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Elizabeth Milligan, better known as “the minister’s Betsy,” came and rapped on the door in an undecided way. It was a very interesting authority the minister was consulting, so he only said “Thank you, Elizabeth!” in an absent-minded way and went on reading, rubbing his moustache the while with the unoccupied hand in a way which, had he known it, kept it perpetually thin.

But Betty continued to knock, and finally put her head within the study door.

“It’s no’ yer parritch yet,” she said. “It’s but an hour since ye took yer tea. But, if ye please, minister, wad ye be so kind as open the door? There’s somebody ringing the front-door bell, an’ it’s jammed wi’ the rain forbye, an’ nae wise body gangs and comes that gait ony way, binna yersel’.”

“Certainly, certainly, Elizabeth; I will open the door immediately!” said the minister, laying down his book and marking the place with last week’s list of psalms and intimations.

Mr. Buchanan went to the seldom-used front door, turned the key, and threw open the portal to see who the visitor might be who rang the manse bell at eight o’clock on such a night. Betsy hung about the outskirts of the hall in a fever of anticipation and alarm. It might be a highwayman–or even a wild U.P. There was no saying.

But when the minister pulled the door wide open, he looked out and saw nothing. Only blackness and tossing leaves were in front of him.

“Who’s there?” he cried, peremptorily, in his pulpit voice–which he used when “my people” stood convicted of some exhibition of extreme callousness to impression.

But only the darkness fronted him and the swirl of wind slapped the wet ivy-leaves against the porch.

Then apparently from among his feet a little piping voice replied–

“If ye please, minister, I want to learn Greek and Laitin, an’ to gang to the college.”

The minister staggered back aghast. He could see no one at all, and this peeping, elfish-like voice, rising amid the storm to his ear out of the darkness, reminded him of the days when he believed in the other world–that is, of course, the world of spirits and churchyard ghosts.

But gradually there grew upon him a general impression of a little figure, broad and squat, standing bareheaded and with cap in hand on his threshold. The minister came to himself, and his habits of hospitality asserted themselves.

“You want to learn Greek and Latin,” he said, accustomed to extraordinary requests. “Come in and tell me all about it.”

The little, broad figure stepped within the doorway.

“I’m a’ wat wi’ the rain,” again quoth the elfish voice, more genially, “an’ I’m no’ fit to gang into a gentleman’s hoose.”

“Come into the dining-room,” said the minister kindly.

“‘Deed, an’ ye’ll no,” interposed Betsy, who had been coming nearer. “Ye’se juist gang into the study, an’ I’ll lay doon a bass for ye to stand an’ dreep on. Where come ye frae, laddie?”

“I am Tammas Gleg’s laddie. My faither disna ken that I hae come to see the minister,” said the boy.

“The loon’s no’ wise!” muttered Betsy. “Could the back door no’ hae served ye?–Bringing fowk away through the hoose traikin’ to open the front door to you on sic a nicht! Man, ye are a peetifu’ object!”

The object addressed looked about him. He was making a circle of wetness on the floor. He was taken imperatively by the coat-sleeve.

“Ye canna gang into the study like that. There wad be nae dryin’ the floor. Come into the kitchen, laddie,” said Betsy. “Gang yer ways ben, minister, to your ain gate-end, an’ the loon’ll be wi’ ye the noo.”

So Betsy, who was accustomed to her own way in the manse of Blawrinnie, drove Tammas Gleg’s laddie before her into the kitchen, and the minister went into the study with a kind of junior apostolic meekness. Then he meditatively settled his hard circular collar, which he wore in the interests of Life and Work, but privately hated with a deadly hatred, as his particular form of penance.