Well, I could say no less than that I would do as he said. And when I heard that Mr. Ryan was a good "cover," as well as a safe bat and change bowler, I thought I would risk it. Afterwards I found it would have been one of the best things I could do. Though, mind you, for all that there may have been some thought of Elsie in the back of Mr. Ablethorpe's mind. For there were heaps and heaps of pretty girls at Mr. Ryan's church, as I found out when I visited the city--all sorts, swell girls, villa girls, and shop girls (these last the prettiest). And he may have thought that among so many I would be almost certain to forget Elsie. He _may_, I say. I don't know that he did. Only--I should in his place. Well, my curate, he went on like sticks a-breaking all about the difference between church and chapel, and how, though the Presbyterians were by law established in Scotland, they were only chapel people after all. And that there was only one Church, properly so called. Oh, a lot like that. And he got quite hot about it, because he had been in Scotland himself, and had been called a Dissenter by the parish minister. He had never got over this, and even now the remembrance of it made him ruffle up his hair like tossing moist meadow hay. Then he would start in to explain about it all over again. I didn't mind, for I thought: "The more he cares for things like that 'Postolic Succession and 'Down with John Knox,' the less time will he have for meandering about Elsie." So I was pleased all right with what he said, though I didn't listen much. However, I promised to go to his friend's church in Edinburgh, and not to any of the Presbyterian "schism-shops." That was what he called them, for he pitched into them proper. Then he was as pleased as Punch, and looked upon me with a sort of air as if he owned me. I bet he took me for a brand plucked from the Presbyterian burning. You see, on the border of the two countries it is different from anywhere else. It is like drawing a chalk line, and both sides, Piskies and Presbies, spar up to it. They are always letting out at each other, while thirty miles inland they don't care a jujube about the matter, and even play golf together and smoke pipes on the sly after sermon. This is truth, and you can put it between the leaves of the Holy Book and swear on it. Well, I told the curate I would go to his friend Harry Ryan's church--St. James the Less was the name of it. But I didn't say _how often_ I would go! It is always well to keep a sort of anchor out, grappled in the hinterlands of your conscience, when you are promising in the dark, as I was that time.