then continued--

"And I'm no' the precentor; I'm no' the man, ye ken, that lifts the
tune."

I nodded sympathetically, trying to convey my sense of the mistake the
congregation had made in its choice of both elders and precentor.

"Ye wud say, to luik at me, that I'm no' an office-seeker, an' ye're
richt. But I haud an office for a' that."

This time I smiled as if light had come to me, and as one who has been
reassured in his belief in an overruling Providence.

"What office do you hold?" said I.

"Ye wudna guess in a twalmonth. I'm no' the treasurer, as ye're
thinkin'--I'm the beadle."

I uttered a brief eulogy upon the honour and responsibility of that
position, pointing out that the beadle had a dignity all his own, as
well as the elders and other officers of the kirk.

He endorsed my views with swift complacent nods.

"That's what I aye think o' when I see the elders on the Sabbath
mornin'," said he; "forbye, there's severals o' _them_, but wha ever
heard tell o' mair than ae beadle? And what's mair, I had raither be a
door-keeper in the Lord's hoose than dwall in tents o' sin. Them's
Dauvit's words, and they aye come to me when I compare mysel' wi' the
elders."

I hurriedly commended his reference to the Scriptures, at the same time
avoiding any share in his rather significant classification, remarking
on the other hand that elders had their place, and that authority was
indispensable in all churches, and the very essence of the Presbyterian
system.

He interrupted me, fearing he had been misunderstood.

"Mind ye," he declared fervently, "I'm no' settin' mysel' up even wi'
the minister. I regard him as mair important than me--far mair
important," he affirmed, with reckless humility, "but the elders, they
are juist common fowk like mysel'. An' at times they are mair than
common. Me an' the minister bear a deal frae the elders. He aye bids me
to bear wi' them, an' I aye bid him no' to mind. I tell him whiles that
we'd meet an' we'd greet whaur the elders cease frae troublin'--them's
the poet's words."

We were now some two miles or so from the town and the church wherein he
exercised his gifts and magnified his office; and my rugged friend,
dismissing the elders for the time, reverted to the inquiry he had seen
fit previously to ignore.

"Ye were askin' me aboot the kirk."

"Yes," said I in a chastened voice, "I asked you if it was not very
large."

"Thae was no' yir exact words, but I ken yir