tell ye
what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. _Come up oot o' there, boy;
ye're lickin' that sugar again_! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till,
when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. _Hae ye
no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune in five meenits, I'll knock
the heid aff ye_!"

The new minister came. He was placed with a great gathering of the
clans. The Kirk in the Vennel was full to overflowing the night of his
first sermon. Fergus Teeman 'was there with his notebook, and before the
close of the service more than two pages were filled with the measure
of the new minister's iniquity. Then, on the Tuesday after, young Duncan
Stewart, seeking to know all his office-bearers, entered like the
innocentest of flies the plate-glass-fronted shop where Fergus Teeman
lay in wait. There and then, before half a score of interested
customers, the elder gave the young minister "sic a through-pittin' as
he never gat in his life afore." This was the elder's own story, but the
popular opinion was clearly on the side of the minister. It had to be
latent opinion, however, for the names of most of the congregation stood
in the big books in Fergus Teeman's shop.

The minister commended himself to his Maker, and went about his own
proper business. Every Sabbath, after the sermon, often also before the
service, Fergus Teeman was on hand to say his word of reproof to the
young minister, to interject the sneering word which, like the poison of
asps, turned sweet to bitter. Had Duncan Stewart been older or wiser, he
would have showed him to the door. Unfortunately he was just a simple,
honest, well-meaning lad from college, trying to do his duty in the Kirk
in the Vennel so far as he knew it.

There was an interval of some months before the minister could bring
himself to visit again the shop and house of his critical elder. This
time he thought that he would try the other door. As yet he had only
paid his respects at a distance to Mrs. Teeman. It seemed as if they had
avoided each other. He was shown into a room in which a canary was
swinging in the window, and a copy of Handel's _Messiah_ lay on the open
piano. This was unlike the account he had heard of Mrs. Teeman. There
was a merry voice on the stairs, which said clearly in girlish tones--

"Do go and make yourself decent, father; and then if you are good you
may come in and see the minister!"

Duncan Stewart said to himself that something had happ