quiet, impenetrable, critical faces in his first kirk. When
the service was over, the people broke into little bands that
disappeared along the west road, and over the moor, and across the
Tochty. Carmichael knew each one was reviewing his sermon head by
head, and, pacing his garden, he remembered the missing points with
dismay.

It was the custom of the Free Kirk minister to go far afield of a
summer evening, and to hold informal services in distant parts of the
parish. This was the joy of the day to him, who was really very young
and hated all conventionalities even unto affectation. He was never
weary of complaining that he had to wear a gown, which was continually
falling back and being hitched over with impatient motions, and the
bands, which he could never tie, and were, he explained to a horrified
beadle in Muirtown, an invention of Satan to disturb the preacher's
soul before his work. Once, indeed, he dared to appear without his
trappings, on the plea of heat, but the visible dismay and sorrow of
the people was so great--some failing to find the Psalm till the first
verse had been sung--that he perspired freely and forgot the middle
head of his discourse.

"It's a mercy," remarked Mrs. Macfadyen to Burnbrae afterward, "that he
didna play that trick when there wes a bairn tae be baptised. It wudna
hae been lichtsome for its fouk; a'body wants a properly ordained
minister. Ye 'll gie him a hint, Burnbrae, for he's young and
fordersome (rash), but gude stuff for a' his pliskies (frolics)."

No one would have liked to see the sacred robes in the places of
evening worship, and Carmichael threw all forms to the winds--only
drawing the line, with great regret and some searchings of heart, at
his tweed jacket. His address for these summer evening gatherings he
studied as he went through the fragrant pine woods or over the moor by
springy paths that twisted through the heather, or along near cuts that
meant leaping little burns and climbing dykes whose top stones were apt
to follow your heels with embarrassing attachment. Here and there the
minister would stop as a trout leapt in a pool, or a flock of wild duck
crossed the sky to Loch Sheuchie, or the cattle thrust inquisitive
noses through some hedge, as a student snatches a mouthful from some
book in passing. For these walks were his best study; when thinking of
his people in their goodness and simplicity, and touched by nature at
her gentlest, he was fre