Out of the black mass of down-fallen peat there came a strange, pleading voice.

“O guid deil, O kind deil, dinna yirk awa’ puir Jock to that ill bit—­puir Jock, that never yet did ye ony hairm, but aye wished ye weel!  Lat me aff this time, braw deil, an’ I’ll sing nae mair ill gangs aboot ye!”

“Save us!” exclaimed Meg Kissock, “the craitur’s prayin’ to the Ill Body himsel’.”

Ebbie Farrish began to clear away the peat, which was, indeed, no difficult task.  As he did so, the voice of Jock Gordon mounted higher and higher: 

“O mercy me, I hear them clawin’ and skrauchelin’!  Dinna let the wee yins wi’ the lang riven taes and the nebs like gleds [beaks like kites] get haud o’ me!  I wad rayther hae yersel’, Maister o’ Sawtan, for ye are a big mensefu’ deil.  Ouch!  I’m dune for noo, althegither; he haes gotten puir Jock!  Sirce me, I smell the reekit rags o’ him!”

But it was only Ebie Farrish that had him by the roll of ancient cloth which served as a collar for Jock’s coat.  When he was pulled from under the peats and set upon his feet, he gazed around with a bewildered look.

“O man, Ebie Farrish,” he said solemnly, “If I didna think ye war the deil himsel’—­ye see what it is to be misled by ootward appearances!”

There was a shout of laughter at the expense of Ebie, in which Meg thought that she heard an answering ripple from within Winsome’s room.

“Surely, Jock, ye were never prayin’ to the deil?” asked Meg from the window, very seriously.  “Ye ken far better than that.”

“An’ what for should I no pray to the deil?  He’s a desperate onsonsy chiel yon.  It’s as weel to be in wi’ him as oot wi’ him ony day.  Wha’ kens what’s afore them, or wha they may be behaudin’ to afore the morrow’s morn?” answered Jock stoutly.

“But d’ye ken,” said John Scott, the theological herd, who had quietly “daundered doon” as he said, from his cot-house up on the hill, where his bare-legged bairns played on the heather and short grass all day, to set his shoulder against the gable end for an hour with the rest.

“D’ye ken what Maister Welsh was sayin’ was the new doctrine amang thae New Licht Moderates—­’hireling shepherds,’ he ca’d them?  Noo I’m no on mysel’ wi’ sae muckle speakin’ aboot the deil.  But the minister was sayin’ that the New Moderates threep [assert] that there’s nae deil at a’.  He dee’d some time since!”

“Gae wa’ wi’ ye, John Scott! wha’s gaun aboot doin’ sae muckle ill then, I wad like to ken?” said Meg Kissock.

“Dinna tell me,” said Jock Gordon, “that the puir deil’s deed, and that we’ll hae to pit up wi’ Ebie Farrish.  Na, na, Jock’s maybe daft, but he kens better than that!”

“They say,” said John Scott, pulling meditatively at his cutty, “that the pooer is vested noo in a kind o’ comy-tee [committee]!”

“I dinna haud wi’ comy-tees mysel’,” replied Meg; “it’s juist haein’ mony maisters, ilka yin mair cankersome and thrawn than anither!”