He was telling of an
old Scotch peasant farmer. A mean, cantankerous old cuss whose curious
pride it was that he had never given anything away. Not a crust, nor a
sixpence, nor a rag; and never would. Many had been the attempts to make
him break his boast: some for the joke of the thing and some for the
need; but none had ever succeeded. It was his one claim to distinction
and he guarded it.
One evening it struck him that the milk-pail, standing just inside the
window, had been tampered with. Next day he marked with a scratch the
inside of the pan and, returning later, found the level of the milk had
sunk half an inch. So he hid himself and waited; and at twilight the
next day the window was stealthily pushed open, and two small, terror-
haunted eyes peered round the room. They satisfied themselves that no
one was about and a tiny hand clutching a cracked jug was thrust swiftly
in and dipped into the pan; and the window softly closed.
He knew the thief, the grandchild of an old bedridden dame who lived some
miles away on the edge of the moor.
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