pproval of
the club. Mr. Byars was the Auld Licht minister whom Mr. Dishart
succeeded, and it was well known that he had advised the authorities to
grant the use of the little town-house to the club on Friday evenings.
As he solemnly warned his congregation against attending the meetings
the position he had taken up created talk, and Lang Tammas called at
the manse with Sanders Whamond to remonstrate. The minister, however,
harangued them on their sinfulness in daring to question the like of
him, and they had to retire vanquished though dissatisfied. Then came
the disclosures of Tammas Haggart, who was never properly secured by
the Auld Lichts until Mr. Dishart took him in hand. It was Tammas who
wrote anonymous letters to Mr. Byars about the scarlet woman, and,
strange to say, this led to the club's being allowed to meet in the
town-house. The minister, after many days, discovered who his
correspondent was, and succeeded in inveigling the stone-breaker to the
manse. There, with the door snibbed, he opened out on Tammas, who,
after his usual manner when hard pressed, pretended to be deaf. This
sudden fit of deafness so exasperated the minister that he flung a book
at Tammas. The scene that followed was one that few Auld Licht manses
can have witnessed. According to Tammas the book had hardly reached
the floor when the minister turned white. Tammas picked up the
missile. It was a Bible. The two men looked at each other. Beneath
the window Mr. Byars's children were prattling. His wife was moving
about in the next room, little thinking what had happened. The
minister held out his hand for the Bible, but Tammas shook his head,
and then Mr. Byars shrank into a chair. Finally, it was arranged that
if Tammas kept the affair to himself the minister would say a good word
to the Bailie about the literary club. After that the stone-breaker
used to go from house to house, twisting his mouth to the side and
remarking that he could tell such a tale of Mr. Byars as would lead to
a split in the kirk. When the town-house was locked on the club Tammas
spoke out, but though the scandal ran from door to door, as I have seen
a pig in a fluster do, the minister did not lose his place. Tammas
preserved the Bible, and showed it complacently to visitors as the
present he got from Mr. Byars. The minister knew this, and it turned
his temper sour. Tammas's proud moments, after that, were when he
passed the minister.

Driven f