"Eh, Watty McBean, man, hoo cud ye tell sic a barefaced lee?" queried Betty when her brother released his grip on her arm. "Did the thocht o' the fire and brimstane, which the Word says is the portion o' leers, no pit the fear o' death on yer tongue?"
"Hoot ye silly crater, there's lees an' lees!" quoth Watty, with an air of superior wisdom. "Was I gaun to get the minister and the flock into a peck o' troubles wi' my lang tongue? I see I'll need to keep an e'e on you, Betty. Auld though you be, ye hinna muckle gumption."
"Ye're no feared either tae daur [defy] the laird," said Betty, with a sigh.
"I'm no awn the laird naething, and he canna gar me speak against my will," said Watty, calmly; and Betty, completely overcome by her brother's undaunted spirit, relapsed into silence.
For several weeks the parish kirk at Inverburn remained closed, and the people worshipped with the ministers they loved either in barn or outhouse, or, when weather permitted, under the canopy of heaven. Such a state of affairs, which betokened such utter disregard and contempt for the Prelacy, could not long be allowed to continue undisturbed. The next step taken by the bishops was to fill the places of the ejected ministers with curates of their own, so that the parishioners might no longer have the closed doors of the churches to point at as an excuse for their behaviour.
Sir Thomas Hamilton, a staunch loyalist and an intimate friend of the Bishop of Glasgow, offered his shelter and patronage to any gentleman his lordship might elect to minister in the church at Inverburn.
It was on the third Saturday in January that a notice was posted up on the church door intimating that public worship would be resumed next Lord's Day by Mr. Duncan McLean, at the hour of noon.
The bellman was also sent round, and the news well circulated throughout the parish. It occasioned no little excitement and talk; but the people, with the exception of a few of the laird's pensioners in the village, had not the smallest intention of attending upon the curate's ministrations. Service was to be held at three of the afternoon in the sheltered glen behind the house of Hartrigge, and as Watty McBean expressed it--
"When folk could lift Presbyterian wheat for the gaun [going], it wasna likely they wad be content wi' the curate's puir chaff."
About eleven o'clock on the Sabbath morning, Betty McBean, watching from the window, beheld the coach from Inverburn coming rapidly over the manse brae, towards the village.