ent) on the streets of Crossmichael one
Fair day. It was known that every Sunday they prayed for a blessing on
the arms of Buonaparte. For this, "God's Remnant," as they were
"skailing" from the cottage that did duty for a temple, had been
repeatedly stoned by the bairns, and Gib himself hooted by a squadron of
Border volunteers in which his own brother, Dand, rode in a uniform and
with a drawn sword. The "Remnant" were believed, besides, to be
"antinomian in principle," which might otherwise have been a serious
charge, but the way public opinion then blew it was quite swallowed up
and forgotten in the scandal about Buonaparte. For the rest, Gilbert had
set up his loom in an outhouse at Cauldstaneslap, where he laboured
assiduously six days of the week. His brothers, appalled by his
political opinions, and willing to avoid dissension in the household,
spoke but little to him; he less to them, remaining absorbed in the
study of the Bible and almost constant prayer. The gaunt weaver was
dry-nurse at Cauldstaneslap, and the bairns loved him dearly. Except
when he was carrying an infant in his arms, he was rarely seen to
smile--as, indeed, there were few smilers in that family. When his
sister-in-law rallied him, and proposed that he should get a wife and
bairns of his own, since he was so fond of them, "I have no clearness of
mind upon that point," he would reply. If nobody called him in to
dinner, he stayed out. Mrs. Hob, a hard, unsympathetic woman, once tried
the experiment. He went without food all day, but at dusk, as the light
began to fail him, he came into the house of his own accord, looking
puzzled. "I've had a great gale of prayer upon my speerit," said he. "I
canna mind sae muckle's what I had for denner." The creed of God's
Remnant was justified in the life of its founder. "And yet I dinna
ken," said Kirstie. "He's maybe no more stock-fish than his neeghbours!
He rode wi' the rest o' them, and had a good stamach to the work, by a'
that I hear! God's Remnant! The deil's clavers! There wasna muckle
Christianity in the way Hob guided Johnny Dickieson, at the least of it;
but Guid kens! Is he a Christian even? He might be a Mahommedan or a
Deevil or a Fireworshipper, for what I ken."

The third brother had his name on a door-plate, no less, in the city of
Glasgow, "Mr. Clement Elliott," as long as your arm. In this case, that
spirit of innovation which had shown itself timidly in the case of Hob
by the admission o