I'm the first ane that has ever been in Thrums, and the very folk that appointed me at a crown a week looks upon me as a disgraced man for accepting. It's Gospel that my ain wife is short wi' me when I've on my uniform, though weel she kens that I would rather hae stuck to the loom if I hadna ha'en sic a queer richt leg. Nobody feels the shame o' my position as I do mysel', but this is a town without pity."
"It should be a consolation to you that you are discharging useful duties."
"But I'm no. I'm doing harm. There's Charles Dickson says that the very sicht o' my uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it makes him break windows, though a peaceably-disposed man till I was appointed. And what's the use o' their haeing a policeman when they winna come to the lock-up after I lay hands on them?"
"Do they say they won't come?"
"Say? Catch them saying onything! They just gie me a wap into the gutters. If they would speak I wouldna complain, for I'm nat'rally the sociablest man in Thrums."
"Rob, however, had spoken to you."
"Because he had need o' me. That was ay Rob's way, converted or no converted. When he was blind drunk he would order me to see him safe hame, but would he crack wi' me? Na, na."
Wearyworld, who was so called because of his forlorn way of muttering, "It's a weary warld, and nobody bides in't," as he went his melancholy rounds, sighed like one about to cry, and Gavin changed the subject.
"Is the watch for the soldiers still kept up?" he asked.
"It is, but the watchers winna let me in aside them. I'll let you see that for yoursel' at me head o' the Roods, for they watch there in the auld windmill."
Most of the Thrums lights were already out, and that in the windmill disappeared as footsteps were heard.
"You're desperate characters," the policeman cried, but got no answer. He changed his tactics.
"A fine nicht for the time o' year," he cried. No answer.
"But I wouldna wonder," he shouted, "though we had rain afore morning." No answer.
"Surely you could gie me a word frae ahint the door. You're doing an onlawful thing, but I dinna ken wha you are."
"You'll swear to that?" some one asked gruffly.
"I swear to it, Peter."
Wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain.
"Ay," he said to the minister, "that's what it is to be an onpopular man. And now I'll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join them would be the first to complain if I gaed out o' bounds."
Gavin found Dow at New Zealand, a hamlet of mud houses, whose tenants could be seen on any Sabbath morning washing themselves in the burn that trickled hard by. Rob's son, Micah, was asleep at the door, but he brightened when he saw who was shaking him.
"My father put me out," he explained, "because he's daft for the drink, and was fleid he would curse me. He hasna cursed me," Micah added, proudly, "for an aught days come Sabbath. Hearken to him at his loom. He daurna take his feet off the treadles for fear o' running straucht to the drink."
Gavin went in. The loom, and two stools, the one four-footed and the other a buffet, were Rob's most conspicuous furniture. A shaving-strap hung on the wall. The fire was out, but the trunk of a tree, charred at one end, showed how he heated his house. He made a fire of peat, and on it placed one end of a tree trunk that might be six feet long. As the tree burned away it was pushed further into the fireplace, and a roaring fire could always be got by kicking pieces of the smouldering wood and blowing them into flame with the bellows. When Rob saw the minister he groaned relief and left his loom. He had been weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, for seven hours.
"I wasna fleid," little Micah said to the neighbours afterwards, "to gang in wi' the minister. He's a fine man that. He didna ca' my father names. Na, he said, 'You're a brave fellow, Rob,' and he took my father's hand, he did. My father was shaking after his fecht wi' the drink, and, says he. 'Mr. Dishart,' he says, 'if you'll let me break out nows and nans, I could, bide straucht atween times, but I canna keep sober if I hinna a drink to look forrit to.' Ay, my father prigged sair to get one fou day in the month, and he said, 'Syne if I die sudden, there's thirty chances to one that I gang to heaven, so it's worth risking.' But Mr. Dishart wouldna hear o't, and he cries, 'No, by God,' he cries, 'we'll wrestle wi' the devil till we throttle him,' and down him and my father gaed on their knees.