th or . . . hate the preacher," and at the
vestry door the Rabbi looked wistfully at Carmichael.

During the interval the lad had been ill at ease, suspecting from the
Rabbi's manner at the Table, and the solemnity of his address, that he
disapproved of the action sermon, but he did not for a moment imagine
that the situation was serious. It is one of the disabilities of
good-natured and emotional people, without much deepness of earth, to
belittle the convictions and resolutions of strong natures, and to
suppose that they can be talked away by a few pleasant, coaxing words.

The Rabbi had often yielded to Carmichael and his other boys in the
ordinary affairs of life--in meat and drink and clothing, even unto the
continuance of his snuffing. He had been most manageable and
pliable--as a child in their hands--and so Carmichael was quite
confident that he could make matters right with the old man about a
question of doctrine as easily as about the duty of a midday meal.
Certain bright and superficial people will only learn by some solitary
experience that faith is reserved in friendship, and that the most
heroic souls are those which count all things loss--even the smile of
those they love--for the eternal. For a moment Carmichael was shaken
as if a new Rabbi were before him; then he remembered the study of
Kilbogie and all things that had happened therein, and his spirits rose.

"How dare you suggest such wickedness, Rabbi, that any of us should
ever criticise or complain of anything you say? Whatever you give us
will be right, and do us good, and in the evening you will tell me all
I said wrong."

Saunderson looked at Carmichael for ten seconds as one who has not been
understood, and sighed. Then he went down the kirk after the beadle,
and the people marked how he walked like a man who was afraid he might
fall, and, turning a corner, he supported himself on the end of a pew.
As he crept up the pulpit stairs Elspeth gave James a look, and,
although well accustomed to the slowness of his understanding, was
amazed that he did not catch the point. Even a man might have seen
that this was not the same minister that came in to the Sacrament with
hope in his very step.

"A 'm no here tae say 'that a' kent what wes comin''"--Elspeth, like
all experts, was strictly truthful--"for the like o' that wes never
heard in Drumtochty, and noo that Doctor Saunderson is awa, will never
be heard again in Scotland. A' jaloused t