'I see na that a' has been said,' observed Ebenezer, so soon as the Laird was beyond hearing, 'or that ony thing has been said ava that's ony gude. Are we to let the hale thing drap, an' mak fules o' oursel's afore the hale glen, just to pleasure Auchlippie? I trow no!' 'An' what wad ye be for doin' then?' asked one. 'I'll tell ye what we suld do,' suggested another. 'Isna Mester Dowlas comin' to haud the meetin,' an' lay the fundation o' the new Kirk? An' what for suldna we ca' him to adveese wi' us what ocht to be dune? I'm thinkin' he's as weel able as Auchlippie to direc' folk, an' we needna be feared to anger _him_, he's no a laird.' 'Aweel!' said Ebenezer, who had now mounted on the top of the tall stool, and was benevolently regarding the meeting from his self-appointed station as chairman. 'Ye'll better juist muive that, Andra Semple, an' as I'm e'y chair I'll put yer motion to the meetin'. An' syne _ye_ can muive an adjournment, Elluck Lamont, an' we'll adjourn to Thursday efternoon, whan the kirk skells. An' sae we'll be a' in order ('let a'thing be dune decently an' in order,' says the Apostle) till we get Mester Dowlas to set us richt.' Thus the meeting had but small direct result. Its effect indirectly, however, was considerable. When, early that evening, the members had stolen down the lane near the minister's cottage, to intercept each other and feel circuitously towards the point of interest, each would have been ashamed, first and unsupported, to repeat aloud the rumours that had reached him. When he had heard them in the first instance, usually from his wife--it is the gentle sex usually which originates or introduces such tales, probably because it has no head to break, which is to say, that its corporal immunities in a civilized land enable it to say unpunished what would bring down on the male tattler both brawls and broken bones,--he had at first declared it was impossible, and then that it was unlikely; and even when, after dwelling on it in his mind, the love of a sensation made him half think half hope there might be something in it, he would hesitate to allude to it save by a whisper and a shake of the head, and would caution his wife not to repeat it, or let herself appear as one who was giving it currency. When, however, the matter had been talked over, audible speech exercised its usual defining and contracting influence. The mysterious and appalling, as well as the doubtful element, became vulgarised as well as realized. Without any additional evidence, yet in the company of so many others who all believed, each felt it due to his own character for clear-sightedness and high moral tone to dismiss every remnant of doubt, and to be eager for the exposure and punishment of the offender. Afterwards, in the presence of the accused himself, their certainty had begun a little to waver. The many pieties and goodnesses associated with him in their memories,