fifty; and over his harsh weather-beaten features, which were in some little degree the reverse of engaging at any time, the occasion of the meeting seemed to have flung a darker expression than was common to them. As Roderick advanced, he started up as if to reconnoitre so terrible an apparition. Roderick’s shirt and breeches were stained by the damp mouldy turf of the window, his face had not escaped, and, instead of being marked by its usual expression of quiet good-nature, bore a portentous ferocity of aspect, which seemed to indicate a man not rashly to be meddled with. “In the name of wonder, what brings you here in such plight?” was the question put to him by an acquaintance in the aisle. “I come here,” said Roderick, in a voice sufficiently audible all over the building, “to gie my vote as a free member o’ this kirk in the election o’ this day; an’ as for the particular plight,” lowering his tone into a whisper, “speer about that at the gudewife.”--“And whom do you vote for?” said the schoolmaster, “for the time is up;--there are two candidates, Simpson and Henderson.” “For honest Mr. Henderson,” said the farmer; “an’ ill be his luck this day wha votes for ae Roman out o’ the fear o’ anither, or lets the luve o’ warld’s gear stan’ atween him an’ his conscience.” The Captain grasped his stick; Roderick clenched his fist. “Look ye, Captain,” he continued, “after flinging awa, for the sake o’ the puir kirk, the bonny rigs o’ Driemonorie, an’ I ken I have done it, ye needna think to daunt me wi’ a kent. Come out, Captain, yoursel, or ony twa o’ your gang, an’ in this quarrel I shall bide the warst. Nay, man, glower as ye list; I’m no obliged to be feart though ye choose to be angry.” The shout of “No Popish patron!--no Popish patron!” which shook the very roof that stretched over the heads of the hundreds who joined in it, served as a kind of chorus to this fearless defiance. The Captain suffered his stick to slip through his fingers until the knob rested on his palm, and then, striding over the pew, he walked out of church. In less than half an hour after, the popular candidate was declared duly elected, and at Whitsunday first Roderick was ejected from his farm. His character, however, as a man of probity and a skilful farmer, was so well established throughout the country, that he suffered less on the occasion than almost any other person would have done. He died many years after, the tacksman of Peddieston, possessed of ingear and outgear, and of a very considerable sum of money, with which he had the temerity to intrust a newfangled kind of money-borrower, termed a bank. [Sidenote: MR. HENDERSON.]