desk was still empty.  The minister gave one quick look to the manse seat, and there arose from the dusky corner by the wall such a volume of sweet and solemn sound that the first two lines were sung out before a soul had thought of joining.  But as the voice from the manse seat took a new start into the mighty swing of “St. Paul’s,” one by one the voices which had been singing that best-loved of Scottish tunes at home in “taking the Buik,” joined in, till by the end of the verse the very walls were tingling with the joyful noise.  There was something ran through the Laigh Kirk that day to which it had long been strange.  “It’s the gate o’ heeven,” said old Peter Thomson, the millwright, who had voted for Ebenezer Skinner for minister, and had regretted it ever since.  He was glad of his vote now that the minister had got married.

Then followed the prayer, which seemed new also; and Ebenezer Skinner’s prayers had for some time been well known to the congregation of the Laigh Kirk.  The worst of all prayer-mills is the threadbare liturgy which a lazy or an unspiritual man cobbles up for himself.  But there seemed a new spirit in Ebenezer’s utterances, and there was a thankful feeling in the kirk of the Townend that day.  As they “skailed,” some of the young folk went as far as to say that they hoped that desk would never be filled.  But this expression of opinion was discouraged, for it was felt to border on irreverence.

Cracky Carlisle was accidentally at his door when Gib Dally passed on his way home.  Cracky had an unspoken question in his eye; but Gib did not respond, for the singing had drawn a kind of spell over him too.  So Cracky had to speak plain out before Gib would answer.

“Wha sang the day?” he asked anxiously, hoping that there had been some sore mishap, and that the minister, or even Mrs. Skinner herself, might come humbly chapping at his door to fleech with him to return.  And he hardened himself even in the moment of imagination.

“We a’ sang,” said Gib cruelly.

“But wha led?” said the ex-precentor.

“Oh, we had no great miss of you, Cracky,” said Gib, who remembered the airs that the post had many a time given himself, and did not incline to let him off easily in the day of his humiliation.  “It was the minister’s wife that led.”

The post lifted his hands, palm outwards, with a gesture of despair.

“Ay, I was jalousing it wad be her,” said he sadly, as he turned into his house.  He felt that his occupation and craft were gone, and first and last that the new mistress of the manse was the rock on which he had split.

Mrs. Ebenezer Skinner soon made the acquaintance of the Cairn Edward folk.  She was a quick and dainty little person.

“Man, Gib, but she’s a feat bit craitur!” said the shoemaker, watching her with satisfaction from the smiddy door, and rubbing his grimy hands on his apron as if he had been suddenly called upon to shake hands with her.