Barrow would have no laughter and idle clashes at his table on the Lord’s day.  Menie and Merran and Willy kept a stolid air, with only now and then a sidelong half-smile or nudging request for this or that.  Elspeth ate little, sat with her brown eyes fixed out of the window.  Robin Greenlaw ate heartily enough, but he had an air distrait, and once or twice he frowned.  But Jenny Barrow could not long keep still and incurious, even upon the Sabbath day.

“Eh, Robin, what was your crack with the laird?”

“He wants to buy Warlock for James Jardine.  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.