All, that is, save Jacob Gullibrand. He sat a moment, and then amid a silence which could be felt, he rose and staggered out like a man suddenly smitten with sore sickness. He never set foot in Nixon's Wynd again.
Henry Walker waited till the door had closed upon the Troubler of Israel, the paper still in his hand. Then very solemnly he tore it into shreds and trampled them under foot.
He waited a moment for the Doctor to speak, but he did not.
"And you, also, will withdraw your resignation and stay with us?" he said.
The Doctor could not answer in words; but he nodded his head. It was, indeed, the desire of his heart. Then in a loud and surprising voice—jubilant, and yet with a kind of godly anger in it, Henry Walker gave out the closing psalm.
"All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
Him serve with mirth, His praise forthtell,
Come ye before Him and rejoice!"
CARNATION'S MORNING JOY
This is the story of the little white-washed cottage at the top of the brae a mile or so before you come into Cairn Edward. It is a love story, a simple and uneventful one, quickly told.
The cottage is not now what it was—I fear to say how many years ago—when I was wont to drive in to the Cameronian Kirk on summer Sabbaths in the red farm cart. Then not only I, but every one used to watch from far for the blue waft of reek going up as we sighted the white gable-end far away.
"Carnation's Cottage!" we used to call it, and even my father, Cameronian elder as he was, smiled when he passed it.