"Dinna be angry wi' me," Corp begged. "I ken you're ower the water, but when I see you, I kind of forget; and just for the minute I think you're here." "Well, think afore you speak." "I'll try, but that's teuch work. When do you come to Scotland?" "I'm no sure; but as soon as I'm ripe." At nights Tommy now sometimes lay among the cabbages of the school-house watching the shadow of Black Cathro on his sitting-room blind. Cathro never knew he was there. The reason Tommy lay among the cabbages was that there was a price upon his head. "But if Black Cathro wanted to get the blood-money," Corp said apologetically, "he could nab you any day. He kens you fine." Tommy smiled meaningly. "Not him," he answered, "I've cheated him bonny, he hasna a notion wha I am. Corp, would you like a good laugh?" "That I would." "Weel, then, I'll tell you wha he thinks I am. Do you ken a little house yont the road a bitty irae Monypenny?" "I ken no sic house," said Corp, "except Aaron's." "Aaron's the man as bides in it," Tommy continued hastily, "at least I think that's the name. Well, as you ken the house, you've maybe noticed a laddie that bides there too?" "There's no laddie," began Corp, "except--" "Let me see," interrupted Tommy, "what was his name? Was it Peter? No. Was it Willie? Stop, I mind, it was Tommy." He glared so that Corp dared not utter a word. "Have you notitched him?" "I've--I've seen him," Corp gasped. "Well, this is the joke," said Tommy, trying vainly to restrain his mirth, "Cathro thinks I'm that laddie! Ho! ho! ho!" Corp scratched his head, then he bit his warts, then he spat upon his hands, then he said "Damn." The crisis came when Cathro, still ignorant that the heather was on fire, dropped some disparaging remarks about the Stuarts to his history class. Tommy said nothing, but--but one of the school-windows was without a snib, and next morning when the dominie reached his desk he was surprised to find on it a little cotton glove. He raised it on high, greatly puzzled, and then, as ever when he suspected knavery, his eyes sought Tommy, who was sitting on a form, his arms proudly folded. That the whelp had put the glove there, Cathro no longer doubted, and he would have liked to know why, but was reluctant to give him the satisfaction of asking. So the gauntlet--for gauntlet it was--was laid aside, the while Tommy, his head humming like a beeskep, muttered triumphantly through his teeth, "But he lifted it, he lifted it!" and at closing time it was flung in his face with this fair tribute: "I'm no a rich man, laddie, but I would give a pound note to know what you'll be at ten years from now." There could be no mistaking the dire meaning of these words, and Tommy hurried, pale but determined, to the quarry, where Corp, with a barrow in his hands, was learning strange phrases by heart, and finding it a help to call his warts after the new swears. "Corp," cried Tommy, firmly, "I've set sail!"