Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 3).djvu/16

 "Your mother is their prisoner likewise?" said Morton, hardly knowing what he said.

"In troth is she, riding ahint ye there like a bride wi' that auld carle o' a minister, that they ca' Gabriel Kettledrummle—De'il that he had been in the inside of a drum or a kettle either, for my share o' him! Ye see, we were nae sooner chased out o' the doors o' Milnwood, and your uncle and the housekeeper banging them to and barring them ahint us, as if we had had the plague on our bodies, than I says to my mother, What are we to do neist, for every hole and bore in the country will be steekit against us, now that ye hae affronted my auld leddy, and gar't the troopers tak up young Milnwood? Sae she says to me, Binna cast doun, but gird yoursel up to the great task o' the day, and gi'e your testimony like a man upon the mount o' the Covenant."

"And so I suppose you went to a conventicle?" said Morton.

"Ye sall hear," continued Cuddie.—