Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit steps of Knox Church, and arranged the glass of water and the notices to be given out beside it, twice every Sunday for twenty years.

He was a small spare man, with thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of his forehead to his coat collar, decent and severe.

He ascended the pulpit exactly three minutes before the minister did; and the dignity with which he put one foot before the other made his appearance a ceremonious feature of the service and a thing quoted.

"I was there before Peter" was a triumphant evidence of punctuality.

Dr Drummond would have liked to make it a test.