Only Stella, with a severe lip and a
disapproving eye, noted the direction he took as he left
the house.
CHAPTER XVIII
Peter Macfarlane had carried the big Bible up the pulpit
steps of Knox Church, and arranged the glass of water
and the notices to be given out beside it, twice every
Sunday for twenty years. He was a small spare man, with
thin grey hair that fell back from the narrow dome of
his forehead to his coat collar, decent and severe. He
ascended the pulpit exactly three minutes before the
minister did; and the dignity with which he put one foot
before the other made his appearance a ceremonious feature
of the service and a thing quoted. "I was there before
Peter" was a triumphant evidence of punctuality. Dr
Drummond would have liked to make it a test. It seemed
to him no great thing to expect the people of Knox Church
to be there before Peter.
Macfarlane was also in attendance in the vestry to help
the minister off with his gown and hang it up. Dr Drummond's
gown needed neither helping nor hanging; the Doctor was
deftness and neatness and impatience itself, and would
have it on the hook with his own hands, and never a fold
crooked. After Mr Finlay, on the contrary, Peter would
have to pick up and smooth out--ten to one the garment
would be flung on a chair.
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