AARON LATTA The Airlie post had dropped the letters for outlying farms at the Monypenny smithy and trudged on.

The smith having wiped his hand on his hair, made a row of them, without looking at the addresses, on his window-sill, where, happening to be seven in number, they were almost a model of Monypenny, which is within hail of Thrums, but round the corner from it, and so has ways of its own.

With the next clang on the anvil the middle letter fell flat, and now the likeness to Monypenny was absolute.
Again all the sound in the land was the melancholy sweet kink, kink, kink of the smith's hammer.
Across the road sat Dite Deuchars, the mole-catcher, a solitary figure, taking his pleasure on the dyke.

Behind him was the flour-miller's field, and beyond it the Den, of which only some tree-tops were visible.
He looked wearily east the road, but no one emerged from Thrums; he looked wearily west the road, which doubled out of sight at Aaron Latta's cottage, little more than a stone's throw distant.

On the inside of Aaron's window an endless procession seemed to be passing, but it was only the warping mill going round.