"Atweel," Wilson would say, with his eyes on the ground,--"atweel I lo'e the braw chiel as 'twere my ain guid billie." Ralph paid no heed to the brotherly protestations of his admirer, and exchanged only such words with him as their occupations required.

Old Angus, however, was not so passive an observer of his new and unlooked-for housemate.

"He's a good for nought sort of a fellow, slenken frae place to place wi' nowt but a sark to his back," Angus would say to his wife.

Mr.Wilson's physical imperfections were an offence in the dalesman's eyes: "He's as widderful in his wizzent old skin as his own grandfather." Angus was not less severe on Wilson's sly smoothness of manner.

"Yon sneaking old knave," he would say, "is as slape as an eel in the beck; he'd wammel himself into crookedest rabbit hole on the fell." Probably Angus entertained some of the antipathy to Scotchmen which was peculiar to his age.