in a general retribution in kind.

Andrew Truffey was crying bitterly. His sobs were heard through the
church, and some took them for the sobs of Murdoch Malison, who had
shrunk into the pulpit like a snail into its shell, so that not an atom
of his form was to be seen except from the side-galleries. The maiden
daughter of the late schoolmaster gave a shriek, and went into a small
fit; after which an awful, quite sepulchral silence reigned for a few
moments, broken only by those quivering sobs from Truffey, whom his
grandfather was feebly and ineffectually shaking.

At length the precentor, George Macwha, who had for some time been
turning over the leaves of his psalm-book, came to the rescue. He rose
in the lectern and gave out _The hundred and fifty-first psalm_. The
congregation could only find a hundred and fifty, and took the last of
the psalms for the one meant. But George, either from old spite against
the tormentor of boys and girls, or from mere coincidence--he never
revealed which--had chosen in reality a part of the _fifty-first_
psalm.

"The hunner an' fifty-first psalm," repeated George, "from the fifteent
verse. An' syne we'll gang hame.

My closed lips, O Lord, by thee,
Let them be opened."

As soon as the singing was over, George left the desk, and the
congregation following his example, went straggling out of the church,
and home, to wait with doubtful patience for the broth which as yet
could taste only of onions and the stone that scoured the pot.

As soon as the sounds of retiring footsteps were heard no more in the
great echoing church, uprose, like one of Dante's damned out of a
torture-tomb, the form of Murdoch Malison, above the edge of the
pulpit. With face livid as that of a corpse, he gave a scared look
around, and not seeing little Truffey concealed behind one of the
pillars, concluded the place empty, and half crawled, half tumbled down
the stair to the vestry, where the sexton was waiting him. It did not
restore his lost composure to discover, in searching for his
handkerchief, that the encumbrance of the gown had made him put his
hand ten times into the same pocket, instead of five times into each,
and that in the other his manuscript lay as safe as it had been
useless.

But he took his gown off very quietly, put on his coat and forgot the
bands, bade the old sexton a gentle _good day_, and stole away home
through the streets. He had wanted to get out, and now he wanted t