“You’ll let me gang a bit wi’ you,” the policeman entreated, “for till Rob sent me on this errand not a soul has spoken to me the day; ay, mony a ane hae I spoken to, but not a man, woman, nor bairn would fling me a word.”

“I often meant to ask you,” Gavin said as they went along the Tenements, which smelled at that hour of roasted potatoes, “why you are so unpopular.”

“It’s because I’m police.  I’m the first ane that has ever been in Thrums, and the very folk that appointed me at a crown a week looks upon me as a disgraced man for accepting.  It’s Gospel that my ain wife is short wi’ me when I’ve on my uniform, though weel she kens that I would rather hae stuck to the loom if I hadna ha’en sic a queer richt leg.  Nobody feels the shame o’ my position as I do mysel’, but this is a town without pity.”

“It should be a consolation to you that you are discharging useful duties.”

“But I’m no.  I’m doing harm.  There’s Charles Dickson says that the very sicht o’ my uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it makes him break windows, though a peaceably-disposed man till I was appointed.  And what’s the use o’ their haeing a policeman when they winna come to the lock-up after I lay hands on them?”

“Do they say they won’t come?”

“Say?  Catch them saying onything!  They just gie me a wap into the gutters.  If they would speak I wouldna complain, for I’m nat’rally the sociablest man in Thrums.”

“Rob, however, had spoken to you.”

“Because he had need o’ me.  That was ay Rob’s way, converted or no converted.  When he was blind drunk he would order me to see him safe hame, but would he crack wi’ me?  Na, na.”

Wearyworld, who was so called because of his forlorn way of muttering, “It’s a weary warld, and nobody bides in’t,” as he went his melancholy rounds, sighed like one about to cry, and Gavin changed the subject.

“Is the watch for the soldiers still kept up?” he asked.

“It is, but the watchers winna let me in aside them.  I’ll let you see that for yoursel’ at me head o’ the Roods, for they watch there in the auld windmill.”

Most of the Thrums lights were already out, and that in the windmill disappeared as footsteps were heard.

“You’re desperate characters,” the policeman cried, but got no answer.  He changed his tactics.

“A fine nicht for the time o’ year,” he cried.  No answer.

“But I wouldna wonder,” he shouted, “though we had rain afore morning.”  No answer.

“Surely you could gie me a word frae ahint the door.  You’re doing an onlawful thing, but I dinna ken wha you are.”

“You’ll swear to that?” some one asked gruffly.

“I swear to it, Peter.”

Wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain.

“Ay,” he said to the minister, “that’s what it is to be an onpopular man.  And now I’ll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let me join them would be the first to complain if I gaed out o’ bounds.”