only, one of the older folk would
warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the
minister's strange looks and solitary life.

Fifty years syne, when Mr. Soulis cam' first into Ba'weary, he was still
a young man--a callant, the folk said--fu' o' book-learnin' an' grand at
the exposition, but, as was natural in sae young a man, wi' nae leevin'
experience in religion. The younger sort were greatly taken wi' his
gifts an' his gab; but auld, concerned, serious men and women were moved
even to prayer for the young man, whom they took to be a self-deceiver,
an' the parish that was like to be sae ill-supplied. It was before the
days o' the Moderates--weary fa' them; but ill things are like
guid--they baith come bit by bit, a pickle at a time; an' there were
folk even then that said the Lord had left the college professors to
their ain devices, an' the lads that went to study wi' them wad hae done
mair an' better sittin' in a peat-bog, like their forbears o' the
persecution, wi' a Bible under their oxter an' a speerit o' prayer in
their heart. There was nae doubt, onyway, but that Mr. Soulis had been
ower lang at the college. He was careful an' troubled for mony things
besides the ae thing needful. He had a feck o' books wi' him--mair than
had ever been seen before in a' that presbytery; and a sair wark the
carrier had wi' them, for they were a' like to have smoored in the
De'il's Hag between this an' Kilmackerlie. They were books o' divinity,
to be sure, or so they ca'd them; but the serious were of opinion there
was little service for sae mony, when the hale o' God's Word would gang
in the neuk o' a plaid. Then he wad sit half the day, an' half the nicht
forbye, which was scant decent--writin', nae less; an' first, they were
feared he wad read his sermons; an' syne it proved he was writin' a book
himsel', which was surely no' flttin' for ane o' his years an' sma'
experience.

Onyway it behoved him to get an auld, decent wife to keep the manse for
him an' see to his bit denners; an' he was recommended to an auld
limmer--Janet M'Clour, they ca'd her--an' sae far left to himsel' as to
be ower persuaded. There was mony advised him to the contrar, for Janet
was mair than suspeckit by the best folk in Ba'weary. Lang or that, she
had had a wean to a dragoon; she hadna come forrit[5] for maybe thretty
year; an' bairns had seen her mumblin' to hersel' up on Key's Loan in
the gloamin', whilk was an unco time