And there was Peden glowering at him, gash an' waefu'; Peden wi' his lang chafts an' luntin' een, the maud happed about his kist, and the hand of him held out wi' the black nails upon the finger-nebs--for he had nae care of the body.

"Fy, fy, poor man!" cries he, "the poor fool man! _Deil hae me_, quo' he; an' I see the deil at his oxter." The conviction of guilt and grace cam in on Tam like the deep sea; he flang doun the pike that was in his hands--"I will nae mair lift arms against the cause o' Christ!" says he, and was as gude's word.

There was a sair fyke in the beginning, but the governor, seeing him resolved, gied him his dischairge, and he went and dwallt and merried in North Berwick, and had aye a gude name with honest folk frae that day on.
It was in the year seeventeen hunner and sax that the Bass cam in the hands o' the Da'rymples, and there was twa men soucht the chairge of it.
Baith were weel qualified, for they had baith been sodgers in the garrison, and kent the gate to handle solans, and the seasons and values of them.

Forby that they were baith--or they baith seemed--earnest professors and men of comely conversation.

The first of them was just Tam Dale, my faither.