The natural resource would have been the Well--but the traveller had a holy shivering of awe, which crossed him at the very recollection of Lady Penelope, who had worked him rather hard during his former brief residence; and although Lady Binks's beauty might have charmed an Asiatic, by the plump graces of its contour, our senior was past the thoughts of a Sultana and a haram.

At length a bright idea crossed his mind, and he suddenly demanded of Mrs.Dods, who was pouring out his tea for breakfast, into a large cup of a very particular species of china, of which he had presented her with a service on condition of her rendering him this personal good office,--"Pray, Mrs.Dods, what sort of a man is your minister ?" "He's just a man like other men, Maister Touchwood," replied Meg; "what sort of a man should he be ?" "A man like other men ?--ay--that is to say, he has the usual complement of legs and arms, eyes and ears--But is he a sensible man ?" "No muckle o' that, sir," answered Dame Dods; "for if he was drinking this very tea that ye gat doun from London wi' the mail, he wad mistake it for common bohea." "Then he has not all his organs--wants a nose, or the use of one at least," said Mr.Touchwood; "the tea is right gunpowder--a perfect nosegay." "Aweel, that may be," said the landlady; "but I have gi'en the minister a dram frae my ain best bottle of real Coniac brandy, and may I never stir frae the bit, if he didna commend my whisky when he set down the glass! There is no ane o' them in the Presbytery but himsell--ay, or in the Synod either--but wad hae kend whisky frae brandy." "But what _sort_ of man is he ?--Has he learning ?" demanded Touchwood.
"Learning ?--eneugh o' that," answered Meg; "just dung donnart wi' learning--lets a' things about the Manse gang whilk gate they will, sae they dinna plague him upon the score.

An awfu' thing it is to see sic an ill-red-up house!--If I had the twa tawpies that sorn upon the honest man ae week under my drilling, I think I wad show them how to sort a lodging!" "Does he preach well ?" asked the guest.
"Oh, weel eneugh, weel eneugh--sometimes he will fling in a lang word or a bit of learning that our farmers and bannet lairds canna sae weel follow--But what of that, as I am aye telling them ?--them that pay stipend get aye the mair for their siller." "Does he attend to his parish ?--Is he kind to the poor ?" "Ower muckle o' that, Maister Touchwood--I am sure he makes the Word gude, and turns not away from those that ask o' him--his very pocket is picked by a wheen ne'er-do-weel blackguards, that gae sorning through the country." "Sorning through the country, Mrs.Dods ?--what would you think if you had seen the Fakirs, the Dervises, the Bonzes, the Imaums, the monks, and the mendicants, that I have seen ?--But go on, never mind--Does this minister of yours come much into company ?" "Company ?--gae wa'," replied Meg, "he keeps nae company at a', neither in his ain house or ony gate else.

He comes down in the morning in a lang ragged nightgown, like a potato bogle, and down he sits amang his books; and if they dinna bring him something to eat, the puir demented body has never the heart to cry for aught, and he has been kend to sit for ten hours thegither, black fasting, whilk is a' mere papistrie, though he does it just out o' forget." "Why, landlady, in that case, your parson is any thing but the ordinary kind of man you described him--Forget his dinner!--the man must be mad--he shall dine with me to-day--he shall have such a dinner as I'll be bound he won't forget in a hurry." "Ye'll maybe find that easier said than dune," said Mrs.Dods; "the honest man hasna, in a sense, the taste of his mouth--forby, he never dines out of his ain house--that is, when he dines at a'-- A drink of milk and a bit of bread serves his turn, or maybe a cauld potato .-- It's a heathenish fashion of him, for as good a man as he is, for surely there is nae Christian man but loves his own bowels." "Why, that may be," answered Touchwood; "but I have known many who took so much care of their own bowels, my good dame, as to have none for any one else .-- But come--bustle to the work--get us as good a dinner for two as you can set out--have it ready at three to an instant--get the old hock I had sent me from Cockburn--a bottle of the particular Indian Sherry--and another of your own old claret--fourth bin, you know, Meg .-- And stay, he is a priest, and must have port--have all ready, but don't bring the wine into the sun, as that silly fool Beck did the other day .-- I can't go down to the larder myself, but let us have no blunders." "Nae fear, nae fear," said Meg, with a toss of the head, "I need naebody to look into my larder but mysell, I trow--but it's an unco order of wine for twa folk, and ane o' them a minister." "Why, you foolish person, is there not the woman up the village that has just brought another fool into the world, and will she not need sack and caudle, if we leave some of our wine ?" "A gude ale-posset wad set her better," said Meg; "however, if it's your will, it shall be my pleasure .-- But the like of sic a gentleman as yoursell never entered my doors!" The traveller was gone before she had completed the sentence; and, leaving Meg to bustle and maunder at her leisure, away he marched, with the haste that characterised all his motions when he had any new project in his head, to form an acquaintance with the minister of St.Ronan's, whom, while he walks down the street to the Manse, we will endeavour to introduce to the reader.
The Rev.Josiah Cargill was the son of a small farmer in the south of Scotland; and a weak constitution, joined to the disposition for study which frequently accompanies infirm health, induced his parents, though at the expense of some sacrifices, to educate him for the ministry.

They were the rather led to submit to the privations which were necessary to support this expense, because they conceived, from their family traditions, that he had in his veins some portion of the blood of that celebrated Boanerges of the Covenant, Donald Cargill,[I-G] who was slain by the persecutors at the town of Queensferry, in the melancholy days of Charles II., merely because, in the plenitude of his sacerdotal power, he had cast out of the church, and delivered over to Satan by a formal excommunication, the King and Royal Family, with all the ministers and courtiers thereunto belonging.