“Stop you there, Colin, my man,” said the farmer, “that’s enough at one time. I wouldna say that you were a’thegither wrong as touching the sermon and the prayers. It’s awfu’ to go in from the like of this hill-side and weary the very heart out of you in a close kirk, listening to a man preaching that has nothing in this world to say. I am whiles inclined to think--” said big Colin, thoughtfully--“laddies, you may as well go to your beds. You’ll see Colin the morn, and ye canna understand what we’re talking about. I am whiles disposed to think,” he continued after a pause, during which the younger members of the family had left the room, after a little gentle persuasion on the part of the mistress, “when I go into the kirk on a bonnie day, such as we have by times on the lock baith in summer and winter, that it’s an awfu’ waste of time. You lose a’ the bonnie prospect, and you get naething but weariness for your pains. I’ve aye been awfu’ against set prayers read out of a book; but I canna but allow the English chapel has a kind of advantage in that, for nae fool can spoil your devotion there, as I’ve heard it done many and many’s the time. I ken our minister’s prayers very near as well as if they were written down,” said the farmer of Ramore, “and the maist part of them is great nonsense. Ony little scraps o’ real supplication there may be in them, you could get through in five minutes; the rest is a’ remarks, that I never can discriminate if they’re meant for me or for the Almighty; but my next neibor would think me an awfu’ heathen if he heard what I’m saying,” he continued, with a smile; “and I’m far from sure that I would get a mair merciful judgment from the wife herself.”