306 The Little Minister

In the vestry Hendry Munn was now holding
counsel with three elders, of whom the chief was
Lang Tammas.

“The laddie I sent to the manse,’ Hendry
said, “canna be back this five minutes, and the
question is how we’re to fill up that time. I'll
ring no langer, for the bell has been in a passion
ever since a quarter past eight. It’s as sweer to
clang past the quarter as a horse to gallop by its
stable.”

“You could gang to your box and gie out a
psalm, Tammas,” suggested John Spens.

“And would a psalm sung wi’ sic an object,”
retorted the precentor, “mount higher, think
you, than a bairn’s kite? I'll insult the Almighty
to screen no minister.”

“You’re screening him better by standing
whaur you are,” said the imperturbable Hendry ;
“for as lang as you dinna show your face they’ll
think it may be you that’s missing instead o’
Mr. Dishart.”

Indeed, Gavin’s appearance in church without
the precentor would have been as surprising as
Tammas’s without the minister. As certainly as
the shutting of a money-box is followed by the
turning of the key, did the precentor walk stiffly
from the vestry to his box a toll of the bell
in front of the minister. Tammas’s halfpenny
rang in the plate as Gavin passed T’nowhead’s
pew, and Gavin’s sixpence with the snapping-to
of the precentor’s door. The two men might
have been connected by a string that tightened
at ten yards.

“The congregation ken me ower weel,” Tam-