The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-22
CHAPTER XXI.

ister of the Valley Kirk had done ran swiftly through the village. The Val ley Manse was very advantageously placed for purposes of observation. Nearly every housewife in the whole length of the High street could see the Manse door by merely putting aside the little white lace curtain. strung on a piece of tape across the lower third of her window.
 At eleven of the morning Hector Me Kill called, entered. and remained long time closeted with the minister. Then he flounced out and went up the road with long strides.
 The whole High street felt certain that he had lifted his lines" and won dered where~he would go now. Lift ing ones lines" is the technical ex- pression for disjoining oneself from a congregation. Only. on the occasion of a grave and serious quarrel Is this resorted to. For Scottish folk are very faithful to tn cir places of worship when once they have chosen them-or, as is more probably the case, had them oh osen for them by the religious pro- fessions of their parents.
 The conclusion drawn by the wise folk of the High Street Council, was, for once, correct. At the Manse Hec- tor McKill had beseeched, had threat ened, had sworn to, Split the kirk always a dire possibility in Scotland. But every time he had found his threats broken upon the quiet, unre- sentful determination of Mir. Fowler. He had carried away with him the double certificates with the ink scarce ly dry upon them, which stated that in the opinion of the Reverend John Fowler, MT. and Mrs. Hector McKill were fit and proper persons to leave the Free Congregation of the Valley church in Kirktown."
 Being 5otherwise occupied, with the anger within him still effervescent. MT. McKill did not notice the curious word ing of the certificate. At any rate, he had no intention of making use of the "disjunction lines" No other church. certainly none in Kirktown, was worthy to receive his adherence and that of his amiable wife. He would do better. He would set up a new sect in Kirktown. Yes, here at last was his opportunity. He had long been dissatisfied with the projections of "colleged divines." He would call the ltra-faithful to arms andAminister to them himself.
 It was with this purpose in his head that he went so rapidly up the street to take a Sunday and Wednesday lease of the Oddfellows' hall. He secured both. He had also chosen name for his new sect. It was to be called '"The Church of the Thousand, Three Hun dred and Five and Thirty Days" He had though of simply and ostenta- tiously naming it "The Church." as being the only one uniting pure doc Urine with real auth ority. But his wife, whose reasons could not be denied, had asserted the claims of exact prophecy. And so, with some sacrifice of sim plicity Hector McKill had yielded
 After lunch he sent his wife, in company with the beadle's wife. to up- lift his Bible and Psalm books. his hymn-books and hassocks, from the pew he had occupied so long in tie Valley Kirk, now become as Sodom and Gomorrah to him. And if one had listened to that excellent person, the wife of the beadle, a woman wholly de- voted to "Maister Fowler" 1t was with the utmost difficulty that Mrs. McKill "thet greedy gorb" was prevented from carrying off not only her own. but a larger number of other books of her late cult, which were by no means hers to dispose of.
 "Eh, but she's worth the watchin" said Mistress Haldane afterwards. 'I declare if hadna been there yon wum- man wad fair hae strippit the kirk :. She wanted me to let her into the vestry But, Ma, na,' says I, I hae far over muckle respect for the pull pit Biblen That's what I said to her, says l."
 It cannot be affirmed that the suc- cess of the new venture was propor- tionate to the energy with which Hec- tor McKill pursued his work of prosely tism. He went from foreman to fore man, from worke to worker. and after considerable difficulty (more or less) he did indeed succeed in extorting va riously .worded promises, or in some cases mere grunts of acquiescence- that they would maybe look in" upon the Church of the 1885 Days"-that they "wad gie him a hearin' '-or more often, that they wanda just like to say, but would maybe see"
 All which erninently Scottish modes of begging the question, and reading thethe bill this day six months" were calculated and arranged for the sole purpose at once of affording Hector Me Kill no reason for anger, and of per sonally committing the speakers to nothing in particular For, though it is not much known south of the bor- der, Scots "canniness" consists not so much the Scot is3.''. 345'h 45k eco much in a "bang-went sixpence-and in which the Scot is far surpassed, care fitness as to money, which Is rather rare by both Wales and Yorkshire but in the above faculty of never quite committing himself. never leaving himself without an intelligent back door in any argument.
 Neverfh eIesa in the OddfelloWs' hall