To reclaim him from these wicked ways, she could only repeat her former threatenings--adding, perhaps, to their number anything new which happened to come into her head; but then, like those mothers who think threatening is enough, and who, by sparing the rod, sometimes spoil the child, she always forgot to inflict the punishment when the opportunity for doing so occurred; and Jock, as a natural consequence of this remissness on the part of the _executive_, became hardened in his transgressions. But, when not engaged in these battles, Jock was rather kind to Nelly than otherwise; sometimes he assisted her with such parts of her work as a man could perform; and sometimes, too, when the evening was wet or stormy, to save her from going out, he would take her pitchers of his own accord, and "bring in a raik o' water." This kindness Nelly was careful to repay by mending his coat, darning his stockings, and performing various other little services for him. When the faculty of observation has few objects upon which to exercise itself, little things become interesting; this interchange of good offices was soon noticed by the wise women of the neighbourhood, and, as they knew of only one cause from which such things could proceed, to that cause they attributed them, making certain in their own minds that the whole secret would, some day or other, be brought before the parish by the session-clerk. Such was the general belief; and whether it was "the birds of the air," as Solomon saith, or whether it was the beggars and _chapmen_, occasionally quartered at Howdycraigs, who "carried the matter," is of little importance; but in time the whole of the facts, with the inferences drawn therefrom, reached Nelly's former acquaintances, and then, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, they saw occasion entirely to alter their previous opinion. Instead of saying, as they had done before, that "Nelly _wud_ mak a guid wife to Jock--'_at she wud_," they now said, that "Jock, wha was scarcely outgane nineteen, was owre young ever to think o' marryin an auld hizzie o' three-and-thirty like her;" that "the carryin o' the water, and the darnin o' the stockins, _wud_ a' end in naething;" that "Jock _wud_ be far better without her;" and when they recollected the implied malediction of the witch, they considered that it was as impossible for her to be his wife, as it is for potatoes to grow above ground; and concluded the discussion with a pious wish "that she micht aye be keepit in the richt road."