“Oh, how sweet of you!”

“After the finest lassie we ever kent,” continued Corp, stoutly.  “But I was sure it would be a laddie.”

“Why?” “Because if it was a laddie it was to be called after Him,” he said, with emphasis on the last word; “and thinks I to mysel’, ‘He’ll find a way.’  What a crittur he was for finding a way, Grizel!  And he lookit so holy a’ the time.  Do you mind that swear word o’ his—­’stroke’?  It just meant ‘damn’; but he could make even ‘damn’ look holy.”

“You are to call the baby Tommy?”

“He’ll be christened Thomas Sandys Shiach,” said Corp.  “I hankered after putting something out o’ the Jacobites intil his name; and I says to Gavinia, ‘Let’s call him Thomas Sandys Stroke Shiach,’ says I, ‘and the minister’ll be nane the wiser’; but Gavinia was scandalized.”

Grizel reflected.  “Corp,” she said, “I am sure Gavinia’s sister will expect to be asked to carry the baby.  I don’t think I want to do it.”

“After you promised!” cried Corp, much hurt.  “I never kent you to break a promise afore.”

“I will do it, Corp,” she said, at once.

She did not know then that Tommy would be in church to witness the ceremony, but she knew before she walked down the aisle with T.S.  Shiach in her arms.  It was the first time that Tommy and she had seen each other for seven years.  That day he almost rivalled his namesake in the interests of the congregation, who, however, took prodigious care that he should not see it—­all except Grizel; she smiled a welcome to him, and he knew that her serene gray eyes were watching him.

CHAPTER V

THE TOMMY MYTH

On the evening before the christening, Aaron Latta, his head sunk farther into his shoulders, his beard gone grayer, no other perceptible difference in a dreary man since we last saw him in the book of Tommy’s boyhood, had met the brother and sister at the station, a barrow with him for their luggage.  It was a great hour for him as he wheeled the barrow homeward, Elspeth once more by his side; but he could say nothing heartsome in Tommy’s presence, and Tommy was as uncomfortable in his.  The old strained relations between these two seemed to begin again at once.  They were as self-conscious as two mastiffs meeting in the street; and both breathed a sigh of relief when Tommy fell behind.

“You’re bonny, Elspeth,” Aaron then said eagerly.  “I’m glad, glad to see you again.”

“And him too, Aaron?” Elspeth pleaded.

“He took you away frae me.”

“He has brought me back.”  “Ay, and he has but to whistle to you and away you go wi’ him again.  He’s ower grand to bide lang here now.”

“You don’t know him, Aaron.  We are to stay a long time.  Do you know Mrs. McLean invited us to stay with her?  I suppose she thought your house was so small.  But Tommy said, ’The house of the man who befriended us when we were children shall never be too small for us.’”