came to the conclusion that music was not looked upon favourably in that
remote part of Scotland.

In front of the pulpit there was an enclosure, fenced in by the
communion rail, and inside this were seated the elders, or deacons of
the church. These were very old men with bent heads and white hair, and
had the appearance of centenarians; they were indeed the
queerest-looking group of old men we had ever seen assembled together.
But it was their noses that chiefly attracted our attention, as they
were so very long and crooked, and the strange feature about them was
that they were all of the same pattern. Their only rival, as far as we
could see, in length of nose was the minister, but we thought he had
enlarged his by artificial means, as we found to our surprise that he
was addicted to snuff-taking, a habit very prevalent in Scotland in
those days.

Then came the sermon. On the pulpit was the Bible, and beside it a
substantial box of snuff, to which the minister resorted occasionally in
the course of his long discourse. His pinches must have been
considerable, for every sniff lasted from two to three seconds, and
could be heard distinctly all over the kirk. This had a tendency to
distract our attention from his sermon, which, by the way, was a very
good one; but, owing to his rather slow delivery, we experienced a
feeling of relief when he reached the end, for it had lasted quite an
hour.

There was now a slight movement amongst the congregation, which we
interpreted as a sign that the service was at an end, and we rose to
leave; but, imagine our consternation when our friends told us that what
we had listened to was only the first part of the service, and that we