by
the hand. For she trembled, and tears rose to her eyes as she saw that
simple but dignified procession (like to that which moved out of the
vestry on the occasion of the Greater Sacrament) approaching the house.
The lads stood silent with bared heads. For once Duncan lay quiet in the
arms of Mary Lyon--who that day would yield her charge to none, till she
gave him to the mother, when the time should come, according to the
Presbyterian rite, to stand up and place the firstborn in his father's
arms.

There was only one blank in that gathering. Louis had gone to his own
room, pretexing a headache, but really (as he blurted out afterwards)
because his Uncle Lalor had said that Presbyterianism was no religion
for a gentleman.

However, it was only afterwards that he was missed.

The Doctor was great on such occasions. A surprising soft radiance,
almost like a halo, surrounded his smooth snowy locks. A holy calm,
exhaling from half a century of spotless life lived in the sight of all
men, spoke in every word, moved in every gesture. The elders stood about
grave and quiet. The great Bible lay open. The psalm of dedication was
sung--of which the overword is, "Lo, children are God's heritage," and
the conclusion the verse which no Scot forgets the world over, perhaps
because it contains, quite unintentionally, so delightful a revelation
of his own national character--

"O happy is the man that hath
His quiver filled with those:
_They unashamed in the gate
Shall speak unto their foes._"

CHAPTER XXXIX

THE WICKED FLAG

"There's Boyd Connoway has been sitting on my front doorstep," cried my
Aunt Jen, "and if I've telled the man once, I've telled him twenty
times!"

"But how do ye ken, Janet?" said her mother out of the still-room where
she was brewing nettle-beer. "He is not there now!"

"How do I ken--fine that!" snapped Jen. "Do I no see my favourite check
pattern on his trousers!" said Jen, which, indeed, being plain to the
eye of every beholder, admitted of no denial--except perhaps, owing to
point of view, by the unconscious wearer himself. He had sat down on
these mystic criss-crossings and whorls dear to the Galloway housewife
for her floor ornaments, while the whiting was still wet.

"It's no wonder," Jen pursued vengefully, "they may say what they like.
An I were that man's wife, I wad brain him. Here he has been the
livelong day. Twa meals has he eaten. Six hours has he hung