"Some lasses' no 's better not ither lasses' ay, father."
"Deed mnybe, laddie," said George; adding to himself, "That maun hae been Annie Anderson�-nae ither."
He was particularly attentive and yielding to Willie during his short visit, and Willie understood it.
Had Annie been compelled, by any evil chance, to return to the garret over Robert Bruce's shop, she would not indeed have found the holes in the floor and the roof reopened; but she would have found that the carpet and the curtains were gone.
The report went through Glamerton that she and Willie Macwha were coortin'.
CHAPTER LXXXIII.
Thomas Crann's conversation with Mr Cupples deepened both his annoyance and his grief at the membership of Robert Bruce. What was the use of a church if such men as he got into it, and, having got in, could not be got out? Had he been guilty of any open fault, such as getting drunk, for one solitary and accidental instance of which they had excluded one of their best and purest-minded men, they could have got rid of him with comparative ease; but who so free of fault as Bruce? True, he was guilty of the crime of over-reaching whenever he had a chance, and of cheating when there was no risk of being found out�-at least so everybody believed�-but he had no faults. The duty, therefore, that lay upon every member, next to the cleanness of his own garments-�that of keeping the church pure and unspotted�-was hard to fulfil, and no one was ready to undertake it but Thomas Crann. For what a spot was here! And Thomas knew his Lord's will.
Neither was the duty so unpleasant to Thomas's oppositive nature, as it would have been to a man of easier temperament.
"Jeames Johnstone," he said, "the kirk maks nae progress. It's no as i' the time o' the apostles whan the saved war added till't daily."
"Weel, ye see," returned James, "that wasna oor kirk exacly; and it wasna Mr Turnbull that was the heid o' 't."