come back to life. To the summit of the slope a
wooden box was slowly hurled by Hendry Munn and others, and round this
the congregation quietly grouped to the tinkle of the cracked Auld
Licht bell. With slow majestic tread the session advanced up the steep
common with the little minister in their midst. He had the people in
his hands now, and the more he squeezed them the better they were
pleased. The travelling pulpit consisted of two compartments, the one
for the minister and the other for Lang Tammas, but no Auld Licht
thought that it looked like a Punch and Judy puppet show. This service
on the common was known as the "tent preaching," owing to a tent's
being frequently used instead of the box.

Mr. Watts was conducting the service on the commonty. It was a fine,
still summer evening, and loud above the whisper of the burn from which
the common climbs, and the laboured "pechs" of the listeners rose the
preacher's voice. The Auld Lichts in their rusty blacks (they must
have been a more artistic sight in the olden days of blue bonnets and
knee-breeches) nodded their heads in sharp approval, for though they
could swoop down on a heretic like an eagle on carrion, they scented no
prey. Even Lang Tammas, on whose nose a drop of water gathered when he
was in his greatest fettle, thought that all was fair and above-board.
Suddenly a rush of wind tore up the common, and ran straight at the
pulpit. It formed in a sieve, and passed over the heads of the
congregation, who felt it as a fan, and looked up in awe. Lang Tammas,
feeling himself all at once grow clammy, distinctly heard the leaves of
the pulpit Bible shiver. Mr. Watts's hands, outstretched to prevent a
catastrophe, were blown against his side, and then some twenty sheets
of closely-written paper floated into the air. There was a horrible,
dead silence. The burn was roaring now. The minister, if such he can
be called, shrunk back in his box, and, as if they had seen it printed
in letters of fire on the heavens, the congregation realized that Mr.
Watts, whom they had been on the point of calling, read his sermon. He
wrote it out on pages the exact size of those in the Bible, and did not
scruple to fasten these into the Holy Book itself. At theatres a
sullen thunder of angry voices behind the scene represents a crowd in a
rage, and such a low, long-drawn howl swept the common when Mr. Watts
was found out. To follow a pastor who "read" seemed to the Auld