CHAPTER XIII.

PREPARING FOR THE SACRAMENT.

English folk have various festivals in the religious year, as becometh
a generous country, but in our austere and thrifty Glen there was only
one high day, and that was Sacrament Sabbath. It is rumoured--but one
prefers not to believe scandals--that the Scottish Kirk nowadays is
encouraging a monthly Sacrament, after which nothing remains in the way
of historical declension except for people to remain for the Sacrament
as it may occur to them, and for men like Drumsheugh to get up at
meetings to give their religious experiences, when every one that has
any understanding will know that the reserve has gone out of Scottish
character, and the reverence from Scottish faith. Dr. Davidson's
successor, a boisterous young man of bourgeois manners, elected by
popular vote, has got guilds, where Hillocks' granddaughter reads
papers on Emerson and refers to the Free Kirk people as Dissenters, but
things were different in the old days before the Revolution. The
Doctor had such unquestioning confidence in himself that he considered
his very presence a sufficient defence for the Kirk, and was of such
perfect breeding that he regarded other Kirks with unbroken charity.
He was not the man to weary the parish with fussy little schemes, and
he knew better than level down the Sacrament. It was the summit of the
year to which the days climbed, from which they fell away, and it was
held in the middle of August. Then nature was at her height in the
Glen, and had given us of her fulness. The barley was golden, and,
rustling in the gentle wind, wearied for the scythe; the oats were
changing daily, and had only so much greenness as would keep the
feathery heads firm for the handling; the potatoes having received the
last touch of the plough, were well banked up and flowering pleasantly;
the turnips, in fine levels, like Hillocks', or gently sloping fields,
like Menzies', were so luxuriant that a mere townsman could not have
told the direction of the drills; the hay had been gathered into long
stacks like unto the shape of a two-storied house, and the fresh
aftermath on the field was yielding sweet morsels for the horses of an
evening; the pasture was rich with the hardy white clover, and one
could hear from the road the cattle taking full mouthfuls; young spring
animals, like calves and lambs, were now falling into shape and
beginning independent life, though with an occasional hankeri