This caused a great uproar in the parish. I was sorely blamed to let such a man as Mr. Heckletext go up into my pulpit, although I was as ignorant of his offences as the innocent child that perished; and, in an unguarded hour, to pacify some of the elders, who were just distracted about the disgrace, I consented to have him called before the session. He obeyed the call, and in a manner that I will never forget; for he was a sorrow of sin and audacity, and demanded to know why, and for what reason, he was summoned. I told him the whole affair in my calm and moderate way; but it was oil cast upon a burning coal. He flamed up in a terrible passion; threepit at the elders that they had no proof whatever of his having had any trafficking in the business, which was the case; for it was only a notion, the poor deceased lassie never having made a disclosure: called them libellous conspirators against his character, which was his only fortune, and concluded by threatening to punish them, though he exempted me from the injury which their slanderous insinuations had done to his prospects in life. We were all terrified, and allowed him to go away without uttering a word; and sure enough he did bring a plea in the courts of Edinburgh against Mr. Lorimore and the elders for damages, laid at a great sum. What might have been the consequence, no one can tell; but soon after he married Sir Hugh’s house-keeper, and went with her into Edinburgh, where he took up a school; and, before the trial came on, that is to say, within three months of the day that I myself married them, Mrs. Heckletext was delivered of a thriving lad bairn, which would have been a witness for the elders, had the worst come to the worst. This was, indeed, we all thought, a joyous deliverance to the parish, and it was a lesson to me never to allow any preacher to mount my pulpit, unless I knew something of his moral character.