valued themselves upon their prudence; and guidmen sitting at the clachan alehouse shook their heads together at the thought of passing late by that uncanny neighbourhood.  There was one spot, to be more particular, which was regarded with especial awe.  The manse stood between the highroad and the water of Dule, with a gable to each; its bank was toward the kirktown of Balweary, nearly half a mile away; in front of it, a bare garden, hedged with thorn, occupied the land between the river and the road.  The house was two stories high, with two large rooms on each.  It opened not directly on the garden, but on a causewayed path, or passage, giving on the road on the one hand, and closed on the other by the tall willows and elders that bordered on the stream.  And it was this strip of causeway that enjoyed among the young parishioners of Balweary so infamous a reputation.  The minister walked there often after dark, sometimes groaning aloud in the instancy of his unspoken prayers; and when he was from home, and the manse door was locked, the more daring school-boys ventured, with beating hearts, to “follow my leader” across that legendary spot.

This atmosphere of terror, surrounding, as it did, a man of God of spotless character and orthodoxy, was a common cause of wonder and subject of inquiry among the few strangers who were led by chance or business into that unknown, outlying country.  But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis’s ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic.  Now and again, 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’ and 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 and 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, and 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; and 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 and better sittin’ in a peat-bog, like their forebears of the persecution, wi’ a Bible under their oxter and 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 and troubled for mony things besides the ae thing needful.  He had a feck o’ books wi’ him—­mair than had ever been seen before