trolled away to his seat. When a strange
minister preached, Hendry was, if possible, still more at his ease.
This will not be believed, but I have seen him give the pulpit-door on
these occasions a fling-to with his feet. However ill an ordinary
member of the congregation might become in the kirk, he sat on till the
service ended, but Hendry would wander to the door and shut it if he
noticed that the wind was playing irreverent tricks with the pages of
Bibles, and proof could still be brought forward that he would stop
deliberately in the aisle to lift up a piece of paper, say, that had
floated there. After the first psalm had been sung it was Hendry's
part to lift up the plate and carry its tinkling contents to the
session-house. On the greatest occasions he remained so calm, so
indifferent, so expressionless, that he might have been present the
night before at a rehearsal.

When there was preaching at night the church was lit by tallow candles,
which also gave out all the artificial heat provided. Two candles
stood on each side of the pulpit, and others were scattered over the
church, some of them fixed into holes on rough brackets, and some
merely sticking in their own grease on the pews. Hendry superintended
the lighting of the candles, and frequently hobbled through the church
to snuff them. Mr. Dishart was a man who could do anything except
snuff a candle, but when he stopped in his sermon to do that he as
often as not knocked the candle over. In vain he sought to refix it in
its proper place, and then all eyes turned to Hendry. As coolly as
though he were in a public hall or place of entertainment, the
kirk-officer arose and, mounting the stair, took the candle from the
minister's reluctant hands and put it right. Then he returned to his
seat, not apparently puffed up, yet perhaps satisfied with himself;
while Mr. Dishart, glaring after him to see if he was carrying his head
high, resumed his wordy way.

Never was there a man more uncomfortably loved than Mr. Dishart. Easie
Haggart, his maid-servant, reproved him at the breakfast-table. Lang
Tammas and Sam'l Mealmaker crouched for five successive Sabbath nights
on his manse wall to catch him smoking (and got him). Old wives
grumbled by their hearths when he did not look in to despair of their
salvation. He told the maidens of his congregation not to make an idol
of him. His session saw him (from behind a haystack) in conversation
with a strange w