The Ayrshire Legatees

When we had gotten ourselves made up in order, we went, with Andrew

Pringle, my son, to the counting-house, and had a satisfactory vista of

the residue; but it will be some time before things can be

settled--indeed, I fear, not for months to come--so that I have been

thinking, if the parish was pleased with Mr. Snodgrass, it might be my

duty to my people to give up to him my stipend, and let him be appointed

not only helper, but successor likewise. It would not be right of me to

give the manse, both because he's a young and inexperienced man, and

cannot, in the course of nature, have got into the way of visiting the

sick-beds of the frail, which is the main part of a pastor's duty, and

likewise, because I wish to die, as I have lived, among my people. But,

when all's settled, I will know better what to do.

When we had got an inkling from Mr. Argent of what the colonel has

left,--and I do assure you, that money is not to be got, even in the way

of legacy, without anxiety,--Mrs. Pringle and I consulted together, and

resolved, that it was our first duty, as a token of our gratitude to the

Giver of all Good, to make our first outlay to the poor. So, without

saying a word either to Rachel, or to Andrew Pringle, my son, knowing

that there was a daily worship in the Church of England, we slipped out

of the house by ourselves, and, hiring a hackney conveyance, told the

driver thereof to drive us to the high church of St. Paul's. This was

out of no respect to the pomp and pride of prelacy, but to Him before

whom both pope and presbyter are equal, as they are seen through the

merits of Christ Jesus. We had taken a gold guinea in our hand, but

there was no broad at the door; and, instead of a venerable elder,

lending sanctity to his office by reason of his age, such as we see in

the effectual institutions of our own national church--the door was kept

by a young man, much more like a writer's whipper-snapper-clerk, than one

qualified to fill that station, which good King David would have

preferred to dwelling in tents of sin. However, we were not come to spy

the nakedness of the land, so we went up the outside stairs, and I asked

at him for the plate; "Plate!" says he; "why, it's on the altar!" I

should have known this--the custom of old being to lay the offerings on

the altar, but I had forgot; such is the force, you see, of habit, that

the Church of England is not so well reformed and purged as ours is from

the abominations of the leaven of idolatry. We were then stepping

forward, when he said to me, as sharply as if I was going to take an

advantage, "You must pay here." "Very well, wherever it is customary,"

said I, in a meek manner, and gave him the guinea. Mrs. Pringle did the

same. "I cannot give you change," cried he, with as little decorum as if

we had been paying at a playhouse. "It makes no odds," said I; "keep it

all." Whereupon he was so converted by the mammon of iniquity, that he

could not be civil enough, he thought--but conducted us in, and showed us

the marble monuments, and the French colours that were taken in the war,

till the time of worship--nothing could surpass his discretion.