l things are like guid--they
baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a time; and there were folk even then
that said the Lord had left the college professors to their ain devices,
an' the lads that went to study wi' them wad hae done mair and better
sittin' in a peat-bog, like their forbears of the persecution, wi' a
Bible under their oxter and a speerit o' prayer in their heart. There
was nae doubt, onyway, but that Mr. Soulis had been ower lang at the
college. He was careful and troubled for mony things besides the ae
thing needful. He had a feck o' books wi' him--mair than had ever been
seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the carrier had wi'
them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the Deil's Hag between
this and Kilmackerlie. They were books o' divinity, to be sure, or so
they ca'd them; but the serious were o' opinion there was little service
for sae mony, when the hail o' God's Word would gang in the neuk of a
plaid. Then he wad sit half the day and half the nicht forbye, which was
scant decent--writin', nae less; and first, they were feared he wad read
his sermons; and syne it proved he was writin' a book himsel', which was
surely no fittin' for ane of his years an' sma' experience.

Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse for
him an' see to his bit denners; and he was recommended to an auld
limmer--Janet M'Clour, they ca'd her--and sae far left to himsel' as to
be ower persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for Janet
was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba'weary. Lang or that, she
had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadnae come forrit {140} for maybe
thretty year; and bairns had seen her mumblin' to hersel' up on Key's
Loan in the gloamin', whilk was an unco time an' place for a God-fearin'
woman. Howsoever, it was the laird himsel' that had first tauld the
minister o' Janet; and in thae days he wad have gane a far gate to
pleesure the laird. When folk tauld him that Janet was sib to the deil,
it was a' superstition by his way of it; an' when they cast up the Bible
to him an' the witch of Endor, he wad threep it doun their thrapples that
thir days were a' gane by, and the deil was mercifully restrained.

Weel, when it got about the clachan that Janet M'Clour was to be servant
at the manse, the folk were fair mad wi' her an' him thegether; and some
o' the guidwives had nae better to dae than get round her door cheeks and
chairge her wi' a' th