"'What kept ye so late?' said I; 'you are seldom late, Allan.'
"'I hae been dabbing with the lister the haill evening for Doctor Soorock's wig, sir; but I have speared it at last--_ecce signum_! Dominie.'
"A tiny buzz ran amongst the boys; auld Clour keckled audibly, and Mr Bland could scarcely keep his gravity, as Dr Soorock stirred the soaked mass that Allan had cast on the floor with the end of his cane, exclaiming--'My wig--my wig, did the callant say? It canna be my wig.'
"'Indeed it is yours, sir; there's nae wale o' wigs here,' said the handsome boy, blushing deeply--'if you but try it on, sir, ye'll find it sae.'
"The wig was finally turned over to the auld barber at the village, who dried it, but the doctor had to go home in the Kilmarnock on the following day, as the scratch was ruined for ever."
Now, a small touch at the Dominie in the "melting mood," and we bear up again on our cruise. He had returned to the parish, after having completed his education, such as it was.
"Months passed away without any thing worth notice occurring. I met Jessy often, and although some doubts and misgivings as to the state of her heart did come over me, and shake mine sometimes, still my anxiety to acquire the plighted hundred pounds diverted my mind from allowing the doubt to fester, by confining my attention chiefly to the school. Besides, the young laird, who was now studying the law in Edinburgh, came seldomer down to the auld castle than was his wont; so that altogether I began to attribute any little apparent coldness in Jessy's demeanour, either to my own fancy, or to being piqued by the unjustness of my former suspicions. Thus I struggled on, in the hope that the sum might be made up during the next summer at latest, until which time my pride counselled me to be silent.
"The long dreary winter drew on apace. The leaves became sere, and fell, and were whirled in rustling eddies along the hollows of the small woodland paths about the village,--and the bleak north howled on the hill-side, and moaned and soughed through the trees, and round the house,--and the herds began to fold their flocks in the evenings. One night, in particular, was marked in my memory indelibly by what occurred the morning after it. It was late in November, and the weather for several days previous had been rough and boisterous, but on this particular evening it had cleared. The full moon shone brightly as I returned from the county town, with a wallet of wee books for my youngest class, which I had bought there that afternoon. It was eleven at night as I got to the bridge across the stream which ran past the village; I was glouring down over the little parapet wall into the glancing water, that rushed and murmured through below the arch, and listening to the melancholy bleating of the sheep on the hill above me, and to the low bark of the colleys, and the distant shout of the herds, as the last of the stragglers were got within the circular folds, far up on the moor. Again I would look towards the village, where scarce a light twinkled, except in Tam Clink the blacksmith's shop, where every now and then a primrose-coloured jet of flame puffed up, and flashed on the blacksmith's begrimed face and hairy chest, and naked arms, and on wee Pate Clink's bit dirty face and curly pow, as the callant worked at the bellows; but the fire suddenly gaed out, and the sparks flew from a red-hot bar in all directions, under the powerful stroke of the blacksmith himsell, until the hissing iron became of a dull red, and gradually disappeared from my eye altogether. Presently the strokes ceased--the groaning and asthmatic wheezing of the bellows subsided--and the noise of the man locking the door of his small shop showed that the last of the villagers had finished the labours of the day; and I had time to notice that snow was beginning to fall.