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 Mause, firmly,"that prelacy is like the great golden image in the plain of Dura, and that as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were borne out in refusing to bow down and worship, so neither shall Cuddy Headrigg, your leddyship's poor ploughman, at least wi' his auld mither's consent, make murgeons or jenny-flections, as they ca' them, in the house of the prelates and curates, nor gird him wi' armour to fight in their cause, either at the sound of kettle-drums, organs, bagpipes, or ony other kind of music whatever."

Lady Margaret Bellenden heard this exposition of Scripture with the greatest possible indignation as well as surprise.

"I see which way the wind blaws," she exclaimed, after a pause of astonishment; "the evil spirit of the year sixteen hundred and forty-twa is at wark again as merrily as ever, and ilka auld wife in the chimley-neuck will be for knapping doctrine wi' doctors o' divinity and the godly fathers o' the church."