ould not
look forward to with equanimity. It had been agreed upon between us,
that, though by the interference of our good friend the Advocate, we had
been married in the old private chapel attached to the Deanery, we
should defer the christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor"
could perform the office--there being, of course, but one "Doctor" for
all Eden Valley people--Doctor Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the
Kirk of Scotland.

I had long been under reproach for my slackness in this matter.
Inuendoes were mixed with odious comparisons upon Mary Lyon's tongue.
If her daughter had only married a Cameronian, the bairn would have been
baptized within seven days! Never had she seen an unchristened bairn so
long about a house! But for them that sit at ease in an Erastian
Zion--she referred to my father, who was not only precentor but also
session-clerk, and could by no means be said to sit at ease--she
supposed anything was good enough. It was different in her young days.
She, at least, had been properly brought up.

Finally, however, I went and put the case to the Doctor. He was ready to
come up to Heathknowes for the baptism. After his usual protest that
according to rule it ought to be performed in sight of all the
congregation, he accepted the good reason that my grandfather and
grandmother, being ardent Cameronians, could not in that case be
present. The Doctor had, of course, anticipated this objection. For he
knew and respected the "kind of people" reared by four generations of
"Societies," and often (in private) held them up as ensamples to his own
flock.

So to Heathknowes, the house of the Cameronian elder, there came, with
all befitting solemnity, Doctor Gillespie, ex-Moderator of the Kirk of
Scotland. Stately he stepped up the little loaning, followed by his
session, their clerk, my father at their head. At the sight of the
Doctor arrayed in gown and bands, his white hair falling on his neck and
tied with a black ribbon, the whole family of us instinctively uncovered
and stood bareheaded. My grandfather had gone down to the foot of the
little avenue to open the gate for the minister. The Doctor smilingly
invited him to walk by his side, but William Lyon had gravely shaken his
head and said, "I thank you, Doctor, but to-day, if you will grant me
the privilege, I will walk with my brethren, the other elders of the
Kirk of God."

And so he did, and as they came within sight of the house I took Irma