His authority was supreme under the Doctor, and never was disputed by man or beast save once, and John himself admitted that the circumstances were quite peculiar. It was during the Doctor's famous continental tour, when Drumsheugh fought with strange names in the kirkyard, and the Presbytery supplied Drumtochty in turn. The minister of St. David's, Muirtown, was so spiritual that he left his voice at the foot of the pulpit stairs, and lived in the Song of Solomon, with occasional excursions into the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and it was thoughtless not to have told Mr. Curlew that two or three dogs--of unexceptionable manners--attended our kirk with their masters. They would no more have thought of brawling in church than John himself, and they knew the parts of the service as well as the Doctor, but dogs have been so made by our common Creator that they cannot abide falsetto, and Mr. Curlew tried them beyond endurance. When he lifted up his voice in "Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return," a long wail in reply, from below a back seat where a shepherd was slumbering, proclaimed that his appeal had not altogether failed. "Put out that dog," said the preacher in a very natural voice, with a strong suggestion of bad temper, "put that dog out immediately; it's most disgraceful that such . . . eh, conduct should go, on in a Christian church. Where is the church officer?" "A'm the Beadle o' Drumtochty"--standing in his place--"an' a'll dae yir pleesure;" and the occasion was too awful for any one, even the dog's master, to assist, far less to laugh. So Laddie was conducted down the passage--a dog who would not condescend to resist--and led to the outer gate of the kirkyard, and John came in amid a dead silence--for Mr. Curlew had not yet got his pulpit note again--and faced the preacher. "The dog 's oot, sir, but a' tak this congregation tae witness, ye begood (began) it yirsel'," and it was said that Mr. Curlew's pious and edifying chant was greatly restricted in country kirks from that day. It was not given to the beadle to sit with the elders in that famous court of morals which is called the Kirk Session, and of which strange stories are told by Southern historians, but it was his to show out and in the culprits with much solemnity. He was able to denote the exact offence in the language of Kirk law, and was considered happy in his abbreviations for technical terms. As a familiar of the Inquisition, he took oversight of the district, and saw that none escaped the wholesome discipline of the Church. "Ye 're back," he said, arresting Peter Ferguson as he tried to escape down a byroad, and eyeing the prodigal sternly, who had fled from discipline to London, and there lost a leg; "the' 'll be a meetin' o' Session next week afore the Saicrament; wull a' tell the Doctor ye're comin'?"