"Yes," said Ann, "he was a wonderful contrast to Robbie and me. We never asked for information on any subject, for we wanted none. We were ignorant and unashamed, and we used to look with such bored eyes at Mark and wonder how he could be bothered. It was really disgusting for the rest of us to have such a clever eldest brother. He set a standard which we couldn't hope--indeed, we never thought of trying--to attain to. What a boy he was for falling on his head! He had been warned that if he cut open the wound in his head again it would never heal, so when he fell from a tree, or a cart, or a pony, or whatever he was on at the moment, we stood afar off and shouted, 'Is it your wound, Mark?' prepared on hearing it was to run as far as our legs would carry us. That is a child's great idea when trouble comes--to run away from it. Once Mark--do you remember?--climbed the white lilac tree in my garden on a Sunday afternoon and, slipping, fell on a spiked branch and hung there. Instead of going for help I ran and hid among the gooseberry bushes, and he wasn't rescued until you came home from church." "That was too bad of you," her mother said, "for Mark had always a great responsibility for you. One day when there was a bad thunderstorm I found him dragging you by the hand to the nursery--such a fat, sulky little thing you looked. "'I'm going to pray for Ann,' he told me. 'She won't pray for herself.'" CHAPTER VIII "I don't know," said Mrs. Douglas, "when I first realised what was expected of me as a minister's wife. I suppose I just grew to it. At first I visited the people and tried to take an interest in them, because I felt it to be my duty, and then I found that it had ceased to be merely duty, and that one couldn't live among people and not go shares with them. It was the long anxiety about Mark that really drew us together and made us friends in a way that years of prosperity would never have done. There was hardly a soul in the congregation who didn't try to do us some little kindness in those dark days. Fife people are suspicious of strangers and rather aloof in their manner, but once you are their friend you are a friend for life. Ours was a working-class congregation (with a sprinkling of well-to-do people to help us along)--miners, and workers in the linoleum factories--decent, thrifty folk. Trade was dull all the time we were in Kirkcaple, and wages were low--ridiculously low when you think of the present-day standard, and it was a hard struggle for the mothers with big young families. Of course, food was cheap--half a loaf and a biscuit for twopence--and 'penny haddies,' and eggs at ninepence a dozen--and people hadn't the exalted ideas they have now."