“Does he preach well?” asked the guest.
“Oh, weel eneugh, weel eneugh—sometimes he will fling in a lang word or a bit of learning that our farmers and bannet lairds canna sae weel follow—But what of that, as I am aye telling them?—them that pay stipend get aye the mair for their siller.”
“Does he attend to his parish?—Is he kind to the poor?”
“Ower muckle o' that, Maister Touchwood—I am sure he makes the Word gude, and turns not away from those that ask o' him—his very pocket is picked by a wheen ne'er-do-weel blackguards, that gae sorning through the country.”
“Sorning through the country, Mrs. Dods?—what would you think if you had seen the Fakirs, the Dervises, the Bonzes, the Imaums, the monks, and the mendicants, that I have seen?—But go on, never mind—Does this minister of yours come much into company?”
“Company?—gae wa',” replied Meg, “he keeps nae company at a', neither in his ain house or ony gate else. He comes down in the morning in a lang ragged nightgown, like a potato bogle, and down he sits amang his books; and if they dinna bring him something to eat, the puir demented body has never the heart to cry for aught, and he has been kend to sit for ten hours thegither, black fasting, whilk is a' mere papistrie, though he does it just out o' forget.”
“Why, landlady, in that case, your parson is any thing but the ordinary kind of man you described him—Forget his dinner!—the man must be mad—he shall dine with me to-day—he shall have such a dinner as I'll be bound he won't forget in a hurry.”
“Ye'll maybe find that easier said than dune,” said Mrs. Dods; “the honest man hasna, in a sense, the taste of his mouth—forby, he never dines out of his ain house—that is, when he dines at a'—A drink of milk and a bit of bread serves his turn, or maybe a cauld potato.—It's a heathenish fashion of him, for as good a man as he is, for surely there is nae Christian man but loves his own bowels.”
“Why, that may be,” answered Touchwood; “but I have known many who took so much care of their own bowels, my good dame, as to have none for any one else.—But come—bustle to the work—get us as good a dinner for two as you can set out—have it ready at three to an instant—get the old hock I had sent me from Cockburn—a bottle of the particular Indian Sherry—and another of your own old claret—fourth bin, you know, Meg.—And stay, he is a priest, and must have port—have all ready, but don't bring the wine into the sun, as that silly fool Beck did the other day.—I can't go down to the larder myself, but let us have no blunders.”