mouth.

"We'll tell it first to his mither."

"Yer richt, Dominie. She weel deserves it. A'm thinking she's seen
us by this time." So we fell into a procession, Dominie leading by
two yards; and then a strange thing happened. For the first and last
time in his life Domsie whistled, and the tune was "A hundred pipers
and a' and a'," and as he whistled he seemed to dilate before our
eyes, and he struck down thistles with his stick--a thistle at every
stroke.

"Domsie's fair carried," whispered Whinnie, "it cowes a'."

Marget met us at the end of the house beside the brier bush, where
George was to sit on summer afternoons before he died, and a flash
passed between Domsie and the lad's mother. Then she knew that it
was well, and fixed her eyes on the letter, but Whinnie, his thumbs
in his armholes, watched the wife.

Domsie now essayed to read the news, but between the shaking of his
hands and his voice he could not.

"It's nae use," he cried, "he's first in the Humanity oot o' a
hundred and seeventy lads, first o' them a', and he's first in the
Greek too; the like o' this is hardly known, and it has na been seen
in Drumtochty since there was a schule. That's the word he's sent,
and he bade me tell his mother without delay, and I am here as fast
as my old feet could carry me."