ay to the chair.

The school-board is constituted.

"Preserve us! what's that?" say the Kers from the windows where they are
listening. They think it is some unfair Erastian advantage.

"Nocht ava'--it's juist a word!" explains to them over his shoulder
their oracle Saunders, from where he sits by the side of his minister--a
small but indomitable phalanx of two in the rear of the farmer and
publican. The schoolroom, being that of the old parochial school, is
crowded by the supporters of Church and State. These are, however, more
especially supporters of the Church, for at the parliamentary elections
they mostly vote for "Auld Wullie" in spite of parish politics and Dr.
Spence Hutchison.

"Tak' care o' Auld Willie's tickets!" is the cry when in Howpaslet they
put the voting-urns into the van to be carried to the county town
buildings for enumeration. It was a Ker who drove, and the Tories
suspected him of "losing" the tickets of Auld Wullie's opponent by the
way. They say that is the way Auld Wullie got in. But nobody really
knows, and everybody is aware that a Tory will say anything of a Ker.

So the schoolroom was crowded with "Establishers," for the Kers would
not come within such a tainted building as a parochial school--except to
a comic nigger minstrel performance, which in Howpaslet levels and
composes all differences. So instead they waited at the windows and
listened. One prominent and officious stoop of the Kirk tried to shut a
window. But he got a Ker's clicky[9] over his head from without, and sat
down discouraged.

[Footnote 9: Shepherd's staff.]

"Wull it come to ocht, think ye?" the Kers asked of each other outside.

"I'm rale dootfu'," was the general opinion; "but we maun juist howp for
the best."

So the Kers stood without and hoped for the best--which, being
interpreted, was that their champions, the Reverend William Calvin and
Saunders Ker of the Mains, would get ill-treated by their opponents
inside, and that they, the Kers, might then have a chance of clearing
out the school. Every Ker had already picked his man. It has never been
decided, though often argued, whether in his introductory prayer Mr.
Calvin was justified in putting up the petition that peace might reign.
The general feeling was against him at the time.

"But there's three things that needs to be considered," said Saunders
Ker: "in the first place, it was within his richt as a minister to pit
up what petition he liked; and,