Both ministers sighed. The same thought was in their hearts, namely, that brands plucked from the burning (such as Jock) had a disagreeable tendency to carry piety, as they had carried sin, to the most ridiculous and inconvenient lengths. IV "Those are bonny potatoes, missis!" "Ay!" The stout woman, the upper part of whose shabby dress seemed to be subjected to considerable strains, looked at Jock carelessly, and then, attracted perhaps by his eager face, smiled with a certain facile amiability. "But by th' time they're cooked your supper'll be late, I'm reckoning." "Them potatoes have naught to do with our supper," said Mrs Clowes. "They're for to-morrow's dinner. There'll be no time for peeling potatoes to-morrow. Kezia!" She shrilled the name. A slim little girl showed herself between the heavy curtains of the main tent of Mrs Clowes's caravanserai. "Bring Sapphira, too!" "Those yours?" asked Jock. "They're mine," said Mrs Clowes. "And I've six more, not counting grandchildren and sons-in-law like." "No wonder you want a pailful of potatoes!" said Jock. Kezia and Sapphira appeared in the gloom. They might have counted sixteen years together. They were dirty, tousled, graceful and lovely. "Twins," Jock suggested. Mrs Clowes nodded. "Off with this pail, now! And mind you don't spill the water. Here, Kezia! Take the knife. And bring me the other pail." The children bore away the heavy pail, staggering, eagerly obedient. Mrs Clowes lifted her mighty form from the stool, shook peelings from the secret places of her endless apron, and calmly sat down again. "Ye rule 'em with a rod of iron, missis," said Jock. She smiled good-humouredly and shrugged her vast shoulders--no mean physical feat. "I keep 'em lively," she said. "There's twelve of 'em in my lot, without th' two babbies. Someone's got to be after 'em all the time." "And you not thirty-five, I swear!" "Nay! Ye're wrong." Sapphira brought the other pail, swinging it. She put it down with a clatter of the falling handle and scurried off. "Am I now?" Jock murmured, interested; and, as it were out of sheer absent-mindedness, he turned the pail wrong side up, and seated himself on it with a calm that equalled the calm of Mrs Clowes.