assent to an exposure of the Manichaean heresy, suddenly blushed as one
who had played the hypocrite. Some professed to have noticed a doctrine
that had not been touched upon, but they never could give it a name, and
it excited just admiration that a preacher, starting from a plague of
mice, should have made a way by strictly scientific methods into the
secret places of theology. Saunderson allowed his hearers a brief rest
after the second head, and cheered them with the assurance that what was
still before them would be easy to follow. It was the application of all
that had gone before to the life of Kilbogie, and the preacher proceeded
to convict the parish under each of the ten commandments--with the plague
of mice ever in reserve to silence excuses--till the delighted
congregation could have risen in a body and taken Saunderson by the hand
for his fearlessness and faithfulness. Perhaps the extent and
thoroughness of this monumental sermon can be best estimated by the fact
that Claypots, father of the present tenant, who always timed his rest to
fifty minutes exactly, thus overseeing both the introduction and
application of the sermon, had a double portion, and even a series of
supplementary dozes, till at last he sat upright through sheer satiety.
It may also be offered as evidence that the reserve of peppermint held by
mothers for their bairns was pooled, doles being furtively passed across
pews to conspicuously needy families, and yet the last had gone before
Saunderson finished.

Mains reported to the congregational meeting that the minister had been
quiet for the rest of the day, but had offered to say something about
Habakkuk to any evening gathering, and had cleared up at family worship
some obscure points in the morning discourse. He also informed the
neighbours that he had driven his guest all the way to Muirtown, and put
him in an Edinburgh carriage with his own hands, since it had emerged
that Saunderson, through absence of mind, had made his down journey by