an Dialogue the first, in just the set terms in which we
had been reading it beside our own fire not half an hour before. It
seemed, for a few seconds, as if the conjurer and his creations had
joined together in a trio, to celebrate the conjurer's own praises.
'Excellent clergyman!' said the Convocationist. 'Incomparable man!'
exclaimed the Moderate. 'No minister like our minister!' said the two
in a breath. 'Ah, gentlemen,' said the conjurer, looking modestly
down, 'even my very enemies never venture to deny that.' 'You,
sir,' said the Convocationist, 'bring on no occasion the Church
question to the pulpit; you know better--you have more sense: we have
quite as much of the Church question as is good for us through the
week.' 'For you, sir,' chimed in the Moderate, 'I have long
cherished the most thorough respect; but as for your old party, I
dislike them more than ever.' 'I am not mercenary, gentlemen,' said
the conjurer, laying his hand on his breast; 'I am not timid, I am not
idle; I am a generous, diligent, dauntless, attached pastor; I
give alms of all I possess--in especial to the public charities; I
make long prayers,--my very best friends often urge on me that my
vast labours, weekly and daily, are undermining my strength; I
fast often,--I have guaranteed the payment of three thousand pounds
for the West Kirk, and three-fourths of my stipend have gone this
year to the liquidation of self-imposed liabilities. True, I will
be _eventually repaid_,--that is, if my people don't leave me; _but I
have no other security beyond my confidence in the goodness of the
cause, and the continued liberality of my countrymen_.' And in this
style would the reverend gentleman have continued down to the
bottom of the fifth page in his first Dialogue, had it not been for
a singularly portentous and terrible interruption.

The haunted Tomnahurich rose, as we have said, immediately behind us,
leafy and green; and not one of its multitude of boughs trembled in
the sunshine. Suddenly, however, the hill-side began to move. There
was a low deep noise like distant thunder; and straightway the
_debris_ of a landslip came rolling downwards, half obliterating in
its course the circle of the conjurer. Turf, and clay, and stone lay
in a mingled ruin at our feet; and wriggling in the midst, like a huge
blue-bottle in an old cobweb, there was a reverend gentleman dressed
in black. He gathered himself up, sprung deftly to his feet, and stood
front