138 The Little Minister

“We must go,” said the doctor, firmly. “ Put
on your mutch, Nanny.”

“J dinna need to put on a mutch,” she an-
swered, with a faint flush of pride. “I have a
bonnet.”

She took the bonnet from her bed, and put it
on slowly.

“ Are you sure there’s naebody looking?” she
asked.

The doctor glanced at the minister, and Gavin
rose.

“Let us pray,” he said, and the three went
down on their knees.

It was not the custom of Auld Licht ministers
to leave any house without offering up a prayer
in it, and to us it always seemed that when Gavin
prayed, he was at the knees of God. The little
minister pouring himself out in prayer in a hum-
ble room, with awed people round him who knew
much more of the world than he, his voice at
times thick and again a squeal, and his hands
clasped not gracefully, may have been; only a
comic figure, but we were old-fashioned, and he
seemed to make us better men. If I only knew
the way, I would draw him as he was, and not
fear to make him too mean a man for you to read
about. He had not been long in Thrums before
he knew that we talked much of his prayers, and
that doubtless puffed him up a little. Sometimes,
I daresay, he rose from his knees feeling that he
had prayed well to-day, which is a dreadful charge
to bring against any one. But it was not always
so, nor was it so now.

I am not speaking harshly of this man, whom