullie and Betty o' the Clay Biggin'.

"Hech, Wullie ma man," said Angell Jenn, ten years and more after the preceding events, when

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