Rags ofPopery, he muttered, as he banged the books
back on their shelves. WasWoodilee to prove a frontier-post for Gods servant against
thehorrid mysteries of heathendom? Most did not even know that ithad been a kirk.
Sempill, and dinna let on that Gibbie telled ye.
Fordycebeyond question a saint, with his haggard
face and his wistfuleyes.
The work for which he longed was to save and
comforthuman souls. Sempill would think black burnin shame ifthe gentlemen didna
break breid. An engine whistled in the valley, a signal-box sprang into light,and my
vision passed.
What for Saint Paul and not Saint Moses or Saint
Isaiah? And dothey bring forth works meet for repentance?
And my mind, oncegiven the cue, set out things not
presented by the illuded eye.
Are they striving to get a grip ofChrist, as a bird
scrapes with its claws at a stone wall?
Theres a quicker way by Roodfoot, and on this
errand theres notime to lose.
There was a curious leaden sky, with a blue break
about sunset, sothat the shadows lay oddly. There was no clash of cauld morality in
worthy Mr.
Losh, heres the lexicon of Bamburgius, of which
Ihave read but have never seen.
He had grown up beside it and had notknown of it,
and now he had come back to a revelation.
Muirhead hadadmitted that it must be queer to live
so near it, and Mr.
Can He no gather your remnants fromthe uttermost
parts of the earth?
It wasna the Deil that cam for the minister o
Woodilee. Muirhead was a stout warder on the walls of Sion, Mr. A grotesque figure
emerged from the dusk. Again the minister laughed athimself, but without conviction.
And yet, even then, he had had manynightmares and fled from many
bogles.
He would stick to the same ordinary till he had
thrashed it intostour.