If Henders was "promised," he took good care that no snowed-up
inhabitant should perjure himself. He made his way to a window
first, and, clearing the snow from the top of it, pointed out that
he could not conscientiously proceed further until the debt had been
paid. "Money doon," he cried, as soon as he reached a pane of glass;
or, "Come awa wi' my saxpence noo."

The belief that this day had not come to Henders unexpectedly was
borne out by the method of the crafty callant. His charges varied
from sixpence to half-a-crown, according to the wealth and status of
his victims; and when, later on, there were rivals in the snow, he
had the discrimination to reduce his minimum fee to threepence. He
had the honor of digging out three ministers at one shilling, one
and threepence, and two shillings respectively.

Half a dozen times within the next fortnight the town was re-buried
in snow. This generally happened in the night-time; but the
inhabitants were not to be caught unprepared again. Spades stood
ready to their hands in the morning, and they fought their way above
ground without Henders Ramsay's assistance. To clear the snow from
the narrow wynds and pends, however, was a task not to be attempted;
and the Auld Lichts, at least, rested content when enough light got
into their workshops to let them see where their looms stood. Wading
through beds of snow they did not much mind; but they wondered what
would happen to their houses when the thaw came.

The thaw was slow in coming. Snow during the night and several
degrees of frost by day were what Thrums began to accept as a
revised order of nature. Vainly the Thrums doctor, whose practice