"'Tis the eve of the eighth day of September," he said, moistening his plump thumb to turn over the leaf that he might not be mistaken in the month.
"Thank God, I have yet two days!" cried Wat, and fell forward upon the shoulder of the curate.
[CHAPTER XLIX]
THE CURATE OF DALRY
Peter McCaskill received the weight deftly, as though he had been accustomed all his life to be charged down upon without a moment's notice by unconscious men.
"Easy does it, my lord," he said; "ye will soon be better. He's been owertaken, ye see—a wee drappie does it on an empty stomach," he explained to Jean Gordon. "Often hae I warned my folk—aye, even frae the pulpit, the very horns o' the altar, as it were—no' to tak' drink on an empty stomach!"
"Empty fiddlestick! Lay the laddie here!" cried Jean Gordon; "do ye no' see that the lad is deein' on his feet? He hasna seen drink for weeks, I'll wager—no, nor Christian meat either, by a' appearances."
She stopped to take off his boots. The soaked remnants of the sole came away in her hand.
"Mercy!" she cried, "the poor lad maun hae been in sore want. Tak' haud o' him soothly and tentily, Peter."