as
always a ready man, introduced something into his sermon that day about
women's dress, which every one hoped Chirsty Lundy, the lassie in
question, would remember. Nevertheless, the minister sometimes came to
a sudden stop himself when passing from the vestry to the pulpit. The
passage being narrow, his rigging would catch in a pew as he sailed
down the aisle. Even then, however, Mr. Dishart remembered that he was
not as other men.

White is not a religious colour, and the walls of the kirk were of a
dull grey. A cushion was allowed to the manse pew, but merely as a
symbol of office, and this was the only pew in the church that had a
door. It was and is the pew nearest to the pulpit on the minister's
right, and one day it contained a bonnet which Mr. Dishart's
predecessor preached at for one hour and ten minutes. From the pulpit,
which was swaddled in black, the minister had a fine sweep of all the
congregation except those in the back pews downstairs, who were lost in
the shadow of the laft. Here sat Whinny Webster, so called because,
having an inexplicable passion against them, he devoted his life to the
extermination of whins. Whinny for years ate peppermint lozenges with
impunity in his back seat, safe in the certainty that the minister,
however much he might try, could not possibly see him. But his day
came. One afternoon the kirk smelt of peppermints, and Mr. Dishart
could rebuke no one, for the defaulter was not in sight. Whinny's
cheek was working up and down in quiet enjoyment of its lozenge, when
he started, noticing that the preaching had stopped. Then he heard a
sepulchral voice say "Charles Webster!" Whinny's eyes turned to the
pulpit, only part of which was visible to him, and to his horror they
encountered the minister's head coming down the stairs. This took
place after I had ceased to attend the Auld Licht kirk regularly; but I
am told that as Whinny gave one wild scream the peppermint dropped from
his mouth. The minister had got him by leaning over the pulpit door
until, had he given himself only another inch, his feet would have gone
into the air. As for Whinny he became a Godfearing man.

The most uncanny thing about the kirk was the precentor's box beneath
the pulpit. Three Auld Licht ministers I have known, but I can only
conceive one precentor. Lang Tammas's box was much too small for him.
Since his disappearance from Thrums I believe they have paid him the
compliment of enl