Then he went home happy.
That night there was high revel at the Ghyll. First, a feast in the hall: beef, veal, mutton, ham, haggis, and hot bacon pie. Then an adjournment to a barn, where tallow candles were stuck into cloven sticks, and hollowed potatoes served for lamps. Strong ale and trays of tobacco went round, and while the glasses jingled and the smoke wreathed upward, a song was sung:
"A man may spend
And God will send,
If his wife be good to owt;
But a man may spare
And still be bare,
If his wife be good to nowt."
Then blindman's buff. "Antony Blindman kens ta me, sen I bought butter and cheese o' thee? I ga' tha my pot, I ga' tha my pan, I ga' all I had but a rap ho' penny I gave a poor auld man."
Last of all, the creels were ranged round the hay-mows, and the floor was cleared of everything except a beer-barrel. This was run into the corner, and Tom o' Dint and fiddle were seated on top of it. Dancing was interrupted only by drinking, until Tom's music began to be irregular, whereupon Gubblum remonstrated; and then Tom, with the indignation of an artist, broke the bridge of his fiddle on Gubblum's head, and Gubblum broke the bridge of Tom's nose with his fist, and both rolled on to the floor and lay there, until Gubblum extricated himself with difficulty, shook his lachrymose noddle, and said:
"The laal man is as drunk as a fiddler."
The vicarage was quiet that night. All the guests save one were gone. Parson Christian sat before the smoldering fire. Old Laird Fisher sat with him. Neither spoke. They passed a long hour in silence.
BOOK III.
THE DECLIVITY OF CRIME.