Perhaps Mr.Scougall had calculated that a ceremony so interesting to him would attract a throng of sightseers; at any rate, we were packed into a gallery at the extreme western end of the church, and in due time watched the proceedings from that respectful distance and across a gulf of empty pews.
-- That is to say, some of us watched.

I have no doubt that Miss Plinlimmon did, for instance; nay, that her attention was riveted.
Otherwise I cannot explain what followed.
On the previous night I had gone to bed almost supperless, as usual.
I had come, as usual, ravenous to breakfast, and for once I had sated, and more than sated, desire.

For years after, though hungry often enough in the course of them, I never thought with longing upon cold veal or strawberries, nor have I ever recovered an unmitigated appetite for either.
It is certain, then, that even before the ceremony began--and the bride arrived several minutes late--I slumbered on the back bench of the gallery.

The evidence of six boys seated near me agrees that, at the moment when Mr.Scougall produced the ring, I arose quietly, but without warning, and made my exit by the belfry door.

They supposed that I was taken ill; they themselves were feeling more or less uncomfortable.
The belfry stairway, by which we had reached the door of our gallery, wound upward beyond it to the top of the tower, and gave issue by a low doorway upon the dwarf battlements, from which sprang a spire some eighty feet high.