Next day the Bishop sent his sumner round the parish, asking that every house might send one at least to the parish church next morning.
On Sunday Ewan's young wife kept her bed; but when Ewan left her for the church the shock of her nerves seemed in a measure to have passed away. There was still, however, one great disaster to fear, and Mona remained at the bedside.
The meaning of the sumner's summons had eked out, and long before the hour of service the parish church was crowded. The riff-raff that never came to church from year's end to year's end, except to celebrate the Oiel Verree, were there with eager eyes. While Willas-Thorn tolled the bell from the rope suspended in the porch, there was a low buzz of gossip, but when the bell ceased its hoarse clangor, and Will-as-Thorn appeared with his pitch-pipe in the front of the gallery, there could be heard, in the silence that followed over the crowded church, the loud tick of the wooden clock in front of him.
Presently from the porch there came a low, tremulous voice reading the Psalm that begins, "Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness: according to the multitude of Thy mercies do away mine offenses."
Then the people who sat in front turned about, and those who sat at the side strained across, and those who sat above craned forward.
Ewan was walking slowly up the aisle in his surplice, with his pale face and scarred forehead bent low over the book in his hand, and close behind him, towering above him in his great stature, with head held down, but with a steadfast gaze, his hat in his hands, his step firm and resolute, Dan Mylrea strode along.
There was a dead hush over the congregation.
"Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my faults; and my sin is ever before me."
The tremulous voice rose and fell, and nothing else broke the silence except the uncertain step of the reader, and the strong tread of the penitent behind him.
"Against Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight—"