eople after
all. And that there was only one Church, properly so called. Oh, a
lot like that. And he got quite hot about it, because he had been in
Scotland himself, and had been called a Dissenter by the parish
minister. He had never got over this, and even now the remembrance of
it made him ruffle up his hair like tossing moist meadow hay. Then he
would start in to explain about it all over again.

I didn't mind, for I thought: "The more he cares for things like that
'Postolic Succession and 'Down with John Knox,' the less time will he
have for meandering about Elsie." So I was pleased all right with what
he said, though I didn't listen much. However, I promised to go to his
friend's church in Edinburgh, and not to any of the Presbyterian
"schism-shops." That was what he called them, for he pitched into them
proper. Then he was as pleased as Punch, and looked upon me with a
sort of air as if he owned me. I bet he took me for a brand plucked
from the Presbyterian burning. You see, on the border of the two
countries it is different from anywhere else. It is like drawing a
chalk line, and both sides, Piskies and Presbies, spar up to it. They
are always letting out at each other, while thirty miles inland they
don't care a jujube about the matter, and even play golf together and
smoke pipes on the sly after sermon. This is truth, and you can put it
between the leaves of the Holy Book and swear on it.

Well, I told the curate I would go to his friend Harry Ryan's
church--St. James the Less was the name of it. But I didn't say _how
often_ I would go! It is always well to keep a sort of anchor out,
grappled in the hinterlands of your conscience, when you are promising
in the dark, as I was that time.

All this time, when Mr. Ablethorpe was improving me and leading me in
the way of the Thirty-nine Articles (no, not exactly--I forgot--he
didn't like them; he thought he could have made much better ones, but
in the way of the catechism and Prayer Book), we were legging it across
big bare Brom Common. He would stop and argue, keeping me looking
straight at him till the water came into my eyes. Then on he would go
again, more set than ever on making a good Churchman out of me. I
never saw anybody quite so certain that he was right as Mr. Ablethorpe.
Why, he would have taken his Davy that even the best of Dissenters
would only get into a kind of half-way house, back-stairs heaven, and
might count themselves lu