, except on Sunday mornings whiles, when each one according to the
bidding of the Fourth Commandment, has a licence to do as he likes.
Having a desperate sore head, our wife, poor body, put a thimbleful of
brandy into my first cup of tea which had a wonderful virtue in putting
all things to rights.

In the afternoon Thomas Burlings, the ruling elder in the kirk, popped
into the shop, and, in our two-handed crack, after asking me in a dry,
curious way if I had come by no skaith in the business of the play, he
said the thing had now spread far and wide, and was making a great noise
in the world. I thought the body a wee sharp in his observe, so I
pretended to take it quite lightly. Then he began to tell me a wheen
stories, each one having to do with drinking.

"It's a wearyfu' thing that whisky," said Thomas. "I wish it could be
banished to Botany Bay."

"It is that," said I. "Muckle and nae little sin does it breed and
produce in this world."

"I'm glad," quoth Thomas, stroking down his chin in a slee way, "I'm
glad the guilty should see the folly o' their ain ways; it's the first
step, ye ken, till amendment. And indeed I tell't Maister Wiggie, when
he sent me here, that I could almost become guid for your being mair
wary of your conduct for the future time to come."

This was a thunder-clap to me, but I said briskly, "So ye're after some
session business in this visit, are ye?"

"Ye've just guessed it," answered Thomas, sleeking down his front hair
with his fingers in a sober way. "We had a meeting this forenoon, and it
was resolved ye should stand a public rebuke in the meeting house next
Sunday."

"Hang me if I do!" answered I. "Not for all the ministers and elders
that were ever cleckit. I was born a free man, I live in a free country,
I am the subject of a free king and constitution, and I'll be shot
before I submit to such rank diabolical papistry."

"Hooly and fairly, Mansie," quoth Thomas. "They'll maybe no be sae hard
as they threaten. But ye ken, my friend, I'm speaking to you as a
brither; it was an unco'-like business for an elder, not only to gang
till a play, which is ane of the deevil's rendevouses, but to gan there
in a state of liquor, making yourself a world's wonder, and you an elder
of our kirk! I put the question to yourself soberly."

His threatening I could despise; but ah, his calm, brotherly, flattering
way I could not thole with. So I said till him, "Weel, weel, Thomas, I
ken I have