ll, sending him that withstood me over
on his back against the wall. Speaking high and clear as I do to my
first class, I said--

"I am Dominie Grier, parish schoolmaster of the parish of Rowantree,
madam, and I have come post-haste from that place to speak to her
ladyship."

Then I heard a further commotion, as of one shifting furniture, and
another voice that spoke rapidly from an inner chamber.

In a little while there came one down the stair and called me to follow.
So forthwith I was shown into a room where a lady in a flowered
dressing-gown was sitting up in bed eating some fine kind of porridge
and cream out of a silver platter.

"Dominie Grier!" said the lady pleasantly, affecting the vulgar dialect,
"what has brocht ye so far from home? Have the bairns barred ye oot o'
the schule?"

"Na, my lady," I replied, with my best bow; "I come to you in mickle
fear lest the grace of God be barred out of the poor parish of
Rowantree."

So I opened out to her the whole state of the case; and though at first
she seemed to be amused rather than edified, she gave me her promise
that young William Campbell, who was presently assistant to the great
Dr. Shirmers, of St. John's in the city, should get the kirk of
Rowantree. He was not a drop's blood to me, though him and my wife were
far-out friends, so that it was not as if I had been asking anything for
myself. Yet I thanked her ladyship warmly for her promise in the name of
all the godly in the parish of Rowantree, and warned her at the same
time of the regardless clan that were seeking to abuse her good-nature.
But I need not have troubled, for I was but at the door and Crophead
sulkily showing me out, when whom should I meet fair in the teeth but
Bauldy Todd and all his fighting tail!

Never were men more taken aback. They stopped dead where they were, when
they saw me; and Bauldy, who had one hand in the air, having been laying
down the law, as was usual with him, kept it there stiff as if he had
been frozen where he stood.

Now I never let on that I saw any of them, but went by them with my
briskest town step and my head in the air, whistling like a lintie--

"The Campbells are coming, aha! aha!
The Campbells are coming, aha! aha!
The Campbells are coming to bonnie Loch Leven!
The Campbells are coming, aha! aha!"

"Deil burn me," cried Bauldy Todd, "but the Dominie has done us!"

"'Deed, he was like to do that ony gate," said Mickie Andrew. "We may a