ill. My cousin is a draper in the
High Street. He could be a draper nowhere else in Cairn Edward, indeed;
for nobody buys anything but in the High Street.

"Look, Saunders, there he is, gaun up the far side o' the causeway."

I looked out and saw a long-legged man in grey clothes going very fast,
but no minister. I said to my cousin that the minister had surely gone
into the "Blue Bell," which was not well becoming in a minister.

"Man, Saunders, where's yer een?--you that pretends to read Tammas
Carlyle. D' ye think that the black coat mak's a minister? I micht hae a
minister in the window gin it did!" said he, glancing at the
disjaskit-looking wood figure he had bought at a sale of bankrupt stock
in Glasgow, with "THIS STYLE OF SUIT, L2, 10s." printed on the breast of
it. The lay figure was a new thing in Cairn Edward, and hardly counted
to be in keeping with the respect for the second commandment which a
deacon in the Kirk of the Martyrs ought to cultivate. The laddies used
to send greenhorns into the shop for a "penny peep o' Deacon M'Quhirr's
idol!" But I always maintained that, whatever command the image might
break, it certainly did not break the second; for it was like nothing in
the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, nor (so far as I kenned) in
the waters under the earth. But my cousin said--

"Maybes no'; but it cost me three pound, and in my shop it'll stand till
it has payed itsel'!" Which gives it a long lifetime in the little
shop-window in the High Street.

This was my first sight of Angus Stark, the new minister of Martyrs'
Kirk in Cairn Edward.

"He carries things wi' a high hand," said Andrew M'Quhirr, my cousin.

"That's the man ye need at the Martyrs' Kirk," said I; "ye've been
spoiled owre lang wi' unstable Reubens that could in nowise excel."

"Weel, we're fixed noo, rarely. I may say that I mentioned his wearin'
knickerbockers to him when he first cam', thinkin' that as a young man
he micht no' ken the prejudices o' the pairish."

"And what said he, Andrew?" I asked. "Was he pitten aboot?"

"Wha? Him! Na, no' a hair. He juist said, in his heartsome, joky way,
'I'm no' in the habit o' consulting my congregation how I shall dress
myself; but if you, Mr. M'Quhirr, will supply me with a black broadcloth
suit free of charge, I'll see aboot wearin' it!' says he. So I said nae
mair.

"But did you hear what Jess Loan, the scaffie's wife, said to him when
he gaed in to bapteeze her bairn w