then and now, with the particular increase in the year just closed.  If the increase was satisfactory, he made little comment beyond the duty of thanksgiving—­figures spoke for themselves.  If it was otherwise Dr Drummond’s displeasure was not a thing he would conceal.  He would wing it eloquently on the shaft of his grief that the harvest had been so light; but he would more than hint the possibility that the labourers had been few.  Most important among his statistics was the number of young communicants.  Wanderers from other folds he admitted, with a not wholly satisfied eye upon their early theological training, and to persons duly accredited from Presbyterian churches elsewhere he gave the right hand of fellowship; but the young people of his own congregation were his chief concern always, and if a gratifying number of these had failed to “come forward” during the year, the responsibility must lie somewhere.  Dr Drummond was willing to take his own share; “the ministrations of this pulpit” would be more than suspected of having come short, and the admission would enable him to tax the rest upon parents and Bible-class teachers with searching effect.  The congregation would go gloomily home to dinner, and old Sandy MacQuhot would remark to his wife, “It’s hard to say why will the Doctor get himself in sic a state aboot mere numbers.  We’re told ‘where two or three are gathered together.’  But the Doctor’s all for a grand congregation.”

Knox Church, under such auspices could hardly fail to enlarge her borders; but Elgin enlarged hers faster.  Almost before you knew where you were there spread out the district of East Elgin, all stacks of tall chimneys and rows of little houses.  East Elgin was not an attractive locality; it suffered from inundation sometimes, when the river was in spring flood; it gave unresentful room to a tannery.  It was the home of dubious practices at the polls, and the invariable hunting-ground for domestic servants.  Nevertheless, in the view of Knox Church, it could not bear a character wholly degraded; too many Presbyterians, Scotch foremen, and others, had their respectable residence there.  For these it was a far cry to Dr Drummond in bad weather, and there began to be talk of hiring the East Elgin schoolhouse for Sunday exercises if suitable persons could be got to come over from Knox Church and lead them.  I do not know who was found to broach the matter to Dr Drummond; report says his relative and housekeeper, Mrs Forsyth, who perhaps might do it under circumstances of strategical advantage.  Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, had her reply in the hidden terms of an equation—­was it any farther for the people of East Elgin to walk to hear him preach than for him to walk to minister to the people of East Elgin, which he did quite once a week, and if so, how much?  Mrs Forsyth, or whoever it was, might eliminate the unknown quantity.  It cannot be said that Dr Drummond discouraged the project; he simply did not mention it and as it was