As he neared the approach to his own dwelling the odour began to grow specific. 'That's bacon, an' gye an' like my ain!' The '_close_' reached, the whole air seemed greasily aromatic. 'Can Peggy be eatin' my bacon hersel'? I ne'er catched her yet at ony sic tricks; but still water's rael deep. I'se drap on her an' her no thinkin', an' hae my share o' 't, an' gin I dinna eat an' drink tea an' sugar and bread to the vailey o' a' she's stealt, I'm no Joseph Smiley!' Joseph hurried homeward so quickly, and so full of thief-catching thoughts, that he failed to observe the gleam of the candle from his casement. Joseph always lighted his candle himself. It was therefore as if some one had struck him when he threw the door open, and the cheerful light of the fire and two candles fell on his sight. Tibbie seeing a spare candlestick and a number of candles, thought that if the candle on the table was necessary along with the fire-light for a solitary man, it would need at least one more candle to lighten his family fittingly. Wherefore she stuck a candle in the spare candlestick, and when the daylight outside had altogether faded away, she lit the two candles and heaped fresh fuel on the hearth. Joseph stood in the doorway contemplating the scene. Had he been drinking? The candle was double. But no! He had washed down his dinner with a draft of buttermilk, and that was never known to go to anybody's head. The air was heavy with the richness of frizzling bacon. The chairs were gathered like a palisade around the hearth, and hung all over with baby linen. Joseph's next idea was that he had mistaken the house, turned up the wrong close or entry. No! There was Peggy at her back door, ostensibly sweeping something out, but, as Joseph knew full well, in reality watching to see what he would do or say. Was she partner in some plot against him? Then he would leave her no excuse or opportunity to intervene and join forces with the enemy. He entered with as resolute a stride as he could assume, and banged the door behind him. 'Hm!' he coughed with a mighty effort, endeavouring to rally his sinking heart, where black foreboding sat heavily and blocked the lagging current of his blood, while cobwebs of misgiving seemed gathering in his throat, till the nearly stifled voice could hardly come. 'Whisht man! whisht!' hissed Tibbie in her loudest whisper, from the hearth where she sat, and throwing up a warning hand. 'Ye'll waaken yer wife! Hsh! She's beddet! an' she's sleepin'. 'Tibbie Tirpie!' The exclamation hovered feebly about Joseph's lips, like the thin grey smoke that hangs over a hill of burnt whins, when food for fire has been exhausted, and nothing remains but black and hopeless desolation. The bag of tools slipped from his nerveless fingers with a clatter. 'Ca' canny! Joseph! or ye'll waaken yer bairn! Yer supper's juist ready, sae set ye down.' [Illustration: "An' wha bade ye come here, an' mak my supper, gudewife?" Page 271.]