Johnny Gibb of Gushetneuk, in the parish of Pyketillim; with glimpses of the parish politics about A.D. 1843

Preface

. — ♦ — In the way of Preface to the present Edition of this homely story, it is not necessary, in so far as the text is concerned, to do more than repeat in a sentence or two what has been said before, — that the original aim of the author was rather the portrayal of character in a series of sketches, than the elaboration of a symmetrical and for mally constructed plot, the ultimate development of which should engross the interest of the reader. Believing the common life of the region in which the scene of the story is laid, to have sufficient strength and indi viduality about it to be worth somewhat careful study and limning, his chief endeavour was to make the characters sketched at once typical and true to nature ; not ideals, by any means, but rather roughly realistic figures. And as the dialect in which the various person ages in the story naturally utter themselves is one of great force and expressiveness, some pains were taken to render it accurately, both as to idiom and ortho graphical form. But the interest of the work, as now presented, is not chiefly confined to the text. And of the illustra- THE AUTHOR'S

PREFACE.

. VI tions, supplied by Mr. George Reid, R.S.A., and so carefully engraved by M. Durand, the author — omitting that which, under the artist's fiat, forms the frontispiece — can speak without reserve. The wish of the publisher to have, not fancy sketches, but genuine typical Aberdeen shire faces, answering generally to the characters in the story, has, beyond all doubt, been most faithfully adhered to, and most successfully carried out. Of the style and finish of Mr. Reid's work, it might be deemed out of place here to say more than that it is believed both the Portrait Sketches and the Vignettes are worthy of his high reputation as an artist. By him, in particular, the author has been laid under an obligation such as he can never hope in any measure to repay. Aberdeen, Christmas 1879. CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE i. Johnny Gibb sets out for the Wells . i n. The Journey to the Wells ... 8 in. Rustic Courtship . . . .15 iv. Johnny Gibb's Political Education . . 23 v. Life at the Wells . . • • 3° vi. Mrs. Birse of Clinkstyle ... 37 vil Back from the Wells ... 44 viii. «Tam Meerison Flits . . . • 52 ix. Pedagogical . . . . .62 x. Benjie's Classical Studies . . . 7° xi. The Kirk Road . . . .78 xn. The Smiddyward Prayer Meeting . . 86 xni. The Distribution Meeting — Ecclesiastical Opinions ..... 95 xiv. Tam Meerison's Private Affairs . . 103 xv. Sandy Peterkin's School . . . no xvi. A Start in Life . . ■» i'7 xvn. Sandy Peterkin is Warned . . .125 xvm. The Public Meeting . . . 13 2 xix Meg Raffan, the Henwife . . .147 xx. Mrs. Birse and her Own . . . 155 xxi. Patie's Plush Waistcoat . . . 162 xxii.

Mainly Polemical . . . .168 CONTENTS. VIII CHAPTER PAGE xxiii. Jonathan Tawse and Dawvid Hadden . 174 xxiv. Preparing for the Conflict . . .180 xxv. The Gushetneuk Meeting . . .186 xxvi. Sandy Peterkin's Fortune . . .198 xxvn. Mains of Yawal at the Synod . . 204 xxvm. The Free Kirk of Pyketillim . . 211 xxix. A Change of Time . . . .218 xxx. Meg Raffan entertains Dawvid Hadden . 223 xxxi. The Election of Elders . . • 228 xxxn. Dawvid Hadden visits at Clinkstyle . 235 xxxm. The Merchant's Shop .... 242 xxxiv. Dawvid Hadden reports to Sir Simon . 249 xxxv. The Settlement of Mr. MacCassock . 256 xxxvi. The Settin' of Gushetneuk . . .264 xxxvn. Clinkstyle again . . . .271 xxxviii. Meg Raffan goes to the Shop . . 278 xxxix. Patie's Wedding . . . .286 xl. The News of the Marriage . . . 293 xli. The Manse Scheme . . . .300 xlii.

Sir Simon instructs Dawvid Hadden . 310 xliii. Dawvid Hadden consults the Henwife . 316 xliv. Johnny Gibb discusses the Situation. . 320 xlv. Dawvid Hadden makes two Business Calls . 327 xlvi. Hairry Muggart goes to the Toon . . 336 • xlvii. Johnny Gibb makes his Will . . . 342 xlviii. The Climax of Gentility . . .347 xlix. The Conclusion . . . 353 Glossary . . . . .361 LIST OF PLATES. Author ..... Frontispiece Gushetneuk .... Title Johnny Gibb .... To face page 6 Black Bull Inn . . . ,,12 Macduff . . . . . ,,14 Peter Birse . . . . „ 40 Tarlair . . . . . „ 48 Jonathan Tawse . . . ,,64 Mrs. Birse . . . . ,,72 Pyketillim Kirk . . . „ 84 Smiddyward . . . . „ 87 Benachie . . . . „ 136 Geordie Wobster „ 142 Meg Raffan . . . . „ 152 Dawvid Hadden . . . ,,178 Roderick M'Aul . . . ,,190 West Kirk, Aberdeen . . . „ 206 Andrew Langchafts . . . ,,220 Hairry Muggart . . . ,,232 Samie Pikshule . . . • „

Chapter I

IMnnj? (Bibb m$ out for tfje <mtll&. " Heely, heely, Tam, ye glaiket stirk — ye hinna on the hin shelvin o' the cairt. Fat hae ye been haiverin at, min ? That cauff saick '11 be tint owre the back door afore we win a mile fae hame. See 't yer belly-ban' be ticht aneuch noo. Woo, lassie ! Man, ye been makin' a hantle mair adee aboot blaikin that graith o' yours, an' kaimin the mear's tail, nor balancin' yer cairt, an' gettin' the things packit in till 't." " Sang, that 's nae vera easy deen, I can tell ye, wi' sic a mengyie o' them. Faur '11 aw pit the puckle girss to the mear ?" " Ou, fat 's the eese o' that lang stoups ahin, aw wud like tae ken ? Lay that bit bauk across, an' syne tak' the aul' pleuch ryn there, an' wup it ticht atween the stays ; we canna hae the beast's maet trachel't amo' their feet.

Foo muckle corn pat ye in ?" " Four lippies — gweed mizzour — will that dee ?" " We 'se lat it be deein. Is their trock a' in noo, aw T "\>> won er r " Nyod, seerly it is." It was in the latter part of June 1839, and Johnny Gibb was preparing to set out on his annual journey to the " Walls " at Macduff. He was, at the moment of the reader's introduction to him, employed, with the assistance B of his servant man, Tam Meerison, in yokin the cairt, preparatory to starting en route. The time was 4.30 A.M. Johnny Gibb was the tacksman of Gushetneuk, a two horse haudin on the property of Sir Simon Frissal of Glensnicker ; and he and his wife had spent the greater part of a very industrious lifetime on the place. Mrs. Gibb, in personal appearance, looked to be a woman somewhere approaching sixty, in an exceedingly good state of preservation.

Dumpy in figure, inclining slightly to obesity in condition, and with cheeks of the exact hue of a high-coloured apple, she was, nevertheless, understood to be far fae stoot ; she was, indeed, nervish, and apt to take drows. Hence this yearly resort to the Wells at Macduff, renowned for their restorative and invigorating virtues, had come to be a necessity for her. When Johnny Gibb had got the neeps doon, he took his carts to the mill-dam, had them backed into the water, where they were first well soaked and then scrubbed clean, after the defilement of driving out the neep muck. And then one of the first things, ordinarily, was to prepare for the usual journey to the Wells. In the district where Johnny Gibb lived, they believed in the Walls, old and young of them. Elderly people, male and female, went to Macduff to benefit by the bracing effects of sea-bathing, combined with a course more or less rigorous of sea water taken internally, followed up by the mineral water of Tarlair ; sturdy bairns were taken thither in troops for the cure of scabbit faces and sic like ; youths and maidens, whose complaints seemed often not of a deadly nature, went to the Walls as they could con trive to get ; Jamie Hogg went there for the benefit of his sair een ; Peter Tough to mitigate the rheumatics ; Mains of Yawal, when he had occasion to gae doun throu JOHNNY GIBB SETS OUT FOR THE WELLS. 3 on business, actually drove his square wooden-looking gig five miles out of his direct route in order that he might have the opportunity of merely once dookin at Macduff.

He lows't the gig and put his horse in to rest and feed, and I recollect distinctly seeing his tall gaunt figure in bottle-green surtout, as, despising ceremony, he strode away straight down from the fisher town, or rather the ropery, through hillocks of slippery ware and knablick stanes till he found water enough to dook in ; and a tedious walk he had, for the tide was out. The modus operandi of Mains's dookin was, that he first laid aside his hat and the bottle-green surtout, and, by the aid of a good handful of sea-ware scrubbed the upper part of his person. He then resumed the hat and surtout, and divesting him self of the remaining part of his garments, completed the operation in the like fashion. The farm servants even were fain to follow the prevailing custom ; and this, their belief, had not been discouraged by the physician in ordinary, the elder Dr. Drogemweal.

The doctor had a semi-military reputation, inasmuch as, when the first Bonaparte was disturbing people by threats of invading our Island and so on, the doctor had been attached to the local militia ; and he was wont to accompany the fencibles to Fraserburgh at the time of their annual drill. It was related of him how he would make the delinquent soldier drink a quart-bottle of sea water by way of punishment, believing that, while the thing had a penal effect, it also conserved the man's constitution. To his latest day, when a chap went to him for advice, he would prescribe twa unce o' salts, and, if the case were grave, would take out his lance and bleed him ; winding up by a general exhortation to go to the Wells the first opportunity. And thus, in the very year before that of which I am about to write, when Johnny Gibb went over to Pitmachie to fee a man, he encountered a stoot young folia, from the Upper Garioch, who would suit his purpose admirably well, but was determined to have sax poun ten of fee.

Johnny offered sax poun and a shilling of arles, after much threepin, as his ultimatum. They tuggit and ruggit to no purpose, till at last a compromise was reached, and the bargain concluded, on the chap throwing in this stipulation, " Weel, weel than, aw'll tak' the siller ; but ye maun gie 's an ouk at the Walls aifter the neep seed." Such was the repute of the Wells at Macduff in my day, but that is long ago ; and to me the modern Macduff is a place all but totally unknown. " Come awa', noo ; come awa', an' nae loss the mornin," continued Johnny Gibb, in an impatient tone — patience was not Johnny's prime virtue, — when he had satisfied himself that the cart was properly packed and adjusted. His words were addressed, in the first place, to Mrs. Gibb, who had been hoverin between the door and the kitchen for some time, one part of her thoughts resting on Johnny and the cart, and another on Jinse Deans, the servant girl, to whom she continued still to address another and another exhortation, to be sure " an' plot 'er milk dishes weel, in this byous weather ; an' get the kye pitten oot ear'," so that they might " get a caller mou'fu', an' win in afore they ran a-heat ;" to see that " the caufies warna negleckit," and give due heed to sundry other matters that concerned the proper ongoing of the place during the absence of its mistress.

Mrs. Gibb was dressed in a home-made grey wincey gown, a very precisely made up and very well starched close mutch (they were old-fashioned people the Gibbs), and a tartan plaid that had been in the family for at least a generation. She was assisted into the cart with due JOHNNY GIBB SETS OUT FOR THE WELLS. 5 ceremony, and with the help of a chair — Jinse, the trusty, bare-headed, bare-armed maid, handing up after her a reticule basket, crammed with provisions for consumption by the way, and a big blue umbrella. " Faur's the lassie noo ?" quoth Johnny. " Ou, I gart 'er rin roun' the neuk o' the wood a filie syne, to Smiddyward, to see 'at Eppie was up, and nae keep 's wytin." "That'll dee. Go on, Jess," and Johnny pulled the whip from the britchen as he spoke. " Ye may be leukin for me hame afore sindoon the morn's nicht."

"Weel, weel, tak' care o' yersel's," replied Tam Meeri son, as he turned leisurely away to complete his stable operations, and tie his points, before he and the servant loon, who was not yet out of bed, should call on Jinse for their pottage. I have not yet described Johnny Gibb's personal ap pearance, and, if the reader in the least cares to know, let me say that he was a short, thick-set man, or mannie rather, with broad, sun-tanned countenance, whereof the shaggy eyebrows, and somewhat large, but well-set mouth, were not the least prominent features. He was slightly bow-legged, which rather added to the stability of his appearance ; his dress was blue home-spun, crowned with a blue bonnet, for though Johnny was not a man who would altogether ignore the deference due to the conven tionalities of society, he averred that " that hats is a perfect mertyreesin to the heid, oonless them 't 's wearin' them daily day."

And so it came to pass that, except on the occasion of a funeral, or the Communion Sunday, Johnny's hat was seldom to be seen. And my private opinion is that, even on these occasions, it had been better left in its usual limbo. It was such an uncouthly shaped, brown, and hairy structure, that Johnny was hardly recognisable under it ; he certainly looked much better and more gatefarrin in his blue bonnet. As Johnny strode stoutly on alongside of his bonny bay mare, Jess, ilka blade o' grass tipped with its ain drap o' dew, and the orient sun just beginning to struggle through masses of grey cloud, and to gild the tree tops with occasional glimpses of his face, while the lark poured forth his song overhead in streams of rich melody, and a stray hare now and then hirpled up the dykeside — the scene was, undoubtedly, one fresh enough, and lovely enough to stir the blood of any but the most mouldy and ungrateful of human beings.

Round the corner of the wood from Gushetneuk, and a little beyond where a trotting burnie came down the hollow, there stood a small hamlet, consisting of about half-a-dozen unpretending edifices, scattered here and there, and including the smith's and shoemaker's places of abode and workshops, with an old-fashioned toon loan fringed by a few large ash and plane trees. At the top of the loan there was a very rustic-looking schoolhouse, and one or two small rape-thackit cottages. This was Smiddyward. By the roadside here, there stood waiting the arrival of the cart, Eppie Will, a widow 'oman, and friend of Mrs. Gibb, and her only son, Jock, a fite-heidet youth of fourteen or thereby, tender eyed, with a bandage round his head longitudinally, and tightly encased from head to foot in a suit of grey moleskin, garnished with abundance of brass buttons.

With them stood a girl of about Jock's age, dressed almost as quaintly as Jock, though with feminine tact, she had set off her primitive gingham frock for the occasion with a fresh nosegay pinned in the front. In point of physical features, too, she had the advantage of him. In contrast to Jock's rather flabby face and sheepish look, " the lassie," as Johnny and Mrs. Gibb - [ Pans JOHNNY GIBB SETS OUT FOR THE WELLS. 7 invariably called her, had a face which, though somewhat high in point of colour, possessed that regularity of feature and pleasantness of contour, which, in a different rank of life, would have been held to give promise of ultimately maturing into unmistakable womanly beauty. The lassie, whose name was Mary Howie, was the niece of Mrs. Gibb ; and being the daughter of parents whose poverty, if not their wills, could very well consent to spare her, she had become, in a sort, the adopted child of the Gibbs, who had no family of their own.

Johnny Gibb stopped Jess, got the whole hypothec into the cart ; and then, mounting the forebreist himself, started again, fairly under way for the Wells.

Chapter II

Œlje 3 our tup to tfje USizUss* If need were, I could describe the entire course of the journey from Gushetneuk to the Wells at Macduff. But perhaps to do so would be an undue trifling with a busy public, whose manner of travelling, for health and pleasure, as well as for business, is so different now. The railway system had not penetrated to Aberdeen even, then. Long strings of carriers' carts, jogging on night and day, each with its creel atop, and here and there a jolly carrier lying in the same half or wholly asleep, and perhaps, a more watchful mastiff under the axletree — these did the heavy and slow part of the business ; and then there was the mail coach, and the rattling Defiance ; and now and again such a vehicle as the Tallyho, for speedy conveyance of passengers, at the average rate of eight miles an hour, stoppages not always included ; also the " Flyboat," or " Swift Gig Boat," plying on the Aberdeenshire Canal, whose sideway draught, to the unfortunate horses that ran on the bank, with a laddie rider, dexterously joukin inward and downward at every villanously low bridge under which they went, was the extreme of cruelty to animals.

These things are not only obsolete, but almost com pletely forgotten, and the idlest, laziest man in the shire grumbles loudly at the unconscionably slow rate of those trains that do not run faster than twenty miles an hour. THE JOURNEY TO THE WELLS. 9 Such is the progress of the human race ; not to speak of the electric telegraph which threatens to land us in a material millennium before we have had time to abrogate the Ten Commandments, and do whatever else advanced minds may think needful to getting our moral equilibrium steadied at a point commensurate with the advance of natural science. However, I must return to Johnny Gibb, who, in taking a near cut at the outset, had guided his cart and its freight through one or two yetts, the bars of which he took painfully out, and put as painfully in again, and after gaining the high road, had received the salutations of sundry servant lads, early out either on their way to the peat moss, or from which they were already returning with loaded carts.

By and by, the voyagers had passed out of kent bounds — bounds kent to the junior passengers, that is to say, for to Johnny Gibb the whole way was as familiar as his oxter pouch ; and great was the delight of the lassie and Jock Will, as the scene changed and changed, and first one gentleman's seat, and then another, came in view. And Johnny would tell the name of each, and, in senten tious phrase, give a brief sketch of the owner. " Ay, ay, the fader o' 'im was a lang-heidit schaimin carle, an' weel fells the sin for that," was the remark in one case ; and in the next, " A braw hoose that, isnint ? But, an' ilka ane hed their nain, I wudna say nor the laird wud hae to forhoo 's bit bonny nest." " Eh, sirs : sic a weary wardle," said Eppie Will. " Fa cud 'a thocht it ?" " The tae half o' oor lairds is owre the lugs in a bag o' debt.

I wud hae them roupit oot at the door, and set to some eesefu trade." " Na, sirs," ejaculated Eppie ; and Mrs. Gibb put in a deprecatory " Hoot man !" " Stechin up a kwintra side wi' them, wi' their peer stinkin pride," pursued Johnny, " an' them nedder able to manage their awcres themsel's, nor can get ither fowk that can dee't for them. Ye're leukin, Jock; gin ever ye be a factor, loon, see an' leern the eese o' the grun, an' keep baith laird an' tenan' straucht i' the theets." " Eh, John Gibb ; for shame to the laddie," quoth Eppie Will. Jock himself gave a soft laugh, looked askance, and rubbed the chaff sack with the palm of his hand. And thus they moved on mile after mile. " Gi'e the bairns a bit piece noo, 'oman," continued Johnny, changing the theme, when they had journeyed for a matter of three hours ; " the like o' them 's aye yap, an' it '11 be twall o'clock ere we win doon to Turra to lowse."

" Hear ye that noo, Eppie ?" said Mrs. Gibb, affecting the jocular. " That's to lat 'imsel' get a gnap no !" " Aweel, sae be 't. It 's an ill servan' 't 's nae worth 's maet. Here 's a bit coblie o' fine clear caller water ; we '11 gi'e the beast a drink, an' lat 'er get a mou'fu' o' girss till we see fat 's i' that bit basketie." And so Jess was set to the grassy bank, with a wisp of half-dried hay strewn before her, and the bearing reins thrown loose. Mrs. Gibb produced an abundant store of cakes and butter ready spread, and the cakes placed face to face, with several kneevlicks of tempting blue cheese. The party regaled themselves sumptuously on their wholesome fare, and drank of the caller water to which Jess had been treated. And, verily, he hath but an imperfect acquaintance with the true philosophy of locomotion, who shall affect to sneer at the mode in which Johnny Gibb and his charge journeyed.

Grant but fitting company, favourable THE JOURNEY TO THE WELLS. 11 weather, and a fair allowance of fresh straw, and the art of man hath not yet devised a more rational and truly enjoyable method of "voyaging" by land than by the use of a common cart, drawn by a willing and intelligent cart horse. Of this truth all practised visitors to the Wells had an intuitive perception ; if reliance on it was not, indeed, essential to the integrity of their belief in the entire institution. And how well they could furnish out the cart for the comfortable accommodation and suste nance of those who journeyed therein ! Time would fail me to speak of the compendious outfit they could stow away within and about the vehicle. I recollect well seeing one arrival of a large family, the head of which had boxed up the sides of his cart with rough boards till he had achieved a kind of two storeys, the ground floor containing sundry kitchen utensils, and the upper one the live passengers ; and he had actually built in a fixed stair in the hind part of the cart !

But this was an extreme experiment, and the usual mode was simply to pack well on the basis ofthe cart itself. Resuming their journey, the party plodded on through the romantic den of Gask, and down on the handsome little town of Turriff, with its bleachfield along the quiet burn side, and its common herd, who touted his horn as he wended along, and gradually gathered out the town's kine to feed on the pleasant haughs adjoining. At Turriff Johnny lows't the mare, and put up for refreshment at the Black Bull Inn, where he and the hostler discussed a gill of the national liquor, very amicably, between them. As the gentlest drink for the ladies, he called a bottle of mulled porter ; and, leaving them to sip and sip of the same in the little back parlour of the Inn, with its sanded floor and crockery-shop statuary, he sallied forth to exhibit the lions of the place to the youngsters, not omitting to point out to them the Toon's Hoose, and the Cross, the geographical position of which he took care to explain, as equally distant from Aberdeen and Elgin.

As saith the popular distich — " Choose ye, choise ye, at the Cross o' Turra, Either gang to Aberdeen, or Elgin o' Moray." That was a delightsome road down by Knockiemill, and along the pleasant banks of the Deveron, in full view of Forglen House, Denlugas, and so forth. This Johnny Gibb knew, and he preferred it to the turnpike road accordingly. I do not know that he escaped a toll by adopting this route, for there was a passport system in force in those days, whereby the man who went through the Turriff bar was armed with a ticket that gave him the privilege of passing the next bar without pecuniary mulct. However that may be, the water-side road was chosen as the more picturesque — a most legitimate consideration surely with those who travelled for health and pleasure. Up they came again near by Eden, along the turnpike road for some miles, and again diverging to the right, on Johnny and his cart went under the westering sun, till the hill-top was reached ; when, lo ! there lay before them the calm blue sea, with slight ripples of white here and there, and here and there on its bosom a brave schooner scudding along the Firth, with fully spread canvas, or a boat, with brown sail newly hoisted, speeding away from the harbour mouth ; wherein lay sundry craft, the top-masts of which were fully visible as the eye wandered inward over the irregular field of red-tiled roofs, and settled on the vista afforded by the long steep street leading down to the shore.

" Eh, that 's the sea !" exclaimed the lassie in a rapture of admiration. Heliogravure et imp A. Durand Pant THE JOURNEY TO THE WELLS. 13 " Is't the sea, mither ?" said Jock, not quite assured. "It's surely nae that colour ?" " 'Deed an' it 's jist the saut sea, whaur mony ane 's gotten a watery shrood." " Divnin ye see the ships sailin on 't ?" said the lassie. " Weel, they 're nae vera muckle anes," replied Jock. " But they 're maybe hyne awa'." " Ho ! but a muckle ship sud hae three masts," said Jock, desirous of vindicating his nautical knowledge, "an' nane o' that has mair nor twa." " Will we get a sail on 't ? " was the lassie's next question. " 'Serve 's, lassie, ye little ken fat ye 're speakin o'. Lat alane the fear o' the boat coupin an' you gyaun to the boddom o' the sea, ye wud seen be as deid 's a door nail wi' sea-sickness."

And Mrs. Gibb, as a warn ing to the young people to beware of trusting themselves on the bosom of the heaving deep, related how, long ago, when Johnny and she were young, and Johnny headstrong and reckless, he would have himself and his wife conveyed from Macduff to Banff by water ; and what of peril and fright the voyage involved, the boat rising up and down on its very ends, and leaning over till the spray actually skirpit her face, while, to crown all, the monster of a skipper sat coolly at his helm laughing at her terror. As this crack went on in the cart, Johnny stumped along by Jess's head, scanning the countenances of those he met, in search of any stray kent face. By and by his eye caught a formal inscription, in the usual street-corner style, "Duff Street." "Fat whigmaleerie 's this noo?" quoth Johnny.

" The fowk o' this place wud ca' their vera tykes aifter the Yerl o' Fife. This is fat we hed ees't to ca the 'Main Street' — Duff Street; fat sorra ither." JOHNNY GIBB OF GUSHETNEUK. 14 The explanation was that, since Johnny's last journey to the Wells, the good people of Macduff had adopted the modern practice of systematically naming and number ing their streets. It was then in the region of Market Street, I do not say that it was in that particular thorough fare itself, that Johnny found a lodging-house for his charge. Their landlord was Donald M'Craw, a blind old pensioner, who had followed the gallant Abercromby into Egypt, and whose industrious helpmeet occupied her leisure time in keeping a dame's school in the kitchen of their habitation. And while she energetically pursued her pedagogical duties among her noisy charge, the blind Donald was wont to sit in his arm chair in the corner, a not uninterested listener to what was going on, and always ready at an emergency to come in full shout with his military word of command to enforce obedience or silence, as the case might be. Si a, -c 5 a < £ > Et