The Kers
afterwards observed that they always suspected that "Auld Wullie"
(referring to the Prime Minister of the time) studied the reports of the
Howpaslet school-board proceedings in the _Bordershire Advertiser_.
Indeed, Saunders Ker was known to post one to him every week. So they
all knew where the closure came from.

This is how the strongly Auld Kirk parish of Howpaslet came to have a
Dissenting teacher in the person of Duncan Rowallan, a young man of
great ability, who had just taken a degree at college after passing
through Moray House (an ancient ducal palace where excellent dominies
are manufactured), at a time when such a double qualification was much
less common than it is now.

Duncan Rowallan was admitted by all to be the best man for the position.
It was, indeed, a wonder that one who had been so brilliant at college,
should apply for so quiet a place as the mastership of the school of
Howpaslet. But it was said that Duncan Rowallan came to Howpaslet to
study. And study he did. In one way he was rather a disappointment to
the Kers, and even to his proposer and seconder. He was not bellicose
and he was not political; but, on the other hand, he did his work
soundly and thoroughly, and obtained wondrous reports written in the
official hand of H.M. Inspector, and signed with a flourish like the
tail of a kite. But he shrank from the more active forms of
partisanship, and devoted himself to his books.

Yet even in Howpaslet his life was not to be a peaceful one.

The Reverend Doctor Hutchison arose from his bed of sickness with the
most fixed of determinations to make it hot for the new dominie. When he
lay near the gate of death he had seen a vision, and heaven had been
plain to him. He had observed, among other things, that there was but
one establishment there, a uniform government in the church triumphant.
He took this as a sign that there should be only one on earth. He
understood the secession of the fallen angels referred to by Milton to
be a type of the Disruption. He made a note of this upon his cuff at the
time, resolving to develop it in a later sermon. Then, on rising, he
proceeded at once to act upon it by making the young dominie's life a
burden to him.

Duncan Rowallan found himself hampered on every hand. He was refused
material for the conduct of his school. The new schoolhouse was only
built because the Inspector wrote to the board that the grant would be
withheld till the alterations