t the wind to snuff with greater comfort, he was
not careful to resume his original position, but continued cheerfully
in the new direction. This weakness was so well known that the school
bairns would watch till he had started, and stand in a row on the road
to block his progress. Then there would be a parley, which would end
in the Rabbi capitulating and rewarding the children with peppermints,
whereupon they would see him fairly off again and go on their
way--often looking back to see that he was safe, and somehow loving him
all the more for his strange ways. So much indeed was the Rabbi
beloved that a Pitscowrie laddie, who described Saunderson freely as a
"daftie" to Mains' grandson, did not see clearly for a week, and never
recovered his lost front tooth.

"That," remarked young Mains, "'ll learn Pitscowrie tae set up
impidence aboot the minister."

"There is no doubt, that I snuffed--it was at Claypots steading--but
there was no wind that I should turn. This is very remarkable, John,
and . . . disconcerting.

"These humiliations are doubtless a lesson," resumed the Rabbi as they
hurried to Mains, "and a rebuke. Snuffing is in no sense a necessity,
and I have long recognised that the habit requires to be
restricted--very carefully restricted. For some time I have had fixed
times--once in the forenoon, once in the afternoon, and again in the
evening. Had I restrained myself till my work was over and I had
returned home this misadventure would not have occurred, whereby I have
been hindered and the people will have been kept waiting for their
spiritual food.

"It is exactly twenty years to-night since I began this meeting in
Mains," the Rabbi explained to Carmichael, "and I have had great
pleasure in it and some profit. My subject has been the Epistle to the
Romans, and by the goodness of God we are approaching the last
chapters. The salutations will take about a year or so; Rufus, chosen
in the Lord, will need careful treatment; and then I thought, if I were
spared, of giving another year to a brief review of the leading points
of doctrine; eh?"

Carmichael indicated that the family at Mains would almost expect
something of the sort, and inquired whether there might not be a few
passages requiring separate treatment at fuller length than was
possible in this hurried commentary.

"Quite so, John, quite so; no one is more bitterly conscious of the
defects of this exposition than myself--meagre and su