their power as the majority, and carried matters
with a high hand; and religion itself, existing as but _dissent_, not as
an _establishment_, had to content itself with bare toleration.
Remonstrance, or even advice, was not permitted. "Johnnie, boy," I have
heard one of the rougher mechanics say, half in jest, half in earnest,
to my companion, "if you set yourself to convert me, I'll brak your
face;" and I have known another of them remark, with a patronizing air,
that "kirks werena very bad things, after a';" that he "aye liked to be
in a kirk, for the sake of decency, once a twelvemonth;" and that, as he
"hadna been kirked for the last ten months, he was just only waiting for
a rainy Sabbath, to lay in his stock o' divinity for the year." Our new
lodger, aware how little any interference with the religious concerns of
others was tolerated in the place, seemed unable for some time to muster
up resolution enough to broach in the family his favourite subject. He
retired every night, before going to bed, to his closet--the blue vault,
with all its stars--often the only closet of the devout lodger in a
south-country cottage; but I saw that each evening, ere he went out, he
used to look uneasily at the landlord and me, as if there lay some
weight on his mind regarding us, of which he was afraid to rid himself,
and which yet rendered him very uncomfortable. "Well, John," I asked one
evening, speaking direct, to his evident embarrassment; "what is it?"
John looked at old William the landlord, and then at me. "Did we not
think it right," he said, "that there should be evening worship in the
family?" Old William had not idea enough for conversation: he either
signified acquiescence in whatever was said that pleased him, by an
ever-recurring ay, ay, ay; or he grumbled out his dissent in a few
explosive sounds, that conveyed his meaning rather in their character as
tones than as vocables. But there now mingled with the ordinary
explosions the distinct enunciation, given with, for him, unwonted
emphasis, that he "wasna for _that_." I struck in, however, on the other
side, and appealed to Peggy. "I was sure," I said, "that Mrs. Russel
would see the propriety of John's proposal." And Mrs. Russel, as most
women would have done in the circumstances, unless, indeed, very bad
ones, did see the propriety of it; and from that evening forward the
cottage had its family worship. John's prayers were always very earnest
and excellent, but some