were marked by acts of
spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified in the country-side as
"fair pests." But in the house, if "faither was in," they were quiet as
mice. In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace--the reward of
any one who shall have killed his man, with any formidable and
figurative circumstance, in the midst of a country gagged and swaddled
with civilisation.

It was a current remark that the Elliotts were "guid and bad, like
sanguishes"; and certainly there was a curious distinction, the men of
business coming alternately with the dreamers. The second brother, Gib,
was a weaver by trade, had gone out early into the world to Edinburgh,
and come home again with his wings singed. There was an exaltation in
his nature which had led him to embrace with enthusiasm the principles
of the French Revolution, and had ended by bringing him under the hawse
of my Lord Hermiston in that furious onslaught of his upon the Liberals,
which sent Muir and Palmer into exile and dashed the party into chaff.
It was whispered that my lord, in his great scorn for the movement, and
prevailed upon a little by a sense of neighbourliness, had given Gib a
hint. Meeting him one day in the Potterrow, my lord had stopped in front
of him: "Gib, ye eediot," he had said, "what's this I hear of you?
Poalitics, poalitics, poalitics, weaver's poalitics, is the way of it, I
hear. If ye arena a'thegither dozened with eediocy, ye'll gang your ways
back to Cauldstaneslap, and ca' your loom, and ca' your loom, man!" And
Gilbert had taken him at the word and returned, with an expedition
almost to be called flight, to the house of his father. The clearest of
his inheritance was that family gift of prayer of which Kirstie had
boasted; and the baffled politician now turned his attention to
religious matters--or, as others said, to heresy and schism. Every
Sunday morning he was in Crossmichael, where he had gathered together,
one by one, a sect of about a dozen persons, who called themselves
"God's Remnant of the True Faithful," or, for short, "God's Remnant." To
the profane they were known as "Gib's Deils." Bailie Sweedie, a noted
humorist in the town, vowed that the proceedings always opened to the
tune of "The Deil Fly Away with the Exciseman," and that the sacrament
was dispensed in the form of hot whisky-toddy; both wicked hits at the
evangelist, who had been suspected of smuggling in his youth, and had
been overtaken (as the phrase w