arrival, dealing with the matter
"proleptically," and the court saw in the very word another proof of
the clerk's masterly official genius. It was he also--expressing the
mind of the Presbytery--who proposed that the Court should send
Carmichael as a commissioner to the General Assembly in the first year
of his ministry, and took occasion to remark that Mr. Carmichael,
according to "reliable information at his disposal," was rendering
important service to the Free Church in his sphere at Drumtochty.
Carmichael was very happy in those days, and was so petted by his
ecclesiastical superiors that he never missed a meeting of court, where
he either sat in a demure silence, which commended him greatly to the
old men, or conversed with his friends on a back bench about general
affairs.

It gave him, therefore, a shock to sit with his brethren in the month
of June--when the walk through the woods had been a joy, and Muirtown
lay at her fairest, and the sunshine filled the court-room, and every
man had a summer air, and Doctor Dowbiggin actually wore a rose in his
coat--and to discover that he himself was sick of his old friends, of
his work, of his people, of himself. The reasons were obvious. Was it
not a sin that thirty Christian men should be cooped up in a room
passing schedules when the summer was young and fresh upon the land?
Could any one of the Rabbi's boys sit in that room and see his
accustomed place--a corner next the wall on a back seat--empty, and not
be cast down? Besides, does not a minister's year begin in September
and end in July, and before it closes is not the minister at his
lowest, having given away himself for eleven months? "One begins to
weary for a rest," he whispered to Kincairney, and that worthy man
explained that he and his wife had been planning their triennial
holiday, and hoped to have a fortnight in Carnoustie. Carmichael
realised his hypocrisy in that instant, for he knew perfectly that he
had lost touch with life because of a hopeless love, and a proud face
he had not seen a year ago. He flung himself out of the court with
such impatience that the clerk stayed his hand in the midst of the
sacred words _pro re nata_, and Kincairney mentioned to his wife in the
evening that Carmichael had never got over Doctor Saunderson's death.

Carmichael wandered up one of the meadows which are the glory of
Muirtown, and sat down by the queen of Scottish rivers, which runs deep
and swift, clean a