Then uprose Gilbert Peden.  His voice was husky with emotion.  “Hasty and ill-advised, and of such a character as to bring dishonour on the only true Kirk in Scotland, has such an action been.  I confess myself a hasty man, a man of wrath, and that wrath unto sin.  I have sinned the sin of anger and presumption against a brother.  Long ere now I would have taken it back, but it is the law of God that deeds once done cannot be undone; though we seek repentance carefully with tears, we cannot put the past away.”

Thus, with the consecration and the humility of confession Gilbert Peden purged himself from the sin of hasty anger.

“Like Uzzah at the threshing-floor of Nachon,” he went on, “I have sinned the sin of the Israelite who set his hand to the ox-cart to stay the ark of God.  It is of the Lord’s mercy that I am not consumed, like the men of Beth-shemesh.”

So Gilbert Peden was restored, but Allan Welsh would not accept any restoration.

“I am not a man accepted of God,” he said.  And even Gilbert Peden said no word.

“Noo,” said John Bairdieson, “afore this meetin’ scales [is dismissed], there is juist yae word that I hae to say.  There’s nane o’ us haes wives, but an’ except Alexander Taylour, carriage-maker.  Noo, the proceedings this mornin’ are never to be jince named in the congregation.  If, then, there be ony soond of this in the time to come, mind you Alexander Taylour, that it’s you that’ll hae to bear the weight o’t!”

This was felt to be fair, even by Alexander Taylour, carriage-maker.

The meeting now broke up, and John Bairdieson went to reprove Margate Truepenny for knocking with her crutch on the door of the house of God on the Sabbath morning.

“D’ye think,” he said, “that the fowk knockit wi’ their staves on the door o’ the temple in Jerusalem?”

“Aiblins,” retorted Margate, “they had feller [quicker] doorkeepers in thae days nor you, John Bairdieson.”

The morning service was past.  Gilbert Peden had preached from the text, ’Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

“Oor minister is yin that looks deep intil the workings o’ his ain heart,” said Margate, as she hirpled homeward.

But when the church was empty and all gone home, in the little vestry two men sat together, and the door was shut.  Between them they held a miniature, the picture of a girl with a flush of rose on her cheek and a laughing light in her eyes.  There was silence, but for a quick catch in the stronger man’s breathing, which sounded like a sob.  Gilbert Peden, who had only lost and never won, and Allan Welsh, who had both won and lost, were forever at one.  There was silence between them, as they looked with eyes of deathless love at the picture which spoke to them of long ago.

Walter Skirving’s message, which Winsome had brought to the manse of Dullarg, had united the hearts estranged for twenty years.  Winsome had builded better than she knew.