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That woman, dominie, is eneuch to put a brave face on a coward, and it's no langer syne than yestreen when I was sitting in the dumps, looking at the aurora borealis, which I canna but regard as a messenger o' woe, that she put her hand on my shoulder and she says, 'Waster Lunny, twenty year syne we began life thegither wi' nothing but the claethes on our back, and an it please God we can begin it again, for I hae you and you hae me, and I'm no cast down if you're no. Dominie, is there mony sic women in the warld as that?"
Waster Lunny would have talked of the flood, but I had not come here for that. "How were you home so early from the prayer-meeting last night?" I bawled. "No meeting ... I came straucht hame ... but terrible stories ... Mr. Dishart," was all I caught after Waster Lunny had flung his words across a dozen times.
"None o' thae things would I do," said Waster Lunny," and sal, I dauredna, for Davit Lunan was glowering over my shuther. Ay, you may scrowl at me, Elspeth Proctor, but as far back as I can mind, Ezra has done me. Mony a time afore I start for the kirk I take my Bible to a quiet place and look Ezra up.
His face was as white as a baker's, and he had a sort of fallen against the back o' the pulpit, staring demented-like at his open Bible." "Twice," said Elspeth, "he tried to speak, and twice he let the words fall." "That," says Waster Lunny, "the whole congregation admits, but I didna see it mysel', for a' this time you may picture me hunting savage-like for Ezra.
All were walking the Sabbath pace, and the family having started half a minute in advance, the post had not yet made up on them. "It's sitting to snaw," Waster Lunny said, drawing near, and just as I was to reply, "It is so," Silva slipped in the words before me. "You wasna at the kirk," was Elspeth's salutation.
"No, nor a woman," rejoined Waster Lunny, "when she gets the chance. But, Elspeth, I believe I can guess what has fired that fearsome piper. Depend upon it, somebody has been speaking disrespectful about the crittur's ancestors." "His ancestors!" exclaimed Elspeth, scornfully. "I'm thinking mine could hae bocht them at a crown the dozen."
"And we meant to tell you about it at once," said Waster Lunny; "but there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. Dagont, to hae ane keeps a body out o' langour. Ay, but this breaks the drum. Dominie, either Mr. Dishart wasna weel, or he was in the devil's grip." This startled me, for the farmer was looking serious.
Within an hour after I had left him, Waster Lunny walked into the school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which I declined politely. It was with this ceremony that we usually opened our conversations. "I've seen the post," he said, and he tells me there has been a queer ploy at the Spittal.
Since I spoke to Waster Lunny the river had risen several feet, and even the hillocks in his turnip-field were now submerged. The mist was creeping down the hills. But what warned me most sharply that the flood was not satisfied yet was the top of the school-house dike; it was lined with field-mice. I turned back, and Gavin, mistaking my meaning, said I did wisely.
"His sublimest burst," Waster Lunny came back to tell me, "was about the beauty o' the soul being everything and the beauty o' the face no worth a snuff. What a scorn he has for bonny faces and toom souls! I dinna deny but what a bonny face fell takes me, but Mr. Dishart wouldna gie a blade o' grass for't.
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