HIS FINIS. 381 



CHAPTER III. 



" Take something pretty home to my wife, or a parcel 

 0' sweets to the bairn ! They said that at the store 

 to tempt me to part with my siller ! Tempt me ! 

 Every day is no Yule day ! Yule fiddlesticks ! I am 

 not such a fool. Dainty fare is soon finished: fine 

 feathers make fools proud. No ! no ! James Gertson 

 knows better how to guide his gear." 



It was James Gertson who thus soliloquised as he 

 slowly plodded through the snow in a half-drunken 

 condition. He had loitered about the store until the 

 doors were closed for the night ; and then, as no man 

 loved him well enough to ask him to remain, or 

 offered to go home with him, Gertson betook himself 

 to the hill, talking to himself, as tipsy men are so fond 

 of doing. 



" Ay, I ken how to keep my siller ; no landlord's 

 oakchest, no bank, no ship, no land for my money ! 

 Chests have chinks, and banks can break ; land needs 

 labour, and ships sink at sea ; but the bright gold and 

 silver neither melt nor lose when hid in a safe place 

 by a wise man. And mine is easy come by too, easy 

 won ! Oh ! the delight of counting it ower, and 

 knowing that no person but myself knows, or ever 

 will know, where it is kept so safely ! I can go any 

 night and count my treasure, and not a human being 

 in the Isle would ever dream of looking for me or it there. 

 When my light is seen the fools say that the ghost of 



