Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/83

Rh the pure and stern devotion of the Presbyterians could humble itself. Men thrash their grain, stall their horses, feed their cattle, and even lodge themselves, in houses dry and comfortable; but for religion they erect edifices which resemble the grave: the moist clay of the floor, the dampness and frequent droppings of water from the walls, are prime matters of satisfaction to the parish grave-digger, and preserve his spade from rust.

Into this ancient abbey, and the beautiful region around it, the whole population of the parish appeared to have poured itself, for the purpose of witnessing, and perhaps resisting, the ordination of a new and obnoxious pastor, whom patronage had provided for their instruction. Youths, more eager for a pleasant sight than religious controversy, had ascended into the abbey towers—the thick-piled grave stones of the kirkyard, each ruined buttress, the broken altar-stone, and the tops of the trees were filled with aged or with youthful spectators. Presbyterians of the Established Kirk, Burghers, Antiburghers, Cameronians, and seceders of all denominations paraded the long crooked street of the village, and whiled away the heavy time, and amused their fancy and soothed their conscience, by splitting anew the straws scattered about by the idle wind of controversy. Something like an attempt to obstruct the entrance to the kirk appeared to have been made. The spirit of opposition had hewn down some stately trees which shaded the kirkyard, and these, with broken ploughs and carts, were cast into the road: the kirk-door itself had been nailed up, and the bell silenced by the removal of the rope. The silver bell on the abbey alone, swept by a sudden wind, gave one gentle toll, and at that moment a loud outcry, from end to end of the village, announced the approach of the future pastor. The peasants thickened round on all sides, and some proceeded to wall up the door of the kirk with a rampart of loose stones. "Let Dagon defend Dagon," said one rustic, misapplying the Scripture he quoted, while he threw the remains of the abbey altar-stone into the path. "And here is the through-stone of the last abbot, Willie Bell: it makes a capital copestone to the defences—I kenned it by the drinking-cup aside the death's head. He liked to do penance with a stoup of wine at his elbow," said another boor, adding the broken stone to the other incumbrances. "A drinking-cup! ye coof," said an old man,