"It was the fashion in our parish, at this time of the year, to give two sermons at one sitting, but auld Mr Clour had only brought one, and our ain minister being as hoarse as a raven, there was nothing for it but that Mr Clour should split his in two. Indeed, I heard him say, as they walked into the kirkyard together--'Well, friend Bland, if I maun preach twa sermons, while I hae only yin in my pouch, and nane in my head, they must just be of the shortest, for I can manage no other way than by halving it; however, I'll gie them a gude bit screed of a psalm to sough awa at after the first half, and that will help us 'ayont the twall,' as Burns says, before we begin to the second. "The first sermon passed over, and when he gave out the Psalm that was to be the resting-place, the half-way house between the wings of his discourse, what was my dismay, to find that he, with all the coolness in life, read out six long verses! My mouth was dry enough, and my throat husky enough with my previous discomfiture, Heaven knows; but I whistled away until I got to the line about 'a dry parched land, wherein no waters be,' when my voice fairly failed me a'thegither. I made a desperate struggle, but there was nae mair sound in me than in a clarionet without the reed, or a child's bawbee whistle blawn dumb on the first day of the fair. So I waited for a while, and again set to, but my screech was this time a mixture of the cry of the corncraik and the hissing of a goose; besides, I had lost the tune, and nane of the congregation could find it, so I squeeled and sweltered about, until the haill kirk and pews, and the folk in them, danced before my eyes, and I could not tell whether I was on my head or my heels. At length I croaked out, '_Vox faucibus hæsit, domine--Vox faucibus hæsit_. As sure's death, I can sing nane until somebody gives me a drink of water.' At this moment I felt a slap on the cheek, which made me start and turn round, and there was the auld minister leaning ower the front of his pulpit, and girning at me like Auld Nick himsell. 'Deevil's in the callant; has he lost the _fang_[1] already, wi' skirling up the Psalm but for yae half hour?' This drave me demented altogether, so making a rush from the precentor's desk, I stumbled down into my father's seat, who was lying with his head on his blue bonnet, peching and perspiring with utter shame and vexation. _I never tried the precentor line again_. [1] A pump is said to have _lost the fang_ in Scotland, when the sucker won't draw. "Mv father's circumstances continued to improve, and at last he found himself in a condition to send me to Edinburgh itsell, to study for the kirk; and there I continued for three years more, during session time;--after which I returned home a licentiate of the Church of Scotland no less, but with the immediate purpose of succeeding the old schoolmaster of Lincomdodie, who had about this period been gathered to his fathers.