He's got his ensign's
commission to go fight the French."

"Eh, he'll be a bonny lad on Warlock! I thought you wadna sell him?"

"I'll sell to Glenfernie."

The farmer spoke from the head of the table. "I'll na hae talk, Robin,
of buying and selling on the day! It clinks like the money-changers
and sellers of doves."

Thomas, his helper, raised his head from a plate of cold mutton.
"Glenfernie was na at kirk. He's na the kirkkeeper his father was. Na,
na!"

"Na," said the farmer. "Bairns dinna walk nowadays in parents' ways."

Willy had a bit of news he would fain get in. "Nae doot Glenfernie's
brave, but he wadna be a sodger, either! I was gaeing alang wi' the
yowes, and there was he and Drummielaw riding and gabbing. Sae there
cam on a skirling and jumping wind and rain, and we a' gat under a
tree, the yowes and the dogs and Glenfernie and Drummielaw and me.
Then we changed gude day and they went on gabbing. And 'Nae,' says
Glenfernie, 'I am nae lawyer and I am nae sodger. Jamie wad be the
last, but brithers may love and yet be thinking far apairt. The best
friend I hae in the warld is a sodger, but I'm thinking I hae lost the
knack o' fechting. When you lose the taste you lose the knack.'"

"I's fearing," said Thomas, "that he's lost the taste o' releegion!"

"Eh," exclaimed Jenny Barrow, "but he's a bonny big man! He came by
yestreen, and I thought, 'For a' there is sae muckle o' ye, ye look as
though ye walked on air!'"

Thomas groaned. "Muckle tae be saved, muckle tae be lost!"

Jarvis Barrow spoke from the head of the table. "If fowk canna talk on
the Sabbath o' spiritual things, maybe they can mak shift to haud the
tongue in their chafts! I wad think that what we saw and heard the
day wad put ye ower the burn frae vain converse!"

Thomas nodded approval.

"Aweel--" began Jenny, but did not find just the words with which to
continue.

Elspeth, turning ever so slightly in her chair, looked farther off to
the hills and summer clouds. A slow wave of color came over her face
and throat. Menie and Merran looked sidelong each at the other, then
their blue eyes fell to their plates. But Willy almost audibly smacked
his lips.

"Gude keep us! the meenister gaed thae sinners their licks!"

"A sair sight, but an eedifying!" said Thomas.

Robin Greenlaw pushed back his chair. He saw the inside of the kirk
again, and two miserable, loutish, lawless lovers standing for public
discipline. His color rose. "A