r own business, to take
much trouble to retail what they chanced to hear; but there are some
things which, as the facetious man observed, the dead in their graves
would gossip about if they could; and one of these themes, according to
him, was that Principal Trenholme believed there had been something
supernatural about the previous life of the old preacher. The story went
about, impressing more particularly the female portion of the community,
but certainly not without influence upon the males also. Portly men, who
a week before would have thought themselves compromised by giving a
serious thought to the narrative, now stood still in the street to get
the chance of hearing the preacher, and felt that in doing so they were
wrapped in all the respectability of the cloth of Trenholme's coats, and
standing firm on the letters of his Oxford degree and upon all the
learning of the New College.

They did not believe the story themselves. No, there was a screw loose
somewhere; but Principal Trenholme had some definite knowledge of the
matter. The old man had been in a trance, a very long trance, to say the
least of it, and had got up a changed creature. Principal Trenholme was
not prepared to scout the idea that he had been nearer to death than
falls to the lot of most living men.

It will be seen that the common sense of the speakers shaped crude
rumour to suit themselves. Had they left it crude, it would have died.
It is upon the nice sense of the probable and possible in talkative men
that mad rumour feeds.

As for Trenholme, he became more or less aware of the report that had
gone out about his private knowledge of old Cameron, but it was less
rather than more. The scholastic life of the college was quite apart
from the life of the village, and in the village those who talked most
about Cameron were the least likely to talk to Trenholme on any subject.
His friends were not those who were concerned with the rumour; but even
when he was taxed with it, the whole truth that he knew was no apparent
contradiction. He wrote to Alec, making further inquiries, but Alec had
retreated again many miles from the post. To be silent and ignore the
matter seemed to be his only course.

Thus it happened that, because Harkness housed him in the hope of
working upon Eliza, and because Trenholme happened to have had a brother
at Turrifs Station, the strange old preacher found a longer resting
place and a more attentive hearing in the vill