Never dawned Sunday upon soul more wretched. He had not indeed to climb into his watchman’s tower without the pretence of a proclamation, but on that very morning his father had put the mare between the shafts of the gig to drive his wife to Tiltowie and their son’s church, instead of the nearer and more accessible one in the next parish, whither they oftener went. Arrived there, it was not wonderful they should find themselves so dissatisfied with the spiritual food set before them, as to wish heartily they had remained at home, or driven to the nearer church. The moment the service was over, Mr. Blatherwick felt much inclined to return at once, without waiting an interview with his son; for he had no remark to make on the sermon that would be pleasant either for his son or his wife to hear; but Marion combated the impulse with entreaties that grew almost angry, and Peter was compelled to yield, although sullenly. They waited in the churchyard for the minister’s appearance. “Weel, Jeemie,” said his father, shaking hands with him limply, “yon was some steeve parritch ye gied us this mornin!—and the meal itsel was baith auld and soor!” The mother gave her son a pitiful smile, as if in deprecation of her husband’s severity, but said not a word; and James, haunted by the taste of failure the sermon had left in his own mouth, and possibly troubled by sub-conscious motions of self-recognition, could hardly look his father in the face, and felt as if he had been rebuked by him before all the congregation. “Father,” he replied in a tone of some injury, “you do not know how difficult it is to preach a fresh sermon every Sunday!” “Ca’ ye yon fresh, Jeemie? To me it was like the fuistit husks o’ the half-faimisht swine! Man, I wuss sic provender would drive yersel whaur there’s better and to spare! Yon was lumps o’ brose in a pig-wash o’ stourum! The tane was eneuch to choke, and the tither to droon ye!” James made a wry face, and the sight of his annoyance broke the ice gathering over the well-spring in his mother’s heart; tears rose in her eyes, and for one brief moment she saw the minister again her bairn. But he gave her no filial response; ambition, and greed of the praise of men, had blocked in him the movements of the divine, and corrupted his wholesomest feelings, so that now he welcomed freely as a conviction the suggestion that his parents had never cherished any sympathy with him or his preaching; which reacted in a sudden flow of resentment, and a thickening of the ice on his heart. Some fundamental shock must dislodge that rooted, overmastering ice, if ever his wintered heart was to feel the power of a reviving Spring! The threesum family stood in helpless silence for a few moments; then the father said to the mother— “I doobt we maun be settin oot for hame, Mirran!”