Now I maun clear awa' your supper." Dickson asked for a candle, and, as on the previous night, went abruptly to bed.

The oracle of prudence to which he had appealed had betrayed him and counselled folly.

But was it folly?
For him, assuredly, for Dickson McCunn, late of Mearns Street, Glasgow, wholesale and retail provision merchant, elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, and fifty-five years of age.

Ay, that was the rub.

He was getting old.