When the Doctor had satisfied himself that none were missing of the people, he dropped his eye-glass--each act was so closely followed that Drumsheugh below could tell where the Doctor was--and took snuff after the good old fashion, tapping the box twice, selecting a pinch, distributing it evenly, and using first a large red bandana and then a delicate white cambric handkerchief. When the cambric disappeared, each person seized his Bible, for the Doctor would say immediately with a loud, clear voice, preceded by a gentlemanly clearance of the throat, "Let us compose our minds for the worship of Almighty God by singing to His praise the first Psalm. "'That man hath perfect blessedness Who walketh not astray--'" Then Peter Rattray, of the high Glen, would come in late, and the Doctor would follow him with his eye till the unfortunate man reached his pew, where his own flesh and blood withdrew themselves from him as if he had been a leper, and Peter himself wished that he had never been born. "Five minutes earlier, Peter, would have prevented this unseemly interruption--ahem. "'In counsel of ungodly men, Nor stands in sinners' way.'" Before the Sacrament the Doctor gave one of his college sermons on some disputed point in divinity, and used language that was nothing short of awful. "Grant me those premises," he would say, while the silence in the kirk could be felt, "and I will show to any reasonable and unprejudiced person that those new theories are nothing but a resuscitated and unjustifiable Pelagianism." Such passages produced a lasting impression in the parish, and once goaded Drumsheugh's Saunders into voluntary speech. "Yon wes worth ca'in' a sermon. Did you ever hear sic words out o' the mouth o' a man? Noo that bleatin' cratur Curlew 'at comes frae Muirtown is jist pittin' by the time. Sall, ae sermon o' the Doctor's wud last yon body for a year." After the sermon the people sang, "'T was on that night when doomed to know," and the elders, who had gone out a few minutes before, entered the kirk in procession, bearing the elements, and set them before the Doctor, now standing at the table. The people came from their pews and took their seats, singing as they moved, while the children were left to their own devices, tempered by the remembrance that their doings could be seen by the Doctor, and would receive a just recompense of reward from their own kin in the evening. Domsie went down one side and Drumsheugh the other, collecting the tokens, whose clink, clink in the silver dish was the only sound. "If there be any other person who desires to take the Sacrament at this the first table" (for the Sacrament was given then to detachments), "let him come without delay." "Let us go, dad," whispered Kate. "He is a dear old padre, and . . . they are good people and our neighbours." "But they won't kneel, you know, Kit; will you . . . ?"