im mutter; then he suddenly bolted,
breaking his tether, and before I could recover him he had shambled on
to the road with the gait of a delirious camel, and kicking his innocent
property from behind, cried out--

"Get oot o' that. Sic like a thing, to be lyin' wi' the common herd.
Mind ye, ye're no' an or'nary man's coo--ye're a cooncillor's coo." Then
he retraced his labyrinthian steps in a corresponding swath.

As we drew near his humble gate (how often Geordie had made that last
port with pain), he muttered to himself reflectively--

"I gied him hell," referring doubtless to the vanquished candidate.

Whereat I took him to task right sternly, giving him sharply to
understand that such language was an insult to his minister and friend.

In reply, he fell upon me, literally and figuratively, with tones of
reproachful tenderness.

"Minister," he said, "I own ye as a faithfu' guide." ("You'd better,"
said I to myself, for I was weary.) "I own ye as a faithfu' guide, an' I
wudna gie ye pain. For we've had oor ain times thegither. I micht maist
say as 'at 'We twa hae paiddled i' the burn,' only it wudna be becomin'.
But aboot that word--I've heard ye say yirsel' frae the pulpit as how
hell is a maist awfu' feelin' i' the breist. Verra well, dinna ye think
as hoo yon Irish whelp I skelpit the day 'll hae a waesome feelin' i'
his breist? That's a' the meanin' I desired till convey. It's nae wrang
when it's expoun'it. Guid-nicht till ye, minister."

XI

_PLUCKING A FIERY BRAND_

But there are others of whom I have better things to record, and indeed
better things shall yet be set down by me concerning Geordie Lorimer
before these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is
nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming
to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For
perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony
is to the end that he may soon be born.

The serious will doubtless wish to learn what befell me in my effort to
beguile the rugged Donald M'Phatter and his wife, who had quit the kirk
when the kirk quit the tokens, back to the worship of the sanctuary. It
is many years since they returned to St. Cuthbert's hallowed shrine, and
they now sing the uncreated song.

For they have joined that choir invisible whose voices, trained by God,
blend in perfect unison, but not in time; for they reckon not by days
and years where they