"We partook of as mickle breakfast as we could manage, and that was no great thing after such a night. But we each drank down a stirrup-cup and with various good-speeds to Elspeth Vogie and Jean her maid, we wan to horseback and so down the strath to the Kirk of Kells. It sits on the summit of a little knowe with the whin golden about it at all times of the year, and the loch like a painted sheet spread below.
"We could see the folk come flocking from far and near, from their mailings and forty-shilling lands, their farm-towns and cot-houses in half-a-dozen parishes.
"'We are in luck's way, lads,' cried Lidderdale, called Ten-tass Lidderdale because he could drink that number of stoups of brandy neat; 'it is a great gathering of the godly. Lads, the shutting of this man's mouth will make such a din as will be heard of through all Galloway!'
"And so to our shame and my sorrow we made it up. We were to go the rounds of the meeting, and gather together all the likely lads who would stand with us. There were sure to be plenty such who had no goodwill to preachings. And with these in one place we could easily shut the mouth of this fanatic railer against law and order. For so in our ignorance and folly we called him. Because all this sort (such as I myself was then) hated the very name of religion, and hoped to find things easier and better for them when the king should have his way, and when the bishops would present none to parishes but what we called 'good fellows'—by which we meant men as careless of principle as ourselves—loose-livers and oath-swearers, such as in truth they mostly were themselves.
"But when we arrived that August morning at the Kirk of Kells, lo! there before us was outspread such a sight as my eyes never beheld. The Kirk Knowe was fairly black with folk. A little way off you could see them pouring inward in bands like the spokes of a wheel. Further off yet, black dots straggled down hill sides, or up through glens, disentangling themselves from clumps of birches and scurry thorns for all the world like the ants of the wise king gathering home from their travels.
"Then we were very well content and made it our business to go among the gay young blades who had come for the excitement, or, as it might be, because all the pretty lasses of the countryside were sure to be there in their best. And with them we arranged that we should keep silence till the fanatic minister was well under way with his treasonable paries. Then we would rush in with our swords drawn, carry him off down the steep and duck him for a traitorous loon in the loch beneath.
"To this we all assented and shook hands upon the pact. For we knew right sickerly what would be our fate, if in the battle which was coming on the land, the Covenant men won the day. Perforce we must subscribe to deeds and religious engagements, attend kirks twice a day, lay aside gay colours, forswear all pleasant daffing with such as Elspeth Vogie and Jean her maid (not that there was anything wrong in my own practice with such—I speak only of others). The merry clatter of dice would be heard no more. The cartes themselves, the knowledge of which then made the gentleman, would be looked upon as the 'deil's picture-books.' A good broad oath would mean a fine as broad. Instead of chanting loose catches we should have to listen to sermons five hours long, and be whipt for all the little pleasing transgressions that made life worth living.
"So 'Hush,' we said—'we will salt this preacher's kail for him. We will drill him, wand-hand and working-hand, so that he cannot stir. We will make him drink his fill of Kells Loch this day!'
"All this while we knew not so much as the name of the preacher—nor, indeed, cared. He came from the south, so much we knew, and he had a great repute for godliness and what the broad-bonnets called 'faithfulness,' which, being interpreted, signified that he condemned the king and the bishops, and held to the old dull figments about doctrine, free grace, and the authority of Holy Kirk.
"The man had not arrived when we reached the Kirk of Kells. Indeed, it was not long before the hour of service when up the lochside we saw a cavalcade approach. Then we were angry. For, as we said, 'This spoils our sport. These are doubtless soldiers of the king who have been sent to put a stop to the meeting. We shall have no chance this day. Our coin is spun and fallen edgewise between the stones. Let us go home!'