‘Hoo can I tell whan I saw naething!’ replied Kirsty. ‘But,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘gien it warna that we’re in Scotlan’, and they’re nigh-han’ Rom’, I wud hae been ’maist sure I had won intil ane o’ the catacombs!’
‘Eh, losh, lat me awa to the hill!’ cried Steenie, stopping and half turning. ‘I canna bide the verra word o’ the craturs!’
‘What word than?’ asked Kirsty, a little surprised; for how did Steenie know anything about the catacombs?
‘To think,’ he went on, ‘o’ a haill kirk o’ cats aneath the yird—a’ sittin kaimin themsels wi’ kaims!—Kirsty, ye winna think it a place for me? Ye see I’m no like ither fowk, and sic a thing micht ca (drive) me oot o’ a’ the sma’ wits ever I hed!’
‘Hoots!’ rejoined Kirsty, with a smile, ‘the catacombs has naething to du wi’ cats or kaims!’
‘Tell me what are they, than.’
‘The catacombs,’ answered Kirsty, ‘was what in auld times, and no i’ this cuintry ava, they ca’d the places whaur they laid their deid.’
‘Eh, Kirsty, but that’s waur!’ returned Steenie. ‘I wudna gang intil sic a place wi’ feet siclike’s my ain—na, no for what the warl cud gie me!—no for lang Lowrie’s fiddle and a’ the tunes intil’t! I wud never get my feet oot o’ ’t! They’d haud me there!’
Then Kirsty began to tell him, as she would have taught a child, something of the history of the catacombs, knowing how it must interest him.
‘I’ the days langsyne,’ she said, ‘there was fowk, like you and me, unco fain o’ the bonny man. The verra soun o’ the name o’ ’im was eneuch to gar their herts loup wi’ doonricht glaidness. And they gaed here and there and a’ gait, and tellt ilka body aboot him; and fowk ’at didna ken him, and didna want to ken him, cudna bide to hear tell o’ him, and they said, “Lat’s hae nae mair o’ this! Hae dune wi’ yer bonny man! Haud yer tongues,” they cryit. But the ithers, they wadna hear o’ haudin their tongues. A’body maun ken aboot him! “Sae lang’s we hae tongues, and can wag them to the name o’ him,” they said, “we’ll no haud them!” And at that they fell upo’ them, and ill-used them sair; some o’ them they tuik and brunt alive—that is, brunt them deid; and some o’ them they flang to the wild beasts, and they bitit them and tore them to bits. And——’