noteworthy that the first prayer lasted longer than all the
others, and that to read the intimations about the Bible-class and
the collection elsewhere than immediately before the last Psalm
would have been as sacrilegious as to insert the dedication to
King James at the end of Revelation. Sitting under a minister
justly honoured in his day, the boy was often some words in
advance of him, not vainglorious of his memory, but fervent,
eager, and regarding the preacher as hardly less sacred than the
Book. Gavin was encouraged by his frightened yet admiring mother
to saw the air from their pew as the minister sawed it in the
pulpit, and two benedictions were pronounced twice a Sabbath in
that church, in the same words, the same manner, and
simultaneously.

There was a black year when the things of this world, especially
its pastimes, took such a grip of Gavin that he said to Margaret
he would rather be good at the high jump than the author of "The
Pilgrim's Progress." That year passed, and Gavin came to his right
mind. One afternoon Margaret was at home making a glen-garry for
him out of a piece of carpet, and giving it a tartan edging, when
the boy bounded in from school, crying, "Come quick, mother, and
you'll see him." Margaret reached the door in time to see a street
musician flying from Gavin and his friends. "Did you take stock of
him, mother?" the boy asked when he reappeared with the mark of a
muddy stick on his back. "He's a Papist!--a sore sight, mother, a
sore sight. We stoned him for persecuting the noble Martyrs."

"When Gavin was twelve he went to the university, and also got a
place in a shop as errand boy. He used to run through the streets
between his work and his classes. Potatoes and salt fish, which