Page:Martha Spreull by Zachary Fleming.pdf/53

Rh wi’ a mishanter when he wis young, and wis hump-backet. Some say he fell oot o’ a careless lassie’s airms ontil a flag flair, and had dislocated his shoother-bleds; and ithers alloo't the mis-shapenness wis born wi’ him.* Hooever that may be, there wisna muckle wrang wi’s heed, for he wrote a real learned fcreatis’ on the Book o’ Revelations, which, I have heard my faither say, raised an unco steer at the time, and caused an American College to send him ower the title o’ doctor o’ divinity. As a minister I think he wis gey ill-used. Some years before the Disruption he wis presented to the pairish o’ Kilfinnan i’ the county o’ Fife; but there wis a terrible to-do aboot the settlement. Some said his doctrun wis unsound, ithers that his prayers werena evangelical, and that when preaching he keepit ae e’e on a paper before him i’ the Bible while the ither wis directed towards the middle ornament i’ the front o’ the laft. My faither, wha had great insicht in ecclesiastical matters, said that a’ the hurry arose oot o’ this, that the puir body had a hump on his back. The thing wis referred to the Synod, then it gaed back to the Presbytery, and whether the evidence wis richt or wrang, the Assembly took the side o’ the congregation, and they were set free to select anither minister. Maybe I wis. hasty, but ever sin’ syne I have had a dour prejudice against onybody that comes frae the kingdom o’ Fife.

I must say the doctor behaved in an on common manner when I telt him what I proposed to do. He wis afflicted wi’ that guid auld-fashioned politeness that restrain men frae laughin’ richt oot in a wumman’s face, but he got till his feet, and as he turned his back to me, I could see his shouthers, wi’

of the seany reasons is the wish proper one. As a the child best hecame wasonjustafter upright in theneither backboneone need he, unusually turn ofas the measles, from theto dregsbutofthewhichcrookdistemper so manyanbodily ailmentssorespring.—Ed.as
 * I have authority for saying that