conscious of how essential he was to the stability of the household,
were largely at his mercy. It happened on one occasion that when
Wilson returned to the cottage after a day's absence, he found Sim's
daughter weeping over the fire.

"What's now?" he asked. "Have ye nothing in the kail?"

Rotha signified that his supper was ready.

"Thou limmer," said Wilson, in his thin shriek, "how long 'ul thy dool
last? It's na mair to see a woman greet than to see a goose gang
barefit."

Ralph Ray called at the tailor's cottage the morning after this, and
found Sim suffering under violent excitement, of which Wilson's
behavior to Rotha had been the cause. The insults offered to himself
he had taken with a wince, perhaps, but without a retort. Now that his
daughter was made the subject of them, he was profoundly agitated.

"There I sat," he cried, as his breath came and went in gusts,--"there
I sat, a poor barrow-back't creature, and heard that old savvorless
loon spit his spite at my lass. I'm none of a brave man, Ralph: no, I
must be a coward, but I went nigh to snatching up yon flail of his and
striking him--aye, killing him!--but no, it must be that I'm a
coward."

Ralph quieted him as well as he could, telling him to leave this thing
to him. Ralph was perhaps Sim's only friend. He would often turn in
like this at Sim's workroom as he passed up the fell in the morning.
People said the tailor was indebted to Ralph for proofs of friendship