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Cupples had remembered the inscription on the fly-leaf of the big Bible, which, according to Thomas Crann, Mr Cowie had given to Annie. He now went to James Dow. "Did Annie ever tell ye aboot a Bible that Mr Cowie ga'e her, Jeames?" "Ay did she. I min' 't fine." "Cud ye get a haud o' 't." "Eh! I dinna ken. The crater has laid his ain cleuks upo' 't. "Truly, bein' her ain, she micht.
I doobt I had been greitin mysel'. A' the auld faces cam' roon' me ilka nicht, Thomas Crann and Jeames Dow and my mother�-whiles ane and whiles anither-�but ye was aye there. "Ae mornin', whan I woke up, I was my lane. I dinna ken richtly hoo it had happened.
Where else could the flower have been so naturally noticed by this man, a stranger, and remembered as a mark in the expectation of finding it once more when the bulb should flower again as beside the county road? He would have been hopelessly lost a furlong from the path. Crann stood for a moment irresolute, then silently grasped his pickaxe and slunk out among the mists on the porch.
It came from the lips of Thomas Crann, who, although stooping from asthma and rheumatism, still rose nearly a foot above the head of Mr Cupples. "I was glaid to see ye at oor kirk, sir," said Thomas. "What for that?" returned the librarian, who always repelled first approaches, in which he was only like Thomas himself, and many other worthy people, both Scotch and English.
I'll come and see ye the morn's nicht, gin ye'll lat me." "My name's Thomas Crann. I'm a stonemason. Speir at Robert Bruce's chop, and they'll direc ye to whaur I bide. Ye may come the morn's nicht, and welcome. Can ye sup parritch?" "Ay, weel that." "My Jean's an extrornar han' at parritch. I only houp puir Esau had half as guid for's birthricht. Ye'll hae a drappy wi' me?"
The day after his arrival, crossing the square of Glamerton, he spied, in a group of men talking together, his old friend, Thomas Crann. He went up and shook hands with him, and with Andrew Constable, the clothier. "Has na he grown a lang chield?" said Andrew to Thomas, regarding Alec kindly. "Humph!" returned Thomas, "he'll jist need the langer coffin."
Perhaps it was her slender, elastic strength and erect grace, with her shining hair and ethereal calm pallor in the midst of the storm that evoked the comparison, for Ozias Crann was suddenly reminded of the happy similitude suggested by the letter that he had heard read and had repeated yesterday to his cronies as he stood in the road.
For was it not plain that Thomas Crann knew something that she did not know? and where could he have learned it but at the said kirk? There must be something going on there worth looking into.
I ought to explain here that the muckle kirk meant the parish church; and that the religious community to which Thomas Crann belonged was one of the first results of the propagation of English Independency in Scotland.
There was hardly an indifferent countenance in all that wide space beneath, in all those far-sloping galleries above. Every conscience hung out the red or pale flag. When Alec ventured to look up, as he sat down after the prayer, he saw the eyes of Thomas Crann, far away in the crowd, fixed on him. And he felt their force, though not in the way Thomas intended.
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