Now and again, only, one of the older folk would
warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the
minister's strange looks and solitary life.
Fifty years syne, when Mr. Soulis cam' first into Ba'weary, he was still
a young man,--a callant, the folk said,--fu' o' book-learnin' and grand
at the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae
leevin' experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi'
his gifts and his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women
were moved even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a
self-deceiver, and the parish that was like to be sae ill supplied. It
was before the days o' the Moderates--weary fa' them; but ill things
are like guid--they baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a time; and there
were folk even then that said the Lord had left the college professors
to their ain devices, an' the lads that went to study wi' them wad hae
done mair and better sittin' in a peat-bog, like their forebears of the
persecution, wi' a Bible under their oxter and a speerit o' prayer in
their heart. There was nae doubt, onyway, but that Mr.
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