chison
had not been in his place at the top of his pew, where his dignified
and intelligent head appeared with the isolated significance of a strong
individuality. People looked twice at John Murchison in a crowd; so did
his own children at home. Hearing some discussion of the selection of a
premier, Alec, looking earnestly at him once said, "Why don't they tell
Father to be it?" The young minister looked twice at him that morning
of the trial sermon, and asked afterward who he was. A Scotchman, Mr
Drummond was told, not very long from the old country, who had bought
the Playfair business on Main Street, and settled in the "Plummer
Place," which already had a quarter of a century's standing in the
annals of the town. The Playfair business was a respectable business to
buy; the Plummer Place, though it stood in an unfashionable outskirt,
was a respectable place to settle in; and the minister, in casting his
lot in Elgin, envisaged John Murchison as part of it, thought of him
confidently as a "dependance," saw him among the future elders and
office-bearers of the congregation, a man who would be punctual with his
pew-rent, sage in his judgements, and whose views upon church attendance
would be extended to his family.

So the two came, contemporaries, to add their labour and their lives
to the building of this little outpost of Empire. It was the frankest
transfer, without thought of return; they were there to spend and be
spent within the circumference of the spot they had chosen, with no
ambition beyond. In the course of nature, even their bones and their
memories would enter into the fabric. The new country filled their eyes;
the new town was their opportunity, its destiny their fate. They were
altogether occupied with its affairs, and the affairs of the growing
Dominion, yet obscure in the heart of each of them ran the undercurrent
of the old allegiance. They had gone the length of their tether, but the
tether was always there. Thus, before a congregation that always stood
in the early days, had the minister every Sunday morning for thirty
years besought the Almighty, with ardour and humility, on behalf of the
Royal Family. It came in the long prayer, about the middle. Not in the
perfunctory words of a ritual, but in the language of his choice, which
varied according to what he believed to be the spiritual needs of the
reigning House, and was at one period, touching certain of its members,
though respectful, extremely