"And besides," continued the curate, without troubling himself with the taunt, "there was so heavy a dew this morning that I did not think you would be leading till the afternoon!" "Nae mair we wad, if Providence had left us the means o' waitin' till the hay was decently won. But what can a puir auld bereaved couple dae, hirplin' at death's door, baith the twa o' them?" By this time I was on the stack, and the Hayfork Minister was sending me up armful after armful to settle into its place. "Tramp, will ye!" shouted the old man; "that wife o' mine has gotten nae heavier on her feet than a cricket on the hearth, or a spider that taketh hold wi' her hands and is in king's pailaces! Tramp, laddie!" So, as Mr. Ablethorpe forked the hay, I stepped sturdily round, till I, too, was fain to strip to my shirt, and even moisten the sweet-smelling bog hay with the sweat of my brow. And while we worked old Caleb stood by, and, as he expressed it, "tightly tairged the Apiscopian on doctrine and the Scriptures." Mr. Ablethorpe was certainly at a disadvantage in a theological argument conducted from a hay cart (with a borrowed horse) against an assailant sitting crumbling tobacco into a pipe on the safe eminence of an upturned wheelbarrow. [Illustration: "While we worked Old Caleb ... tightly tairged the 'Apiscopian' on Doctrine and the Scripture."] But the humility with which he listened to the old elder amazed me. It was not that he agreed with him. He carefully guarded against that. But he accepted many of the old Scot's positions, merely gliding in a saving clause by way of amendment, to salve his conscience, as it were, between two forkfuls of hay. Even these, however, were of no effect. For not only was Caleb a little deaf, but he never waited for a reply, and by the time that Mr. Ablethorpe had added his rider Caleb was far into yet another argument destined to the final destruction of the "rags of Rome, and all sic as put their trust in them!" When work was over for the day, Mr. Ablethorpe would not stay for tea. He had to go farther, he explained, after dabbling his face in the water of the pump trough and wiping it with the fine white cambric handkerchief which I had so scorned. Caleb accompanied us to the gate, and I looked for a profusion of grateful thanks. But I did not know my Scotsman. All he said was only, "The neist time ye come to gie a body a half-day fowin' (forking), come at an hour when we will get some wark oot o' ye!" The curate laughed, and shook him by the hand cordially. "A good old man," he said, as we walked off, "but dreadfully confirmed in his delusions." "Why did you not tell him what you told me?" I made bold to ask. Mr. Ablethorpe turned quickly and clapped me on the shoulder. "I have not faith enough to remove mountains," he said, "but with a spade I can sometimes make a show at moving a molehill where it ought to go."