"Eh, uncle, I did not mean to hurt the Sunday!"
Jarvis Barrow spoke with the look and the weight of a prophet in Israel. "What is your quarrel about, and for what are ye flyting against the kirk and the minister and the kirkkeepers? Are ye wanting that twa sinners, having sinned, should hae their sin for secret and sweet to their aneselves, gilded and pairfumed and excused and unnamed? Are ye wanting that nane should know, and the plague should live without the doctor and without the mark upon the door? Or are ye thinking that it is nae plague at all, nae sin, and nae blame? Then ye be atheist, Robin Greenlaw, and ye gae indeed frae my door, and wad gae were ye na my nephew, but my son!" He gathered force. "Elder of the kirk, I sit here, and I tell ye that were it my ain flesh and blood that did evil, my stick and my plaid I wad take and ower the moor I wad gae to tell manse and parish that Sin, the wolf, had crept into the fauld! And I wad see thae folly-crammed and sinfu' sauls, that had let him in and had his bite, set for shame and shawing and warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there the day and in my seat, though my heart o' flesh was like to break!" His hand fell again heavily upon the board. "Sae weak and womanish is thae time we live in!" He flashed at his great-nephew. "Sae poetical! It wasna sae when the Malignants drove us and we fled to the hills and were fed on the muirs with the word of the Lord! It wasna sae in the time when Gawin Elliot that Glenfernie draws frae was hanged for gieing us that word! Then gin a sin-blasted ane was found amang us, his road indeed was shawn him! Aye, were't man or woman! 'For while they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry!'"
He pushed back his heavy chair; he rose from table and went forth, tall, ancient, gray, armored in belief. They heard him take his Bible from where it lay, and knew that he was back under the fir-tree, facing from the house toward moor and hill and mountain.
"Eh-h," groaned Thomas, "the elder is a mighty witness!"
The family at White Farm ate in silence. Elspeth slipped from her place.
"Where are ye gaeing, hinny?" asked Jenny. "Ye hae eaten naething."
"I've finished," said Elspeth. "I'm going to afternoon kirk, and I'll be getting ready."
She went into the room that she shared with Gilian and shut the door. Robin looked after her.
"When is Gilian coming home?"
"Naebody knows. She is sae weel at Aberdeen! They write that she is a great student and is liked abune a', and they clamor to keep her.—Are ye gaeing to second kirk, Robin?"