y country in the world. He stamped,
he sawed the air, he used metaphors and similes and hyperboles in a
vain endeavour to give some idea of her glory. He eulogized her
commerce, her statesmen, her Queen. He brought up her infantry, he
charged with her cavalry, he poured upon his hearers her heavy
artillery. And at last, backed by the whole great English navy, he
swept every other country off the face of the globe and retired to his
seat behind the stove, the Wellington of one last, grand, oratorical
Waterloo.

Mr. Egerton reached over and, catching the distracted chairman by the
sleeve, shouted above the din that if he wanted to avoid further
trouble he must either close the meeting or make the choir sing
something, and be quick about it. The chairman arose and strove to
make his voice heard above the noise, but the chirping of a sparrow in
a tempest would have been as effectual.

For down at the other end of the church a most alarming tumult was in
progress. Cries of "Order!" and "Sit down!" were mingled with "Go on,
Catchach; speak up! Scotland forever!" and equally ominous sounds.

Through the struggling crowd a man was fighting his way fiercely to the
platform.

"Order! Order!" shrieked the chairman. But the disorderly person had
reached the platform, his red whiskers flying, his blue eyes blazing,
and his big fists brandishing threateningly above his head. It was
Catchach! The schoolmaster sat down very discreetly and hastily. It
was Catchach, worked up to a white fury over the insult to
Scotland--Scotland, the flower of creation, to be neglected, while the
scum of the earth was being exalted!

"Mister Chairman, Ladies an' Chentlemen!" he shouted, "I will not pe a
public spoke, as you will pe knowing, put--" he went off into a storm
of Gaelic, but suddenly checked himself, at the roars of laughter from
his Sassenach enemies. The ridicule saved him--and Scotland. He had
been incoherent with rage, but that laugh steadied him, and settled him
into a cold fury. He would make a speech for the glory of Scotland
now, if they pulled the church down about his ears. And he did it
well, too. England was forgotten, Ireland was in oblivion, Canada did
not exist. But Scotland! the land of the Heather and the Thistle!
Catchach grew wildly poetic over her. The noise of English groans and
Irish jeers and Scottish applause was so great that much of the
effusion was lost, but in the intervals of the uproar co