The Meeting for Rain 305

Peter Tosh, elder, that he was wanted in the
vestry, you could not have guessed how every
woman there except Bell Christison wished she
was Peter Tosh. Peter was so taken aback that
he merely gaped at Hendry, until suddenly he
knew that his five daughters were furious with
him, when he dived for his hat and staggered to
the vestry with his mouth open. His boots
cheeped all the way, but no one looked up.

“T hadna noticed the minister was lang in
coming,” Waster Lunny told me afterward, “ but
Elspeth noticed it, and with a quickness that
bafHes me she saw I was thinking o’ other things.
So she let out her foot at me. I gae a low cough to
let her ken I wasna sleeping, but in a minute out
goes her foot again. Ay, syne I thocht I micht
hae dropped my hanky into Snecky Hobart’s
pew, but no, it was in my tails. Yet her hand was
on the board, and she was working her fingers
in a way that I kent meant she would like to
shake me. Next I looked to see if I was sitting
on her frock, the which tries a woman sair, but I
wasna. ‘ Does she want to change Bibles wi’ me?’
I wondered ; ‘or is she sliding yont a pepper-
mint to me?’ It was neither, so I edged as far
frae her as I could gang. Weel, would you credit
it, 1 saw her body coming nearer me inch by inch,
though she was looking straucht afore her, till
she was within kick 0’ me, and then out again
goes her foot. At that, dominie, I lost patience,
and I whispered, fierce-like, ‘Keep your foot to
yoursel’, you limmer!’ Ay, her intent, you see,
was to waken me to what was gaen on, but I
couldna be expected to ken that.”