'Alas! my brother! Will you still hide your head in a bush like the ostrich, and believe yourself concealed? Think you that the pursuer will overpass thus easily? I tell you nay! But if you will force us to discuss in detail your lamentable backslidings, tell us how the infant which you lately presented for baptism, and which, as I understand, you continue to nourish under this roof--tell us how it came into your hands.'

'The child was saved almost miraculously from a shipwreck, I believe. At least I saw the ship perish, and afterwards picked up the child on the sea-shore near the place, where it appeared to be the only living thing that had come to land. Being impatient to get home, and yet bound to render succour to the little one, I picked it up and brought it home with me, rather than carry it the four miles back to Inverlyon, where the bodies of the drowned were conveyed later in the morning, when the fishermen and coastguard had made their rounds. From the clothing of the child, as well as from reading in the newspapers that the ship was an East Indiaman, I believe that it is the child of some Indian officer who has perished in the wreck, and I have advertised in an Edinburgh newspaper regarding the child, but have received no communication or enquiry from any one whatever; but I cannot imagine how any fama can have arisen in the parish over such a matter, which can only be looked on, I should imagine, as an ordinary exercise of Christian charity.'

'Hech!' sighed Ebenezer, 'but he sticks til't weel! But, I'm sayin', sir, Wasna some o' yer ain folk i' the Indies? An' wasna there siller an' gear cam to ye frae there? I'm thinkin' I mind hearin' tell o' kists o' plenissin' an' bonny things 'at was brocht t'ey auld manse frae there awa.'

'Certainly. I had an uncle who died in India and left his property to my mother.'

'Aweel, then, the claes 'at ye say cam wi' the bairnie wad pruive naething, sin ye had plenty sic like e'y house. Ye micht just hae dressed up the puir thing in ony auld duds ye fand i' thae kists. But what o' the bairnie's mither, sir? Tell's about Tibbie Tirpie!'

'Tibbie Tirpie? What connection is there between her and the baby?'

'Mither an' bairn, I'm thinkin'; or sae the folk say.'

'They must be mad! or most abominable slanderers to trifle so with the good name of a decent young woman.'

'An' ye ken naething about it, minister?' demanded Peter; 'an' wull ye really be for haudin' to that when I have seen ye slidin' hame frae there mysel' after dark? Ye ken ye gaed there ae forenicht, it was Sawbith by the same token, an' ye gied them siller, ye ken that! to gar them keep a calm sough. I hae had that siller through my ain fingers, sae ye needna deny't!'

'Deny what? Deny that I gave charity to widow Tirpie? Why should I? She is poor and deserving, I believe, and I gave to her as I hope I should give to any other in like case, so long as I had it to give, and the recipient appeared to need it.'