"Wunna it?" Jock put in defiantly.
"It's a defiling of the Lord's temple; that's what it is!" Jabez Hanks continued. "Ye make out as ye're against stage-plays at the Fair, and yet ye come here and mouth 'em in a Christian pulpit. You agen stage-plays! Weren't ye seen talking by the hour to one o' them trulls, Friday night—? And weren't ye seen peeping through th' canvas last night? And now—"
"Now what?" Jock inquired, approaching Jabez on his springy toes, and looking up at Jabez's great height.
Jabez took breath. "Now ye bring yer fancy women into the House o' God! You—a servant o' Christ, you—"
Jock-at-a-Venture interrupted the sentence with his daring fist, which seemed to lift Jabez from the ground by his chin, and then to let him fall in a heap, as though his clothes had been a sack containing loose bones.
"A good-day to ye, Brother Brett," said Jock, reaching for his hat, and departing with a slam of the vestry door.
He emerged at the back of the chapel and got by "back-entries" into Aboukir Street, up which he strolled with a fine show of tranquillity, as far as the corner of Trafalgar Road, where stood and stands the great Dragon Hotel. The congregations of several chapels were dispersing slowly round about this famous corner, and Jock had to salute several of his own audience. Then suddenly he saw Mrs Clowes and her four children enter the tap-room door of the Dragon.
He hesitated one second and followed the variegated flotilla and its convoy.
The tap-room was fairly full of both sexes. But among them Jock and Mrs Clowes and her children were the only persons who had been to church or chapel.
"Here's preacher, mother!" Kezia whispered, blushing, to Mrs Clowes.