Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/93

Rh discipline of the parish kirk, or the creation of a new meeting-house to enjoy the eloquence of a preacher, the choice of their own wisdom, seemed now nearly blasted; and they uttered their discontent at the result, while they praised the dexterity or cunning with which they opposed the ordination of that protégé of patronage, Joel Kirkpatrick. "The kirk-session may buy a new bell-rope," said a Cameronian weaver, "for I cut away the tow from their tinkling brass yestreen; more by token, it now tethers my hummel cow on the unmowed side of John Allan's park; he had no business to set himself up against the will of the parish and the word of God." Gilbert Glass, the village glazier, found a topic of worldly consolation amid the spiritual misfortunes of the day: "The kirk windows will cost them a fine penny to repair: some one, whom I'll not name, left not a single pane whole, and each pane will cost the heritors a silver sixpence; that's work my way. It is an evil wind, Saunders Brazely, that blows nobody good; a profitable proverb to you." "All that I know of the proverb," replied Saunders the slater, "is, that it will be the sweet licking of a creamy finger to thee; but alake! what shall I get out of the pain of riding stride-legs over the clouted roof of the old kirk patching a few broken slates? I have heard of many a wind blowing for one's good, but I never heard of a wind that uncovered a kirk yet." To all this answered Micah Meen, a sectarian mason: "Plague on't! I wish there were not a slate on its roof, or one stone of its wall above another. This old kirk, built out of the spare stones of the old abbey, is but a bastard-bairn of the old lady of Rome, and deserves no good to come on't. Look ye to the upshot of my words. Seventeen year have I been kirk-mason, and am still as poor as one of its mice. But bide ye, let us lay our heads together, and build a brent new meeting-house. I will build the walls, and no be too hard about the siller, if I have the letting of the seats. And we will have a preacher to our own liking, one who shall not preach a word save sound doctrine, else let me never bed a stone in mortar more." "Eh, man, but ye speak soundly," said Charlie Goudge, the village carpenter, "in all save the article of kirk-seats, which, being of timber, pertain more to my calling. Howsomever, I would put a roof of red Norway fir over your heads, and erect ye such seats as no man sits in who lends his ears to a read sermon." "And as for us