First Sermon Against Women Ill

“ 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 —”

“Tt 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 mis-
taking wha he was preaching at. Sal! oh, losh!
Tammas got it strong.”

“ But he’s dull in the uptake,” broke in the
post, “ by what I expected. I spoke to him after
the sermon, and I says, just to see if he was
properly humbled, ‘ Ay, Tammas,’ I says, ‘them
that discourse was preached against winna think
themselves seven feet men for a while again.’
‘ Ay, Birse,’ he answers, ‘and glad I am to hear
you admit it, for he had you in his eye.’ I was
fair scunnered at Tammas the day.”