Chapter 10 - Page 2

had a letter for it, but scowled at him when he
had none. "aye implying that I hae a letter, but keep it back."

On the Sabbath evening after the riot, I stood at the usual place
awaiting my friends, and saw before they reached me that they had
something untoward to tell. The farmer, his wife and three
children, holding each other's hands, stretched across the road.
Birse was a little behind, but a conversation was being kept up by
shouting. All were walking the Sabbath pace, and the family having
started half a minute in advance, the post had not yet made up on
them.

"It's sitting to snaw," Waster Lunny said, drawing near, and just
as I was to reply, "It is so," Silva slipped in the words before
me.

"You wasna at the kirk," was Elspeth's salutation. I had been at
the Glen church, but did not contradict her, for it is
Established, and so neither here nor there. I was anxious, too, to
know what their long faces meant, and so asked at once--

"Was Mr. Dishart on the riot?"

"Forenoon, ay; afternoon, no," replied Waster Lunny, walking round
his wife to get nearer me. "Dominie, a queery thing happened in
the kirk this day, sic as--"

"Waster Lunny," interrupted Elspeth sharply; "have you on your
Sabbath shoon or have you no on your Sabbath shoon?"

"Guid care you took I should hae the dagont oncanny things on,"
retorted the farmer.

"Keep out o' the gutter, then," said Elspeth, "on the Lord's day."

"Him," said her man, "that is forced by a foolish woman to wear
genteel 'lastic-sided boots canna forget them till he takes them
aff. Whaur's the extra reverence in wearing shoon twa sizes ower
sma?"

"It mayna be mair reverent," suggested Birse, to whom Elspeth's
kitchen was a pleasant place, "but it's grand, and you canna
expect to be baith grand and comfortable."

I reminded them that they were speaking of Mr. Dishart.

"We was saying," began the post briskly, "that--"

"It was me that was saying it," said Waster Lunny. "So, dominie--"

"Haud your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted Elspeth, "You've been
roaring the story to ane another till you're hoarse."

"In the forenoon," Waster Lunny went on determinedly, "Mr. Dishart
preached on the riot, and fine he was. Oh, dominie, you should hae
heard him ladling it on to Lang Tammas, no by name but in sic a
way that there was no mistaking wha he was preaching at, Sal! oh
losh! Tammas got it strong."

"But he's dull in the uptake," broke in the