"They were sayin' at the Presbytery," Burnbrae reported, "that it hes mair than seeventy heads, coontin' pints, of coorse, and a' can weel believe it. Na, na, it's no tae be expeckit that Elspeth cud gie them a' aifter ae hearin'."
Jamie Souter looked in to set his mind at rest, and Elspeth went at once to work.
"Sit doon, Jamie, for it canna be dune in a meenut."
It took twenty-three minutes exactly, for Jamie watched the clock.
"That's the laist, makin' seeventy-four, and ye may depend on every ane but that fourth pint under the sixth head. Whether it wes the 'beginnin' o' faith' or 'the origin,' a' canna be sure, for he cleared his throat at the time."
Peter Bruce stood helpless at the Junction next Friday—Drumtochty was celebrating Elspeth—and the achievement established her for life.
Probationers who preached in the vacancy had heard rumours, and tried to identify their judge, with the disconcerting result that they addressed their floweriest passages to Mistress Stirton, who was the stupidest woman in the Free Kirk, and had once stuck in the "chief end of man." They never suspected the sonsy motherly woman, two pews behind Donald Menzies, with her face of demure interest and general air of country simplicity. It was as well for the probationers that they had not caught the glint of those black beady eyes.
"It's curious," Mrs. Macfadyen remarked to me one day, "hoo the pulpit fashions change, juist like weemen's bonnets.
"Noo a' mind when auld Doctor Ferintosh, him 'at wrote 'Judas Iscariot the first Residuary,' would stand twa meenutes facing the fouk, and no sit doon till he hed his snuff.
"But thae young birkies gie oot 'at they see naebody comin' in, an' cover their face wi' ae hand sae solemn, that if ye didna catch them keekin' through their fingers tae see what like the kirk is, ye wud think they were prayin'."