I reminded them that they were speaking of Mr. Dishart. "We was saying," began the post briskly, "that--" "It was me that was saying it," said Waster Lunny. "So, Dominie--" "Haud your gabs, baith o' you," interrupted Elspeth. "You've been roaring the story to one another till you're hoarse." "In the forenoon," Waster Lunny went on determinedly, "Mr. Dishart preached on the riot, and fine he was. Oh, dominie, you should hae heard him ladling it on to Lang Tammas, no by name, but in sic a way that there was no mistaking wha he was preaching at. Sal! oh, losh! Tammas got it strong." "But he's dull in the uptake," broke in the post, "by what I expected. I spoke to him after the sermon, and I says, just to see if he was properly humbled:--'Ay, Tammas,' I says, 'them that discourse was preached against winna think themselves seven-feet men for a while again.' 'Ay, Birse,' he answers, 'and glad I am to hear you admit it, for he had you in his eye.' I was fair scunnered at Tammas the day." "Mr. Dishart was preaching at the whole clan-jamfray o' you," said Elspeth. "Maybe he was," said her husband, leering; "but you needna cast it at us, for my certie, if the men got it frae him in the forenoon, the women got it in the afternoon." "He redd them up most michty," said the post. "Thae was his very words or something like them:--'Adam,' says he, 'was an erring man, but aside Eve he was respectable.'" "Ay, but it wasna a' women he meant," Elspeth explained, "for when he said that, he pointed his finger direct at T'nowhead's lassie, and I hope it'll do her good." "But, I wonder," I said, "that Mr. Dishart chose such a subject to-day. I thought he would be on the riot at both services." "You'll wonder mair," said Elspeth, "when you hear what happened afore he began the afternoon sermon. But I canna get in a word wi' that man o' mine." "We've been speaking about it," said Birse, "ever since we left the kirk door. Tod, we've been sawing it like seed a' alang the glen." "And we meant to tell you about it at once," said Waster Lunny; "but there's aye so muckle to say about a minister. Dagont, to hae ane keeps a body out o' languor. Aye, but this breaks the drum. Dominie, either Mr. Dishart wasna weel or he was in the devil's grip." This startled me, for the farmer was looking serious. "He was weel eneuch," said Birse, "for a heap o' fowk spiered at Jean if he had ta'en his porridge as usual, and she admitted he had. But the lassie was skeered hersel', and said it was a mercy Mrs. Dishart wasna in the kirk." "Why was she not there?" I asked anxiously. "Ou, he winna let her out in sic weather." "I wish you would tell me what happened," I said to Elspeth. "So I will," she answered, "if Waster Lunny would haud his wheest for a minute. You see the afternoon diet began in the ordinary way, and a' was richt until we came to the sermon. 'You will find my text,' he says, in his piercing voice, 'in the eighth chapter of Ezra.'"