"Man, Saunders, where's yer een?--you that pretends to read Tammas Carlyle. D' ye think that the black coat mak's a minister? I micht hae a minister in the window gin it did!" said he, glancing at the disjaskit-looking wood figure he had bought at a sale of bankrupt stock in Glasgow, with "THIS STYLE OF SUIT, £2, 10s." printed on the breast of it. The lay figure was a new thing in Cairn Edward, and hardly counted to be in keeping with the respect for the second commandment which a deacon in the Kirk of the Martyrs ought to cultivate. The laddies used to send greenhorns into the shop for a "penny peep o' Deacon M'Quhirr's idol!" But I always maintained that, whatever command the image might break, it certainly did not break the second; for it was like nothing in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath, nor (so far as I kenned) in the waters under the earth. But my cousin said-- "Maybes no'; but it cost me three pound, and in my shop it'll stand till it has payed itsel'!" Which gives it a long lifetime in the little shop-window in the High Street. This was my first sight of Angus Stark, the new minister of Martyrs' Kirk in Cairn Edward. "He carries things wi' a high hand," said Andrew M'Quhirr, my cousin. "That's the man ye need at the Martyrs' Kirk," said I; "ye've been spoiled owre lang wi' unstable Reubens that could in nowise excel." "Weel, we're fixed noo, rarely. I may say that I mentioned his wearin' knickerbockers to him when he first cam', thinkin' that as a young man he micht no' ken the prejudices o' the pairish." "And what said he, Andrew?" I asked. "Was he pitten aboot?" "Wha? Him! Na, no' a hair. He juist said, in his heartsome, joky way, 'I'm no' in the habit o' consulting my congregation how I shall dress myself; but if you, Mr. M'Quhirr, will supply me with a black broadcloth suit free of charge, I'll see aboot wearin' it!' says he. So I said nae mair. "But did you hear what Jess Loan, the scaffie's wife, said to him when he gaed in to bapteeze her bairn when he wasna in his blacks? She hummered a while, an' then she says, 'Maister Stark, I ken ye're an ordeened man, for I was there whan a' the ministers pat their han's on yer heid, an' you hunkerin' on the cushion--but I hae my feelin's!" "'Your feelings, Mrs. Loan?' says the minister, thinking it was some interestin' case o' personal experience he was to hear. "'Ay,' says Jess; 'if it was only as muckle as a white tie I wadna mind, but even a scaffie's wean wad be the better o' that muckle!' "So Maister Stark said never a word, but he gaed his ways hame, pat on his blacks, brocht his goun an' bands aneath his airm, and there never was sic a christenin' in Cairn Edward as Jess Loan's bairn gat!" "How does he draw wi' his fowk, Andra?" I asked, for the "Martyrs" were far from being used to work of this kind.