incendiary, set on by an unnatural parent to slander his mother,
and make away with a hapless and only brother; and, in truth,
that declaimer against all human merit had that sort of powerful,
homely, and bitter eloquence which seldom missed affecting his
hearers: the consequence at that time was that he made the
unfortunate affair between the two brothers appear in extremely
bad colours, and the populace retired to their homes impressed
with no very favourable opinion of either the Laird of Dalcastle
or his son George, neither of whom were there present to speak
for themselves.

As for Wringhim himself, he went home to his lodgings, filled
with gall and with spite against the young laird, whom he was
made to believe the aggressor, and that intentionally. But most of
all he was filled with indignation against the father, whom he
held in abhorrence at all times, and blamed solely for this
unmannerly attack made on his favourite ward, namesake, and
adopted son; and for the public imputation of a crime to his own
reverence in calling the lad his son, and thus charging him with a
sin against which he was well known to have levelled all the
arrows of church censure with unsparing might.

But, filled as his heart was with some portion of these bad
feelings, to which all flesh is subject, he kept, nevertheless, the
fear of the Lord always before his eyes so far as never to omit any
of the external duties of religion, and farther than that man hath
no power to pry. He lodged with the family of a Mr. Miller,
whose lady was originally from Glasgow, and had been a hearer
and, of course. a great admirer of Mr. Wringhim. In that family
he made public worship every evening; and that night, in his