merits themselves added another count to the General's indictment against him. Beloved by rich and poor, his religious ministrations were greatly valued in his native parish, and many who might in other circumstances have stood staunch by the Kirk and the laird, were seduced into dissent by his insidious exhortations. Not only had he refused to accept the legitimate cure of souls, but he had raised the standard of rebellion within the bounds, thereby tending to subvert the wisely-appointed order of things, and contributing to the inletting of that free tide of revolutionary democracy which the General espied afar as doomed eventually to sweep away lairds and all other salutary potentates, and lead on to levelling ideas, the abomination of desolation, and the end of the world. Clearly, then, it was the duty of every well-regulated mind to discountenance such doings; and in the interest of public order, and for the sake of his misguided tenantry, General Drysdale's duty to refuse ground for the erection of a schismatic meetinghouse--a temple of discord, upon any portion of his and; or to rent a dwelling to the missionary of rebellion and error.

Roderick therefore being unable to find shelter for himself and his sister within five miles of the church and manse of Kilrundle, betook himself to the neighbouring hamlet of Glen Effick, which was beyond the territory of this well-meaning persecutor, but still hovered on the edge of Kilrundle Parish, over which he could raid at will, and hold meetings on the hillside for the faithful of the flock, who gathered in ever increasing crowds to hear him, emulous of the 'Hill Folk' of old, who, as they were often reminded, 'held not their lives dear, but went forth to serve the Lord in the wilderness.'

Almost all the cottars in Glen Effick would have been proud to receive the minister and his sister, but their means were less than their desires. The cottages were but small, and a few vacant rooms, scattered here and there throughout the village, were all that could be offered to shelter them and their effects. Hence in one cottage he had his books and made his study, and in this also they both slept. In another, across the road, they took their meals, and had bestowed such of their goods as were in use for that purpose. In a third was Mary's piano and many of her belongings, and there they would probably have spent their evenings, but that an old body, with more zeal than space at her disposal, had insisted on bestowing their tea equipage in her corner cupboard, where it was visible through the glass door, and proved her a mother in Israel. Thither they felt bound to follow it occasionally, that so Luckie Howden might have the glory of making tea for the minister.

All this was very tiresome to Mary, and sometimes she thought her patience would break down entirely. During her peaceful and happy life with her father she had imbibed all his ideas. She still clung to the Established Church as her head, and disapproving of the Disruption, she had neither zeal for the cause, nor a pleasing sense of martyrdom to mitigate the worries, discomforts, and privations of her daily life. The one only solace of her lot was her great love for her brother, from whom she had resolved never to part, and with whom she was prepared to endure even greater hardships. An uncle had pressed her strongly to make her home with him, but she could not tear herself from Roderick, and so stayed on.

CHAPTER II.

A STORM.

The rumble of the stage coach past the window died away down the street, and silence fell on the room we have been considering. The scratching of Roderick's pen could be heard in the stillness, save when lost in the momentary roar of a gust descending the chimney, followed by the hiss of its watery burden on the coals, or when a bar of 'The Lass o' Gowrie' escaped for an instant from the suppression in which it was held that the sermon might not be disturbed.

At length there sounded the shuffling of feet and the opening and closing of a door. A tap, and the door of their own room opened; and entered the beadle, Joseph Smiley, a little ferrety-looking man with sharp restless eyes, that seemed as though they would squint in their alert impatience to look at everything at once. His dress was a rusty black coat, like the old one of an undertaker's man, and a soiled white wisp of neckcloth. He took off with both hands a limp and sodden hat, streaming with moisture, and deposited it under the table, with a sort of deprecatory bow to Mary, as who should say, 'It is not strong enough to be treated in the usual way, let us lay it down tenderly.' Recovering, he turned to the door, and with an encouraging 'Come in, boy,' introduced a tall over-grown lad of seventeen, dressed in a fisherman's oilskin suit, from which the rain trickled in copious streams.

'I wuss ye gude e'en, mem an' sir,' said Joseph 'Though it's faar frae what I wad ca' a gude e'en mysel', an' deed an' it's juist a most terrible nicht, though nae doubt them 'at sent it kens best.--Ay, Sir! It was juist the powerfu' ca' o' duty 'at garred me lay by the drap parrich an' steer frae the ingle neuk this nicht. Here's a laddie come a' the gate frae Inverlyon, e'y tap o' the coach to fesh ye back wi' him to see his granny 'ats lyin' near hand her end.'

'But Inverlyon is fen miles off, and in another parish,' the minister was here able to interrupt, a matter not always to be obtained when Joseph held forth, for he loved the continuous sound of his own voice above every other noise.

'And why did they not get Mr. Watson, the minister of Inverlyon?' put in Mary; 'I am sure Mr. Watson would have gone at once, and he is so good and so kind a man.'

'Na, na, mem! Naebody 'at kens my granny wad ventur to bring Mester Watson in ower by her!' cried the fisher lad, casting aside his bashfulness, and steadying himself on the tall limbs on which he had been swaying to and fro. 'He bed in, whan a' the gude folk cam out, an' sae she'll hae nane o' him!'

'But why should you want to take Mr. Brown all that distance to-night? and a night like this? Has your grandmother some dreadful secret on her mind? And would not a writer be the best person to get?'

'Na, mem! na! There's nothing like that! My Granny's a godly auld wife, tho' maybe she's gye fraxious whiles, an' mony's the sair paipin' she's gi'en me; gin there was ocht to confess she kens the road to the Throne better nor maist. But ye see there's a maggit gotten intil her heid, an' she says she beut to testifee afore she gangs hence.'

'Ay! weel I wat,' said Joseph, swaying his head solemnly to and fro, 'she's a holy auld wife that same Luckie Corbet! an' I'm sure, minister, it'll be a preev'ledge to ye to resaive her testimony! She's rael zealous against Erastianism an' a' the sins in high places. I'm thinkin', sir, she's gye an' like thae covenanters lang syne, 'at Mester Dowlas was tellin' 's about whan he lectur'd up by on the Hurlstane Muir, about Jenny Geddes down Edinbro' way, an' mair sic like.'

'Ay! an' I'm thinkin' it's that auld carline, Jenny Geddes, 'at's raised a' the fash! My granny gaed to hear Mester Dowlas whan he preached among the whins down by the shore, an' oh, but he was bonny! An' a graand screed o' doctrine he gae us. For twa hale hours he preached an' expundet an' never drew breath, for a the wind was skirlin', an' the renn whiles skelpin' like wild. An' I'm thinkin' my granny's gotten her death o't a'. But oh! an' he was graand on Jenny Geddes! an' hoo she was a mither in Israel, an' hoo she up wi' the creepie an' heaved it at the Erastian's heid. An' my granny was