When Napoleon retired the congregation smacked its lips, for now at least every one had found his voice and could go his own way. There never was such a vacancy known in the district. They heard thirty candidates and rejected them all: they held a meeting every week, which lasted till midnight, and there were six motions proposed, and no one dreamed of agreement. It was like the emancipation of the slaves, and the whole of Scotch cantankerousness came to a height. Every obscure law was hunted up in order to be used against the other side, and every well-known law they endeavoured to break. Not because they did not know the law, but because they wanted to find out whether the presiding minister knew it. This poor man had the duty of conducting the meetings of the congregation, and was utterly unfitted for the position by his exceeding goodness. He was a pious and soft-hearted man, who used to address them as “dear brethren,” and appealed to them on the grounds of harmony and charity. “You will wish to be at one,” he used to say, when they all really wished to be at sixes and sevens, or, “I am sure,” he would say, “you didn't mean to oppose our dear brother who has just spoken,” when that had been the speaker's intention for twenty-four hours. One party was led by a tall, raw-boned Scot, with a voice like a handsaw, who opposed everything, and the other was really managed by the wife of one of the elders, who could be heard giving directions _sotto voce_ how to meet the handsaw. They finally drew the wretched acting moderator to distraction, so that his head, which was never so good as his heart, gave way, and he required six months' rest in a hydropathic.