, so great was the regardlessness of the parish, that the honest man
was not cold in his coffin before two-three of the farmers with whom the
members of the Presbytery were wont to stay when they came to examine,
laid their heads together that they might make the parish of Rowantree
even as Corseglass, and Deadthraws, and other Valleys of Dry Bones about
us.

"There shall be no more fanatics in Rowantree!" said they.

And they had half a gallon over the head of it, which, being John
Grieve's best, they might have partaken of in a better cause.

Now, the worst of them was Bauldy Todd of Todston, the father of my
James. It was a great thing, as I have often been told, to hear James
and his father at it. James was a quiet and loutish loon so long as he
was let alone, and he went about his duties pondering and revolving
mighty things in his mind. But when you chanced to start him on the
fundamentals, then the Lord give you skill of your weapon, for it was no
slight or unskilled dialectician who did you the honour to cross swords
with you.

But Bauldy Todd, being a hot, contentious man, could not let his son
alone. In the stable and out in the hayfield he was ever on his back,
though Jamie was never the lad to cross him or to begin an argument. But
his father would rage and try to shout him down--a vain thing with
Jamie. For the lad, being well learned in the Scriptures, had the more
time to bethink himself while the "goldering" of his father was heard as
far as the high Crownrigs. And even as Bauldy paused for breath, James
would slip a text under his father's guard, which let the wind out of
him like a bladder that is transfixed on a thorn-bush. Then there
remained nothing for Bauldy but to run at Jamie to lay on him with a
staff--an argument which, taking to his heels, Jamie as easily avoided.

It was my own Jamie who brought me word of the ill-contrived ploy that
was in the wind. He told me that his father and Mickle Andrew of
Ingliston and the rest of that clan were for starting to see the Lady
Lochwinnoch, the patron of the parish, to make interest on behalf of Mr.
Calmsough's nephew, as cold and lifeless a moral preacher as was ever
put out of the Edinburgh College, which is saying no little, as all will
admit.

They were to start, well mounted on their market horses, the next
morning at break of day, to ride all the way to Edinburgh. In a moment
I saw what I was called upon to do. I left Jamie Todd with a big s