e disposition, as well as the acquired habits of
politeness which he had learned in the good society that frequented Lord
Bidmore's mansion. He not only indulged in neglect of dress and
appearance, and all those ungainly tricks which men are apt to acquire
by living very much alone, but besides, and especially, he became
probably the most abstracted and absent man of a profession peculiarly
liable to cherish such habits. No man fell so regularly into the painful
dilemma of mistaking, or, in Scottish phrase, _miskenning_, the person
he spoke to, or more frequently enquired of an old maid for her
husband, of a childless wife about her young people, of the distressed
widower for the spouse at whose funeral he himself had assisted but a
fortnight before; and none was ever more familiar with strangers whom he
had never seen, or seemed more estranged from those who had a title to
think themselves well known to him. The worthy man perpetually
confounded sex, age, and calling; and when a blind beggar extended his
hand for charity, he has been known to return the civility by taking off
his hat, making a low bow, and hoping his worship was well.

Among his brethren, Mr. Cargill alternately commanded respect by the
depth of his erudition, and gave occasion to laughter from his odd
peculiarities. On the latter occasions he used abruptly to withdraw from
the ridicule he had provoked; for notwithstanding the general mildness
of his character, his solitary habits had engendered a testy impatience
of contradiction, and a keener sense of pain arising from the satire of
others, than was natural to his unassuming disposition. As for his
parishioners, they enjoyed, as may reasonably be supposed, many a hearty
laugh at their pastor's expense, and were sometimes, as Mrs. Dods
hinted, more astonished than edified by his learning; for in pursuing a
point of biblical criticism, he did not altogether remember that he was
addressing a popular and unlearned assembly, not delivering a _concio ad
clerum_--a mistake, not arising from any conceit of his learning, or
wish to display it, but from the same absence of mind which induced an
excellent divine, when preaching before a party of criminals condemned
to death, to break off by promising the wretches, who were to suffer
next morning, "the rest of the discourse at the first proper
opportunity." But all the neighbourhood acknowledged Mr. Cargill's
serious and devout discharge of his ministerial duties