The wright had wished to leave the space clear above the mantelpiece.
"Ye 'll be hanging Dr.Chalmers there, or maybe John Knox, and a bit clock 'll be handy for letting ye ken the 'oors on Sabbath." [Illustration: "Ye 'll be hanging Dr.Chalmers there."] The Rabbi admitted that he had a Knox, but was full of a scheme for hanging him over his own history, which he considered both appropriate and convenient.

As regards time, it was the last thing of which that worthy man desired to be reminded--going to bed when he could no longer see for weariness, and rising as soon as he awoke, taking his food when it was brought to him, and being conducted to church by the beadle after the last straggler was safely seated.

He even cast covetous eyes upon the two windows, which were absurdly large, as he considered, but compromised matters by removing the shutters and filling up the vacant space with slender works of devotion.

It was one of his conceits that the rising sun smote first on an A Kempis, for this he had often noticed as he worked of a morning.
Book-shelves had long ago failed to accommodate Rabbi's treasures, and the floor had been bravely utilised.

Islands of books, rugged and perpendicular, rose on every side; long promontories reached out from the shore, varied by bold headlands; and so broken and varied was that floor that the Rabbi was pleased to call it the Aegean Sea, where he had his Lesbos and his Samos.