“I canna bide it; I canna bear the sicht o’t,” said David. “I intended it for our ain use this winter, but since it ate the Corinthians, I wadna let a particle o’t within ma mouth.”
“Ate what?” said Dan.
“Ye may weel say what? It ate a’ the Second Corinthians and fully the half o’ the First.”
“THE CUP AND PLATTER.”
Dan, supposing them to be some kind of new vegetable, said, as a kind of feeler, “But she wadna eat them a’ at ance—baith the second an’ the first?”
“But she did, the mair’s the pity,” said David; “an’ it was on a Sabbath mornin’ tae, the abominable craitur.”
Dan was still more at a loss to make out what he meant, so he said inquiringly, “Some o’ the first an’ a’ the second? She left some o’ the first crap, did she, an’ ye planted mair, or did they grow again? or was’t some kind o’ pushin [poison] or med’cine stuff that didna ’gree wi’ her?”
“’Gree wi’ her!” said David in amazement; “’gree wi’ her! some sort o’ medicine?—What d’ye mean? It was the Corinthians out o’ the Bible.”
“Out o’ the Bible?” said Dan,—“out o’ the Bible! I never kent that ony o’ it was for eatin’.”
“For eatin’?” repeated David,—“for eatin’! It was some o’ the leaves o’ the Bible, the bit that the Epistle to the Corinthians was printed on, that she ate, or tore out ony way, an’ made them useless.”