And never, I ween, was sermon listened to with more marked and solemn attention.
“Thank God,” said Sandie to himself when at last he closed the Book.
Sandie preached at this school every fortnight after this, but neither here nor anywhere else did he ever again use a manuscript.
A letter came from Sandie’s friend Mackenzie a few weeks after he had been ordained minister.
The clergyman of Drumlade, the very parish in which Sandie was born, and in which stood the farm of Kilbuie, was very old and wanted a helper. He (Mackenzie) had proposed Sandie. Would he come?
This was glorious news!
Sandie became such a favourite with the parishioners, that, six months afterwards, when the poor old minister died, he received a universal and unanimous call to take the office.
And so it came to pass that ere long our hero became minister of the fine old parish of Drumlade.
The church itself was a large one, and stood on an eminence overlooking a curve of the winding Don, and surrounded by its God’s acre of green, green graves.
At a distance of about an eighth of a mile, and nestling near the river-side, in a bosky dell, stood the fine old manse, with its rich old walled gardens, its grass lawns and rose terraces, on one of which stood an ancient dial-stone.