He did feel that way--just then. But when, next morning, memory disentangled itself from a splitting headache, Saunders's red hair bristled at the thought of his indiscretion. It was terrible! He, Saunders, the despair of the girls for thirty years, had fallen into a pit of his own digging! He could but hope it a nightmare; but as doubt was more horrible than certainty, he dressed and walked down the line to McCakeron's. Once again he found Janet at the milking; or rather, she had just turned the cows into the pasture, and as she waited for him by the bars, Saunders thought he had never seen her at worse advantage. The sharp morning air had blued her nose, and he was dimly conscious that the color did not suit her freckles. “Why, no!” she said, answering his question as to whether or no he had not acted a bit foolish the night before. “You just speired me to marry on you. Said I'd been in your eye this thirty years.” In a sense this was true. He had cleared from her path like a bolting rabbit, but gallantry forbade that manifest explanation. “'Twas the whuskey talking,” he pleaded. “Ye'll no hold me til a drunken promise?” But he saw, even before she spoke, that she would. “'Deed but I will!” she exclaimed, tossing her head. “An' them says ye were drunken will ha' to deal wi' me. Ye were sober as a sermon.” Though disheartened, Saunders tried another tack. “Janet,” he said, solemnly, “I dinna think as a well-brought lass like you wad care to marry on a man like me. I'm terrible i' the drink. I might beat ye.” Janet complacently surveyed an arm that was thick as a club from heavy choring. “I'll tak chances o' that.” Saunders's heart sank into his boots; but, wiping the sweat from his brow, he made one last desperate effort: “But ye're promised to the--the--Apoos-tate.” “I am no. Father broke that off.” Saunders shot his last bolt. “I believe I'm fickle, Janet. There'll be a sair heart for the lass that marries me. I wouldna wonder if I jilted ye.” “Then,” she calmly replied, “I'll haul ye into the justice coort for breach o' promise.” With this terrible ultimatum dinging in his ears Saunders fled. Zorra juries were notoriously tender with the woman in the case, and he saw himself stripped of his worldly goods or tied to the apron of the homeliest girl in Zorra. One single ray illumined the dark prospect. That evening he called on Timmins, whom he much astonished by the extent and quality of his advice and encouragement. He even went so far as to invite the Englisher to his own cabin, thereby greatly scandalizing his housekeeper--a maiden sister of fifty-two, who had forestalled fate by declaring for the shelf at forty-nine.