110 The Little Minister

when he 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 salu- .
tation. 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.”