CHAPTER VIII.
A WOMAN OF THE OLD DISPENSATION.
Every Sabbath at eleven o'clock, or as soon thereafter as the people were seated--consideration was always shown to distant figures coming down from the high glen--Carmichael held what might be called High Mass in the Free Kirk.

Nothing was used in praise but the Psalms of David, with an occasional Paraphrase sanctioned by usage and sound teaching.
The prayers were expected to be elaborate in expression and careful in statement, and it was then that they prayed for the Queen and Houses of Parliament.

And the sermon was the event to which the efforts of the minister and the thoughts of the people had been moving for the whole week.

No person was absent except through sore sickness or urgent farm duty; nor did rain or snow reduce the congregation by more than ten people, very old or very young.

Carmichael is now minister of a West End kirk, and, it is freely rumoured in Drumtochty, has preached before Lords of Session; but he has never been more nervous than facing that handful of quiet, impenetrable, critical faces in his first kirk.