event in the ecclesiastical world, and a consistent tradition in the
parish explained its inwardness on certain grounds, complimentary both to
the judgment of Kilbogie and the gifts of Mr. Saunderson. On Saturday
evening he was removed from the train by the merest accident, and left
the railway station in such a maze of meditation that he ignored the road
to Kilbogie altogether, although its sign-post was staring him in the
face, and continued his way to Drumtochty. It was half-past nine when
Jamie Soutar met him on the high road through our glen, still travelling
steadily west, and being arrested by his appearance, beguiled him into
conversation, till he elicited that Saunderson was minded to reach
Kilbogie. For an hour did the wanderer rest in Jamie's kitchen, during
which he put Jamie's ecclesiastical history into a state of thorough
repair--making seven distinct parallels between the errors that had
afflicted the Scottish Church and the early heretical sects,--and then
Jamie gave him in charge of a ploughman who was courting in Kilbogie, and
was not averse to a journey that seemed to illustrate the double meaning
of charity. Jeremiah was handed over to his anxious hosts at a quarter
to one in the morning, covered with mud, somewhat fatigued, but in great
peace of soul, having settled the place of election in the prophecy of
Habakkuk as he came down with his silent companion through Tochty woods.

[Illustration: HE PUT JAMIE'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY INTO A STATE OF
THOROUGH REPAIR]

Nor was that all he had done. When they came out from the shadow and
struck into the parish of Kilbogie--whose fields, now yellow unto
harvest, shone in the moonlight--his guide broke silence and enlarged on
a plague of field-mice which had quite suddenly appeared, and had sadly
devastated the grain of Kilbogie. Saunderson awoke from study and became
exceedingly curious, first of all demanding a particular account of the