It was half an hour before he became articulate, during which time he sighed as if the end of all things had come, and I caught the word scapegoat twice, but at last he told me that he had resigned his eldership, and would absent himself in future from the Free Kirk. "It hass been a weary winter when minister and people hef gone into captivity, and on Sabbath the word wass taken altogether from the minister's mouth, and he spake a language which we understood not [it was the first of three sermons on the Hexateuch, and had treated of the Jehovistic and Elohistic documents with much learning], and I will be asking all the way back, 'Iss it I?' 'Iss it I?' "Oh yes, and when I opened my Bible this iss the word I will see, 'That thou doest do quickly,' and I knew it wass my sins that had brought great judgments on the people, and turned the minister into a man of stammering lips and another tongue. "It wass a mercy that the roof did not fall and bury all the people with me; but we will not be tempting the Almighty, for I hef gone outside, and now there will be peace and blessing." When we left the lighted room and stood on the doorstep, Donald pointed to the darkness. "There iss no star, and you will be remembering what John saw when the door opened and Judas went out. 'It wass night'--oh yes, it iss night for me, but it will be light for them." As weeks went past, and Donald was seen neither at Kirk nor market, my heart went out to the lonely man in his soul conflict, and, although there was no help in me, I went to ask how it fared with him. After the footpath disentangled itself from the pine woods and crossed the burn by two fir trees nailed together, it climbed a steep ascent to Donald's house, but I had barely touched the foot, when I saw him descending, his head in the air, and his face shining. Before any words passed, I knew that the battle had been fought and won. "It wass last night, and I will be coming to tell you. Satan hass gone like darkness when the sun ariseth, and I hef been delivered." There are stories one cannot hear sitting, and so we paced the meadow below, rich in primroses, with a sloping bank of gorse behind us, and the pines before us, and the water breaking over the stones at our feet. "It is three weeks since I saw you, and all that time I hef been wandering on the hill by day, and lying in the barn at night, for it wass not good to be with people, and Satan wass always saying to me, Judas went to 'his own place.' My dog will lay his head on my knee, and be sorry for me, and the dumb animals will be looking at me out of their great eyes, and be moaning. "The lads are good singers, and there wass always a sound of Psalms on the farm, oh yes, and it was pleasant to come from the market and hear the Psalms at the foot of the hill. It wass like going up to Jerusalem. But there would be no Psalms these days, for the lads could not sing when their father's soul wass going down into the pit.