"So at Elspeth's some half-dozen of us were drinking down the short dark hours of an August night. It was now the lull between the hay-winning and the corn-shearing. For hairst was late that year, and the weather mostly backward and dour. There had come, however, with the advent of the new month, a warm drowsy spell of windless days, the sun shining from morn to even through a kind of unwholesome mist, and the corn standing on the knowes with as little motion as the grey whinstane tourocks and granite cairns on the hilltaps. The farmers and cottiers looked at their scanty roods of ploughland, and prayed for a rousing wind from the Lord to winnow away the still dead easterly mist, and gar the corn reestle ear against ear so that it might fill and ripen for the ingathering.
"But we that were hand-fasted to sin and bonded to iniquity, young plants of wrath, ill-doers and forlorn of grace, cared as little for the backward year as we did for the sad state of Scotland and the strifes that were quickly coming upon that land. So long as our pint-stoup was filled, and plack rattled on plack in the pouch, sorrow the crack of the thumb we cared for harvest or sheep-shearing, king or bishop, Bible or incense-pot.
"To us sitting thus on the Sabbath morning (when it had better set us to have been sleeping in our naked beds) there came in one Rab Aitkin of Auchengask, likeminded with us. Rab was seeking his 'morning' or eye-opening draught of French brandy, and to us bleared and leaden-eyed roisterers, he seemed to come fresh as the dew on the white thorn in the front of May. For he had a clean sark upon him, a lace ruffle about his neck, and his hair was still wet with the good well water in which he had lately washen himself.
"'Whither away, Rab?' we cried; 'is it to visit fair Meg o' the Glen so early i' the mornin'?'
"'He is on his way to holy kirk!' cried another, daffingly.
"'If so—'tis to stand all day on the stool of repentance!' declared another. Then in the precentors whining voice he added: 'Robert Aitkin, deleted and discerned to compear at both diets of worship for the heinous crime of—and so forth!' This was an excellent imitation of the official method of summoning a culprit to stand his rebuke. It was Patie Robb of Ironmannoch who said this. And this same Patie had had the best opportunities for perfecting himself in the exercise, having stood the session and received the open rebuke on three several occasions—two of them in one twelve-month, which is counted a shame even among shameless men.
"'No, Patie,' said Rab in answer, 'I am indeed heading for the kirk, but on no siccan gowk's errand as takes you there twice in the year, my man. I go to hear the Gospel preached. For there is to be a stranger frae the south shore at the Kirk of Kells this day, and they say he has a mighty power of words; and though ye scoff and make light o' me, I care not. I am neither kirk-goer nor kirk-lover, ye say. True, but there is a whisper in my heart that sends me there this day. I thank ye, bonny mistress!'
"He took the pint-stoup, and with a bow of his head and an inclination of his body, he did his service to Mistress Elspeth. For that lady, looking fresh as himself, had just come forth from her chamber to relieve Jean McCalmont, who, poor thing, had been going to sleep on her feet for many weary hours.
"Then Roaring Raif Pringle cried out, 'Lads, we will a' gang. I had news yestreen of this ploy. The new Bishop, good luck to him, has outed another of the high-flying prating cushion-threshers. This man goes to Edinburgh to be tried before his betters. He is to preach in Kells this very morn on the bygoing, for the minister thereof is likeminded with himself. We will all gang, and if he gets a hearin' for his rebel's cant—why, lads, you are not the men I tak you for!'
"So they cried out, 'Weel said, Roaring Raif!' and got them ready to go as best they could. For some were red of face and some were ringed of eye, and all were touched with a kind of disgust for the roysterous spirit of the night. But a dabble in the chill water of the spring and a rub of the rough-spun towel brought us mostly to some decent presentableness. For youth easily recovers itself while it lasts, though in the latter end it pays for such things twice over.