It is an unfortunate circumstance, however, that even a scientific frontier wavers at places, and leaves a piece of doubtful territory that may at any moment become a cause of war. Surely there is not on the face of the Scottish earth a more unoffending, deferential, conciliatory person than a "probationer," who on Saturdays can be seen at every country junction, bag in hand, on his patient errand of "supply," and yet it was over his timid body the great powers of the manse twice quarrelled disastrously. As a guest in the manse, to be received on Saturday evening, to be conducted to his room, to be fed and warmed, to go to his bed at a proper hour--ten on Saturday and ten-thirty on Sabbath--to be sent away on Monday morning in good time for the train, he was within the province of Rebecca. As a minister to be examined, advised, solemnised, encouraged, to be got ready on Sabbath morning and again disrobed, to be edified with suitable conversation and generally made as fit as possible for his work, he was evidently within John's sphere of influence. It was certainly the beadle's business to visit the dining-room on Saturday evening, where the young man was supposed to be meditating against the ordeal of the morrow, to get the Psalms for the precentor, to answer strictly professional questions, and generally to advise the neophyte about the sermon that would suit Drumtochty, and the kind of voice to be used. One thing John knew perfectly well he ought not to do, and that was to invite a probationer to spend the evening in the Doctor's study, for on this point Rebecca was inexorable. "A' dinna say that they wud read the Doctor's letters, an' a' dinna say they wud tak a buke as a keepsake, but a' can never forget ane o' them--he hed a squint and red hair--comin' oot frae the cupboard as a' opened the door. "'There 's juist ae wy oot o' the room, an' it's by the door ye cam in at,' a' said; 'maybe ye wud like tae come an' sit in the dinin'-room; ye 'll be less distrackit.'" And Rebecca charged John that no probationer should in future be allowed to enter the Doctor's sanctum on any consideration. John's excuse for his solitary fault was that the lad thought that he could study his sermon better with books round him, and so Rebecca found the young gentleman seated in the Doctor's own chair and working with the Doctor's own pen, unblushing and shameless. "Gin ye want Cruden's _Concordance_"--this was when Rebecca had led him out a chastened man--"or Matthew Henry tae fill up yir sermon, the books 'll be brocht by the church officer." Rebecca's intrusion, in turn, into John's sphere was quite without excuse, and she could only explain her conduct by a general reference to the foolishness of the human heart. It came out through the ingenuousness of the probationer, who mentioned casually that he was told Drumtochty liked four heads in the sermon.