“Oh, Mr. MacLear,” he said jocularly, “I am glad you have just managed to escape breaking the Sabbath! You have had a close shave! It wants ten minutes, hardly more, to the awful midnight hour!” “I doobt, sir, it would hae broken the Sawbath waur, to fail o’ my word for the sake o’ a steik or twa that maittered naething to God or man!” returned the soutar. “Ah, well, we won’t argue about it! but if we were inclined to be strict, the Sabbath began some”—here he looked at his watch—“some five hours and three-quarters ago; that is, at six of the clock, on the evening of Saturday!” “Hoot, minister, ye ken ye’re wrang there! for, Jew-wise, it began at sax o’ the Friday nicht! But ye hae made it plain frae the poopit that ye hae nae supperstition aboot the first day o’ the week, the whilk alane has aucht to dee wi’ hiz Christians!—We’re no a’ Jews, though there’s a heap o’ them upo’ this side the Tweed! I, for my pairt, confess nae obligation but to drap workin, and sit doon wi’ clean han’s, or as clean as I can weel mak them, to the speeritooal table o’ my Lord, whaur I aye try as weel to weir a clean and a cheerfu’ face—that is, sae far as the sermon will permit—and there’s aye a pyke o’ mate somewhaur intil ’t! For isna it the bonny day whan the Lord wad hae us sit doon and ait wi himsel, wha made the h’avens and the yirth, and the waters under the yirth that haud it up! And wilna he, upo this day, at the last gran’ merridge-feast, poor oot the bonny reid wine, and say, ‘Sit ye doon, bairns, and tak o’ my best’!” “Ay, ay, Mr. MacLear; that’s a fine way to think of the Sabbath!” rejoined the minister, “and the very way I am in the habit of thinking of it myself!—I’m greatly obliged to you for bringing home my boots; but indeed I could have managed very well without them!” “Ay, sir, maybe; I dinna doobt ye hae pairs and pairs o’ beets; but ye see _I_ couldna dee _wi’oot_ them, for I had _promised_.” The word struck the minister to the heart. “He means something!” he said to himself. “—But I never promised the girl anything! I _could_ not have done it! I never thought of such a thing! I never said anything to bind me!” He never saw that, whether he had promised or not, his deed had bound him more absolutely than any words. All this time he was letting the soutar stand on the doorstep, with the new boots in his hand. “Come in,” he said at last, “and put them there in the window. It’s about time we were all going to bed, I think—especially myself, to-morrow being sermon-day!” The soutar betook himself to his home and to bed, sorry that he had said nothing, yet having said more than he knew.