"'Stand up like men! David Jamie, Walter Ker, and John Young!' cried Anton to them, 'Do ye bide to take part with these silly women and this hulker from the bilboes, or will ye return with me to good doctrine and wholesome correction?'
"But the three men answered not a word, looking like men surprised in a shameful thing and without their needful garments.
"'Cargill me no Cargills!' said John Gib; 'he is a traitor, a led captain and an hireling. He deserted the poor and went to another land. He came hither to us, yet neither preached to us nor prayed with us.'
"John Young looked about him as John Gib said this, as though he would have contradicted him had he dared. But he was silent again and looked at the ground.
"'Nay,' said Auld Anton, 'that is a lie, John Gib; for I know that he offered to preach to you, standing with his Bible open between his hands as is his ordinary. But ye wanted him to promise to confine his preaching to you—which when he would not consent to do, ye were for thrusting him out. And he came home, wet and weary, with the cold easterly wet fog all night upon the muir, very melancholy, and with great grief for you all upon his spirit!'
"Then at this John Gib became suddenly very furious and drew a pistol upon us. This made Anton Lennox laugh.
"'I shall come down and wrestle with your pistols in a wee, John Gib. But I have a word to say to you all first.'
"He stood awhile and looked at them with contempt as if they were the meanest wretches under heaven, as indeed they were.
"'You, John Gib, that lay claim to being a wizard, I have little to say to you. Ye have drawn away these silly folk with your blasphemous devices. Your name is legion, for there are many devils within you. You are the herd of swine after the devils had entered into them. Hath your master given you any word to speak before I come down to you?'
"'Ay,' said John Gib, leaping up in the air and clapping his hands together as if he would again begin the dance, which, accompanied by a horrid yowling like that of a beaten dog, they called Sweet Singing.