Nathan Hebron is Betty Grier's husband; or, rather, I should say, Betty Grier is Nathan Hebron's wife. This may possibly be considered a distinction without a difference; but when you have been introduced into the inner courts of these two ' acquaintance, you will somehow feel that the latter assertion is the more correct and appropriate.  
Nathan is a tall, loosely built man, with a fresh, healthy , mild blue eyes, and a slightly hanging under-lip. For some considerable time he has been employed on what is locally known as 'the Duke's wark,' but in what particular capacity I cannot very well say. When first I knew him he was one of Archie Maxwell's employés in the nursery, and when our garden required professional attention it was always Nathan who was sent to do the necessary digging and titivating.
 
Three or maybe four times a year he spent a few days at a stretch among our vegetables and fruit-trees; and I remember with what eager interest I used to anticipate his visits, for, though he was a man of few words, and from a story-telling standpoint had little to commend him to a boy, he carried a quiet, companionable atmosphere with him, and, as a more dominating recommendation, he was the possessor of one of the sharpest and most formidable-looking 'gullies' I had ever seen.
 
How I envied him at pruning-time, when, with his easy, indifferent gait, he moved about among our rose-bushes with his keen hooked blade, and with one cut lopped off and branches as if they were potato-suckers. Sometimes at my request he would lay his long gleaming weapon in the palm of my little hand, but he usually retained possession of it by a slight finger-and-thumb grip; and I always heaved a sigh of satisfaction, not unmixed with relief, when he lifted it, closed the blade with a click, and returned it to his sleeved-vest pocket.
 
When Nathan was thus employed in our garden he always had dinner with Betty in the kitchen. Betty's in the culinary department was -making, and my mother used to say, with a smile, that when Nathan was her guest Betty always put her best foot foremost. Betty, with a blushing cheek, mildly the charge; and once, when in my presence my mother told Nathan of this, he blushed too, and to hide his confusion his head and the trousers- under his knees.
 
Broth, with boiled beef and potatoes to follow, as a rule constituted Betty's menu on these occasions, and there was always a 'word' between them when the beef was served, as Nathan insisted on retaining his soup-plate from which to eat it, and to this Betty objected. She declared 'it wasna the thing;' but he retorted that 'that was possible, but it was aye ae plate less to wash, and he liked the broth brae wi' the piles in it, as it moistened the tatties.'
 
Immediately after his repast he to the stick-house; and there, seated on the chopping-log, he smoked his pipe in silence and till the Kirk clock chimed the hour of one.
 
Betty was no vocalist; but on those days when Nathan worked in our garden she indulged much in what, out of gallantry towards her, I may call sweet sounds. She had only one song—it is her sole musical possession still—and during the years I spent far from the friends and scenes of my boyhood, as often as I heard the familiar strains of 'The Farmer's Boy,' Betty's timmer came -like to my ear, and I saw a print-gowned, pensive-faced young woman subjecting newly washed delf to a vigorous rubbing, and watching through the kitchen window a big eident gardener turning over with gleaming spade the rich loamy garden soil.
 
My mind harks back on these little of memory as I sit here in my bedroom listening to Betty's ceaseless and Nathan's monosyllabic responses. He is the same gaunt, silent Nathan, only much grayer, and his short beard, fringe-like, now covers a chin which once was clean-shaven and ruddy. He still wears leather straps on his workaday trousers; and, though I haven't seen it, I am confident the keen-bladed gully is somewhere about the of his ample pockets. And he is Betty's 'man,' and Betty is his busy, careful wife, and as such they sit together in that kitchen taking their meals off that self-same table, and looking out on that same garden which long ago was the scene of his periodical labours.
 
Sometimes of a morning I waken about five o'clock, and even thus early I hear Betty downstairs making preparations for Nathan's breakfast. I know full well from the different sounds how she is employed; and, in , I note the 'ripein' oot' of the previous evening's fire, the filling of the kettle from the kitchen tap, the opening and closing of the corner cupboard door, and the of cups, plates, and cutlery. Then the merry song of the boiling kettle, the clink of the frying-pan on the , the sizzling of frying ham, the splutter of gravy-steeped eggs, and the drawing forward of white, well-scrubbed kitchen chairs.
 
I know, too, when Nathan has finished his meal, as he always puts his empty cup and saucer with a 'clank' into his bread-plate, gives a hard throat 'hoast,' backs his chair away from the table, and says 'Imphm! juist so!' very and cheerily. Soon the appetising of fried ham and eggs, which has been all the time in my , gives place to the more smell of strong brown twist smoked through a clean clay pipe. This, however, is merely a whiff in passing, because Nathan 'stands not upon the order of his going,' and in clean-smelling corduroys and a cloud of pipe-reek he goes out into the early morning sunshine, closing the door with a lingering, hesitating turn of the handle, which, though gentle, seems loud and grating in the of the dawning day.
 
How I wish I could walk with him these beautiful fresh sunny mornings along the Carronbrig road! I follow him, ! in imagination only; and as he leaves the empty echoing street and passes under the leafy of the Cundy Wood I feel the pure caller air on my brow, I listen to the hum of the bees in the limes, the sportive of the sparrows in the bushes, the rich, full-throated melody of the blackbird and mavis from the wooded recesses of the Gillfoot—each feathered minstrel piping his own song in his own way, and all in singing their pæans of praise in their leafy, sun-kissed . Gossamer-webs, silvered with pearls of dew, stretch their threads from leaf to leaf, and cover the shady side of the hedgerows as with a gray-meshed silken veil. From rank, dewy grass blue-bells raise their heads, and nod good-morning to white and blue-red stately foxgloves sentinel o'er scarred red-earth banks and bramble . Lowing cows, knee-deep in meadow grass and buttercups, with swishing tails and pawing forelegs, impatiently await the opening gate. And over all, on field and wood and hill and dale, lie the glorious rays of God's own sunshine, warmth and gladness, and filling nature anew with pulsing life.
 
The road lies broad and white before me, and I see Nathan's tall, gaunt figure passing Longmire Mains, and I know the smell of the sweet American gean is in his nostrils, and his gardener's eye is on the hart's-tongue ferns which here and there peep from the of the lichen-covered ; by Meadow Bank, where the purple bloom still crowns the leaf branch of the rhododendron; on between the and silver birches at Dabton; through the sleepy village of Carronbrig, where he is joined by moleskin-clad fellow-workers.
 
Staff in hand and pipe in mouth, at that regulation pace which is well known as 'the Duke's step,' each wends his way through the green turf holm, across the Nith by the stepping-stones, under the shadow of the ruin-crowned Tibbers . As they near the scene of their daily darg, tobacco 'dottles' are paper-padded and made secure, pipes are deposited in sleeved-vest pockets, and where the white iron wicket clicks and admits them to the low-lying stretch of fairy garden plots and multi-coloured perfumed bowers I take my leave of them. God grant I may soon be able to see with the living eye, and feel with the nature-loving heart, the beauties and joys which now in imagination only are mine!
 
By degrees, and at rare , Betty has relieved her mind to me regarding Nathan. When I say 'relieved her mind,' I do not imply that there is anything in Nathan's conduct or any in his mode of living which burdens Betty's thoughts. Far from it. Nathan is the best of husbands—appreciative, kind, steady, and considerate. His wages—to the uttermost farthing—are regularly given up to Betty's safe keeping. All his spare hours are to the large garden, whose produce from January till December makes Betty's daily dinner of the bienest. Her slightest wish is a command which he obeys with cheerfulness and , and the quiet and composure of his presence is, I know, her secret pride and mainstay. Yet she seems to be ever apologising for his being about, and in speaking of him to me she invariably refers to him as 'Nathan, puir falla,' with just the slightest suggestion of in her tone.
 
I wonder why this should be, and it is beginning to dawn upon me that Betty somehow imagines—wrongly, needless to say—that I look upon him as an intruder, something foreign to the element of our home-life of long ago; and, stranger still, I am conscious of that feeling in Nathan also. Though I have been resident here for over two weeks, and though he has cried upstairs to me every evening, he has only been twice in my room; and on both occasions he stood awkwardly at the door, holding on by the handle, and answering my questions with his head turned toward the landing. During the past week I have managed to limp my way downstairs, and on passing through the kitchen have stayed my steps to ca' the crack with him. But 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' 'Ay, ay; imphm!' have so far been the sum-total of his contribution to the conversation. Some day, however, I know Nathan will ; some day soon they will both know the high in which I hold him. In due season he will rid himself of his backwardness and shyness, and I shall be glad, for his honest blue eye and his pleasing appeal to me, and I feel I want a friend like Nathan Hebron.
 
To-night, after she had cleared away the of my homely supper, Betty sat down with her knitting at my little window. I have two pots of flowering and a lovely pelargonium in full bloom on my sill, and under of Nathan's advice as to their culture and I inquired of Betty if she would ask him to come upstairs.
 
'Most certainly, Maister Weelum,' said she, with a pleasant nod; and she went out, returning a minute later with Nathan in her wake. I know he had been sitting in his easy-chair smoking in silence, with his stem-bonnet on and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, inactive, yet alert and ready to fulfil any of Betty's little behests; but at Betty's summons he had hastily donned a coat, and his head was bare.
 
After examining my plants and drawling out a few disjointed directions, he turned to go downstairs; but I motioned him to a seat, and, rather reluctantly, I thought, he sat down. I urged him to join me in a smoke, and offered him a fill of my Edinburgh mixture; but he declined my ; and, taking out a deerskin spleuchan, he nipped a full inch of brown twist, teased it, rolled it in the palm of his rough, horny hand, and filled the bowl of his clay cutty.
 
Betty noticed my little act of civility; but she her needles in silence till Nathan had struck a light and begun smoking.
 
'Ay, Maister Weelum,' she said, as Nathan fitted the glowing bowl of his pipe with a perforated metal cover, 'thae fancy ready-cut tobaccos are no' much in the line o' oor Nathan, puir falla.'
 
'Is that so? Well, every man to his own taste; but, Betty, excuse my asking so personal a question, why do you always refer to your goodman here as "Nathan, puir falla"?'
 
Nathan looked surprisedly from me to Betty, and, after with his match-box, struck another light when there was no necessity to do so; while Betty laid her knitting on the table and thoughtfully pressed it out lengthwise with the palm of her open hand.
 
'When ye mention it, noo, I daur say I div say "puir falla,"' she answered; 'but, though I say that, I dinna mean it in ony temporal sense, Maister Weelum. So far as this world is concerned, I've got the very best man that ever lived; but'——and she looked at Nathan as if in doubt how to proceed.
 
Nathan blew pipe-reek most vigorously; then he turned round to me with a faint smile on his sober face, and he actually . 'She's—she's sterted again, Maister Weelum,' he said with a side-nod toward Betty.
 
'Started what, Nathan?'
 
'Oh, the auld subject—imphm!'
 
'Ay,'—chimed in Betty, now sure of her opening, 'it's an auld subject, but it's ever a new yin, a' the same. "'Tis old, yet ever new," as the hymn-book has it. Ay, an' that is true. As I said before, Maister Weelum, I've nae concern regairdin' Nathan's welfare in this world. We're promised only bread an' water, an' look hoo often he gets tea an' chops, an' on what we ha'e saved there's every chance o' that diet bein' continued as lang as he has teeth to chew wi'. But what o' the next world? As Tammas Fraser aince said when he was takin' the Book, "Ah, that's where the rub comes in!"' and she shook her head dolefully, as much as to say, 'Nathan, you're a gone corbie!'
 
I looked from husband to wife in blank , not knowing what to say. I had always looked upon Betty as a deeply religious woman, a true of the Great Master, but partaking more of the loving John than the Peter; and, often as I had heard her say a word in season, I could not remember having listened to her expressing so her fears and convictions.
 
She interpreted my thoughts aright; and after Nathan had, without necessity, sparked another match, and almost succeeded in turning toward us the full length and breadth of his long tankard back, she resumed.
 
'Your mother was a guid woman, Maister Weelum, an' I that often, often, you were the burden o' her prayers. I never talked much on this subject to you, kennin' that you were her ain particular chairge, an' that her prayers, withoot my interference, wad be answered. But it's different in the case o' Nathan here. He belangs to me, an' me to him. My calling an' election 's sure, an' I juist canna the thocht o' us bein' separated at the lang hinner-en'. It's no' that he 's a bad man—far from it. Or it 's no' that he 's careless. I gi'e him credit for bein' concerned in his ain wey; but he juist saunters on through life, trustin' that things will somewey work oot a' richt, an' lettin' the want, if there 's ony, come in at the wab's end. Ay, an' for a man like him, that 's sae fond o' flo'ers an' dogs an' ither folks' weans, it simply passes my comprehension hoo it is that he 's sae indifferent to the greatest o' a' love an' the things that so closely concern his soul's . Nae wonder I say, "Nathan, puir falla."'
 
Notwithstanding the gravity of the charge she had laid at Nathan's door, I felt relieved to know that my regarding the cause of his attitude toward me were unfounded; and, with a note of encouragement in my voice, I hinted to Betty that, after all, it was possible she was unnecessarily worrying herself, as with two advocates like her and my mother it would surely be well with both Nathan and me.
 
'Ah, Maister Weelum,' she said impressively, 'I ken fine that the prayers o' the just availeth much; but aye bear in mind—Nathan, are ye listenin'?—Ay—weel, bear in mind that every herrin' maun hing by its ain heid. Mind that, the twae o' ye noo.'
 
This direct personal appeal rather discomposed me, and I didn't know what to say. As for Nathan, he rose slowly from his chair, and, turning round, he solemnly winked to me again. That somehow sealed a compact between us. It placed us on a common platform, and established a feeling of which it would be hard for me to define.
 
'Ay, Betty,' he said, as he raised himself to his full height, 'you're a wonderfu' woman—a wonderfu' woman!' and he yawned audibly; 'an' when it comes to wark on sic a subject as ye 've ta'en in haun', John Clerk the colporteur canna haud a cannel to ye. When ye stert on me like this I aye gi'e ye plenty o' rope, an' I never gi'e it a ; but ye 've gi'en me a gey tatterin' afore Maister Weelum here, an' I wad just like to put in my noo.'
 
Betty gave him a surprised look, and I nodded and smiled encouragingly toward him.
 
'I don't misdoot,' he continued, after he had loosened his at his throat, 'that there 's some truth in a few o' your remarks; but, dod, lass, dinna forget that I'm tryin' my best.'
 
'In what wey, Nathan?' she asked.
 
'Weel, let me consider noo. Ay, I don't think I ha'e missed a day at the kirk since we were mairret. That's ae thing, onywey. Then we tak' the Beuk regularly; an' forby that, Betty,' he said impressively, 'I was five times at the prayer-meetin's wi' ye last year, and'——
 
'Prayer-meetin's!' said Betty; 'prayer-meetin's!' and she raised her voice. 'Nathan Hebron, I'm astonished ye ha'e the to mention prayer-meetin's to me!'
 
'Hoo that, Betty?' he gravely asked.
 
'Hoo that? As if ye didna ken! My word, but that 's yin an' a half!—Do you know this Maister Weelum; I had to stop takin' him to to the prayer-meetin's, for he aye fell asleep. The last yin I took him to was at Mrs Kennedy's. Not only did he sleep, but he snored wi' his heid lyin' back an' his face to the ceilin'; an' when he waukened, it was in the middle o' a silent prayer, an' he an' blinked at the gaslicht, an' said he, wi' his een half-shut, "Betty, that 's rank wastery burnin' the gas when we 're in oor sleepin' bed." Ashamed? I was black , Maister Weelum, an' among sae mony earnest folk, too.'
 
Goodness knows, I hold no brief for Nathan, but I ventured to say on his behalf that, as he had been working in the open all day, and the room was quiet and warm, he was, in a way, to be excused if he unconsciously dovered.
 
'Ay, that's a' very weel; but I notice he never dovers, as ye ca' it, at an Oddfellows' soiree.'
 
Nathan had quietly slipped downstairs before she reached the end of her story, and in his absence she became and communicative.
 
'I somewey think he means weel, but the road to hell is paved wi' guid intentions. He's maybe the best of the natural man that I ken o'; but wae's me, that's no' sufficient. The seeds o' carelessness were sown lang before I him; an' tho' I maun alloo he has improved in my haun', I see wee bit touches noo an' than o' the he'rt at enmity which sometimes mak' me despair. For instance, the ither Sabbath-day nae faurer gane, he sat doon efter his denner wi' a book, an' he looked neither to left nor richt, but read on and on. "Nathan," says I, "what's the book you're sae intent on?" "Oh, Betty," says he , weel kennin' that I didna gi'e in wi' orra readin' on the Lord's Day, "I've faun in wi' a splendid book the day. It's ca'ed Baxter's—eh—Saunts' Everlastin' Rest, an' it's the kind o' readin' I like." "Ay," says I, weel pleased wi' the soond o' the title, "read on at that, Nathan. Baxter's fu' o' rich refreshin' truths. Read slow noo, Nathan, an' tak' it a' in." Weel, he never put it oot o' his haun till bedtime, except when he was at his tea, an' then he slipped it into his coat-pocket; an' the next day, when he was away at his wark, I cam' on it stappit doon behin' the cushion o' his easy-chair; an' what think ye it was, Maister Weelum? Guess noo what it was.'
 
'Baxter's Saints' Rest, of course,' I said.
 
'Weel,' said Betty, 'that was printed on the loose covers that had aince been the boards o' the holy volume o' that name; but the paper-covered book that was inside was The Experiences o' an Edinburgh Detective, by James MacGovan; an' d'ye ken this, Maister Weelum, I juist sat doon in the middle o' my wark an' grat my he'rt-fill.'
 
Poor, dear Betty, she wept anew at the remembrance of Nathan's , then rolled her knitting into her , and went downstairs into the kitchen. Ten minutes later, when I was having my last pipe for the night, I heard her voice raised in the Beuk, and she was reading, with a point and emphasis which I am sure Nathan could not misunderstand, the story from the Acts of Ananias and his wife Sapphira.