oman, and asked grimly if he remembered that he had a
wife. Twenty were his years when he came to Thrums, and on the very
first Sabbath he knocked a board out of the pulpit. Before beginning
his trial sermon he handed down the big Bible to the precentor, to give
his arms freer swing. The congregation, trembling with exhilaration,
probed his meaning. Not a square inch of paper, they saw, could be
concealed there. Mr. Dishart had scarcely any hope for the Auld
Lichts; he had none for any other denomination. Davit Lunan got behind
his handkerchief to think for a moment, and the minister was on him
like a tiger. The call was unanimous. Davit proposed him.

Every few years, as one might say, the Auld Licht kirk gave way and
burled its minister. The congregation turned their empty pockets
inside out, and the minister departed in a farmer's cart. The scene
was not an amusing one to those who looked on at it. To the Auld
Lichts was then the humiliation of seeing their pulpit "supplied" on
alternate Sabbaths by itinerant probationers or stickit ministers.
When they were not starving themselves to support a pastor the Auld
Lichts were saving up for a stipend. They retired with compressed lips
to their looms, and weaved and weaved till they weaved another
minister. Without the grief of parting with one minister there could
not have been the transport of choosing another. To have had a pastor
always might have made them vainglorious.

They were seldom longer than twelve months in making a selection, and
in their haste they would have passed over Mr. Dishart and mated with a
monster. Many years have elapsed since Providence flung Mr. Watts out
of the Auld Licht kirk. Mr. Watts was a probationer who was tried
before Mr. Dishart, and, though not so young as might have been wished,
he found favour in many eyes. "Sluggard in the laft, awake!" he cried
to Bell Whamond, who had forgotten herself, and it was felt that there
must be good stuff in him. A breeze from Heaven exposed him on
Communion Sabbath.

On the evening of this solemn day the door of the Auld Licht kirk was
sometimes locked, and the congregation repaired, Bible in hand, to the
commonty. They had a right to this common on the Communion Sabbath,
but only took advantage of it when it was believed that more persons
intended witnessing the evening service than the kirk would hold. On
this day the attendance was always very great.

It was the Covenanters