and elders that bordered on the stream. And it was this strip of
causeway that enjoyed among the young parishioners of Balweary so
infamous a reputation. The minister walked there often after dark,
sometimes groaning aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and
when he was from home, and the manse door was locked, the more daring
school-boys ventured, with beating hearts, to "follow my leader" across
that legendary spot.

This atmosphere of terror, surrounding, as it did, a man of God of
spotless character and orthodoxy, was a common cause of wonder and
subject of inquiry among the few strangers who were led by chance or
business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the
people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had
marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who
were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of
that particular topic. 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. Soulis had been
ower-lang at the college. He was careful and troubled for mony things
besides the ae thing needful. He had a feck o' books wi' him--mair than
had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the
carrier had wi' them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the
Deil's Hag between this and Kilmackerlie. They were books o' divinity,
to be sure, or so they