attention on the wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in
the Book of Exodus. She must always be getting up to look at the
pot on the fire, or to open the back door and study the weather.
For a little she fought against her unrest, and then she gave up
the attempt at concentration. She took the big pot off the fire and
allowed it to simmer, and presently she fetched her boots and umbrella,
and kilted her petticoats. "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o'
caller air," she decided.

The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest
sprinkle of rain. Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw
turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the Die-
Hards. Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of "Annie
Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:


"The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,
Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
But the Workers of the World
Wull gar them a' look blue,
And droon them in the sea,
And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'll lay me down and dee."


"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach.
Come indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!"
The Die-Hard saluted and continued on the turnip.

She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that