Hard by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got a bite and a direction; and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of Inverary.
The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost's.

I stood certainly more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all the benefits in Christianity.

For all which (being persuaded the chief point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the door open, entered that church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and finding a vacant place hard by, sat down.
"Thirteenthly, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must be regarded as a means of grace," the minister was saying, in the voice of one delighting to pursue an argument.
The sermon was in English on account of the assize.

The judges were present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in a corner by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array of lawyers.

The text was in Romans 5th and 13th--the minister a skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful--from Argyle, and my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that came in their attendance--was sunk with gathered brows in a profound critical attention.