Nobody knew how much he gave away in other directions; but they judged of his means by the amount he was in the habit of putting into the plate at the chapel-door every Sunday.

There was never much of the silvery shine to be seen in the heap of copper, but one of the gleaming sixpences was almost sure to have dropped from the hand of Thomas Crann.

Not that this generosity sprung altogether from disinterested motives; for the fact was, that he had a morbid fear of avarice; a fear I believe not altogether groundless; for he was independent in his feelings almost to fierceness--certainly to ungraciousness; and this strengthened a natural tendency to saving and hoarding.

The consciousness of this tendency drove him to the other extreme.

Jean, having overheard him once cry out in an agony, "Lord, hae mercy upo' me, and deliver me frae this love o' money, which is the root of all evil," watched him in the lobby of the chapel the next Sunday--"and as sure's deith," said Jean--an expression which it was weel for her that Thomas did not hear--"he pat a siller shillin' into the plate that day, mornin' _an'_ nicht." "Tak' care hoo ye affront him, whan ye tak' it," said Andrew Constable to his wife, who was setting out to carry him some dish of her own cooking--for Andrew's wife belonged to the missionars--"for weel ye ken Thamas likes to be unner obligation to nane but the Lord himsel'." "Lea' ye that to me, Anerew, my man.