s a note
of dauntless vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward jerk of his
surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time:

Where the assemblies of the just
And congregations are.

You could not help admiring, and you could not help respecting; you
were compelled by his natural force and his unqualified conviction, his
tireless energy and his sterling sort.

It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting for
twenty-five years under direction so unfailing and so uncompromising,
the congregation of Knox Church might turn with a moderate curiosity
to the spiritual indications of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a
passionate romantic, and his body had shot up into a fitting temple for
such an inhabitant as his soul. He was a great long fellow, with a shock
of black hair and deep dreams in his eyes; his head was what people
called a type, a type I suppose of the simple motive and the noble
intention, the detached point of view and the somewhat indifferent
attitude to material things, as it may be humanly featured anywhere. His
face bore a confusion of ideals; he had the brow of a Covenanter and
the mouth of Adonais, the flame of religious ardour in his eyes and the
composure of perceived philosophy on his lips. He was fettered by an
impenetrable shyness; it was in the pulpit alone that he could expand,
and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, and the most
perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, toward his hearers.
A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr Drummond thought him--Dr
Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an
agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. "The man loses half
his points," said Dr Drummond. I doubt whether he did, people followed
so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he
said that it would do nobody any harm if Mr Finlay would lift his head
oftener from the book.

Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an Oxford don. She
had never seen an Oxford don, but Mr Finlay wore the characteristics
these schoolmen were dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with
delight the ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the pulpit
of the Presbyterian Church in a young country. She had her perception of
comedy in life; till Finlay came she had found nothing so interesting.
With his arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their proper
places.

Finlay, indeed, it may