About a fortnight later—it was Saturday afternoon—an April day strayed into November, and James Seton walked in his garden and was grateful.
He had his next day's sermon in his hand and as he walked he studied it, but now and again he would lift his head to look at the blue sky, or he would stoop and touch gently the petals of a Christmas-rose, flowering bravely if sootily in the border. Behind the hedge, on the drying green, Thomas and Billy and Buff disported themselves. They had been unusually quiet, but now the sound of raised voices drew Mr. Seton to the scene of action. Looking over the hedge, he saw an odd sight. Thomas lay grovelling on the ground; Billy, with a fierce black moustache sketched on his cherubic face, sat on the roof of the ash-pit; while Buff, a bulky sack strapped on his back, struggled in the arms of Marget the cook.
"Gie me that bag, ye ill laddie," she was saying.
"What's the matter, Marget?" Mr. Seton asked mildly.
Buff was butting Marget wildly with his head, but hearing his father's voice, he stopped to explain.
"It's my sins, Father," he gasped.
"It's naething o' the kind, sir; it's ma bag o' claes-pins. Stan' up, David, this meenit. D'ye no' see ye're fair scrapin' it i' the mud?"
Thomas raised his head.
"We're pilgrims, Mr. Seton," he explained. "I'm Hopeful, and Buff's Christian. This is me in Giant Despair's dungeon;" and he rolled on his face and realistically chewed the grass to show the extent of his despair.
"But you've got your facts wrong," said Mr. Seton. "Christian has lost his load long before he got to Doubting Castle."