atirically, "but I think ma mon
and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any
parson comin' to help us. A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing
o' the Saviour! I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the
Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a
week."

The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising
flush of anger, and could only reply--

"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to,
and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."

To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more
effective than the first. An appeal to authority or respect of persons
is not usually successful in Ulster.

"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any
differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I
can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge
o' the Saviour."

Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather
and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling
again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was
possible.

His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he
encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same
patronising familiarity.

Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have
"a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be
afeerd--there's plenty iv it in the house."

The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow
Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the
cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a
shilling), sympathetically remarked--

"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go
back?"

Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this
incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart. What could be done
for Tor Bay--so beautiful, yet so barbarous--so out of the way in every
sense? His personal efforts did not seem likely to be rewarded with
success, even if he could keep--which he did not himself believe that
he could--to the often-made resolution to be more frequent and regular
in his visits across the hill. He had been wounded in many points that
day, yet he had not gone away without hearing one note of
encouragement. Many a day and many a night he saw, lik