Mr.Ogilvy's many triumphs in this competition had not dulled his appetite for more, and depressed he was at the prospect of a reverse.

That it was coming now he could not doubt.

McLauchlan, who was to be Rev., had a flow of words (which would prevent his perspiring much in the pulpit), but he could no more describe a familiar scene with the pen than a milkmaid can draw a cow.

The Thrums representatives were sometimes as little gifted, it is true, and never were they so well exercised, but this Tommy had the knack of it, as Mr.Ogilvy could not doubt, for the story of his letter-writing had been through the glens.
"Keep up your spirits," Mr.Lorrimer had said to Mm as they walked together to the fray, "Cathro's loon may compose the better of the two, but, as I understand, the first years of his life were spent in London, and so he may bogle at the Scotch." But the Dominie replied, "Don't buoy me up on a soap bubble.

If there's as much in him as I fear, that should be a help to him instead of a hindrance, for it will have set him a-thinking about the words he uses." And the satisfaction on Tommy's face when the subject of the essay was given out, with the business-like way in which he set to work, had added to the Dominie's misgivings; if anything was required to dishearten him utterly it was provided by Cathro's confident smile.