"Divine authority, dear brother," says Father Mostyn. "Divine authority."
"Divine authority," says the Doctor. "... Wi' yer meeracles. Mon, hae ye ever hairrd a donkey speak?"
"Ha! frequently, frequently," murmurs his Reverence, focussing a distant point of space through his eyelashes, and waltzing softly, without animus, to and fro in his foot radius.
"Ah 'm no speakin' pairsonally, ye understand," the Doctor says, with a tinge of remonstrance for levity, "but it will hae been in the pulpit ye have hairrd it. Mon, hae ye never read Hume on the Meeracles? Are ye no conversant wi' your Gibbon? D' ye pretend to tell me ye are ignorant o' such men as Reenan and Strauss, and Bauerr and Darrwin, and Thomas Huxley?"
"Estimable people, no doubt, Friend Anderson," the Vicar tells him imperturbably. "... Estimable people."
"Ah doot ye 've read a wurrd of them," the Doctor pronounces bluntly.
"So much the better for me, dear brother. So much the better for me."
"Mon," says the Doctor, exasperated by this equanimous piety that all his own exasperation cannot exasperate. "... Ye 're a peetifu' creature, an' ah feel shame tae be drinkin' the whiskey o' such as you. Ye go inta chairrch and fill a lot o' puir eegnorant people wi' mair ignorance than they had without ye, teachin' them your fairy tales about apples and sairrpints, and women bein' made oot o' man's ribs (did one ever hearr the like!). Let's awa', an' mind dinna tek inta yer heid ta fall sick this week, or it 'll go harrd wi' ye if ah 'm called."
"Ha! We can die but once, Brother Anderson," the priest tells him cheerfully. "Even all the science and medical skill in the world can't kill us more than that."
And so the moments of these four pass, and the harvest hour approaches, inwardly and outwardly, until at last ... one day...