"'David Jamie, hearken to me, you that has your hand on your bit shable.[5] Better put up your feckless iron spit. It will do you no good. You are a good scholar lost, and a decent minister spoiled. I wonder at you--a lad of some lear--companying with this hairy-throated, tarry-fisted deceiver.' [Footnote 5: Short sword.] "This David Jamie was a young limber lad, who looked paler and more delicate than the others. What brought him into the company of mad men and misguided women, it is perhaps better only guessing. "He looked sufficiently ashamed now at all events. "'Walter Ker and John Young, hearken ye to me; I have more hope of you. You are but thoughtless, ignorant, land-ward men, and the Lord may be pleased to reclaim you from this dangerous and horrible delusion.' "Anton Lennox looked about him. There was a fire smouldering at no great distance from him. Something black and square lay upon it. He took three great strides to the place. Lifting the dark smouldering object up from off the fire, he cried aloud in horror, and began rubbing with his hands. It was a fine large-print Bible, with more than half of it burned away. There were also several little ones upon the fire underneath. I never saw a man's anger fire up more quickly. For me, I was both amazed and afraid at the awful and unthinkable blasphemy. "'John Gib,' cried Anton Lennox, 'stand up before the Lord, and answer--who has done this?' "'I, that am the head of the Sweet Singers, and the Lord's anointed!' said he. 'I have done it!' "'Then, by the Lord's great name, I will make you sing right sweetly for this!' cried Anton, taking a vow. "Then one of the women took up the parable. "'We heard a voice in the Frost Moss,' she said, 'and a light shone about us there; and John Gib bade us burn our Bibles, for that the Psalms in Metre, the chapter headings, and the Table of Contents were but human inventions.' "'And I did it out of despite against God!' cried John Gib. "Then Anton Lennox said not a word more, but cast away his plaid, spat upon his cudgel-palm, and called over his shoulder to me: "'Come, Sandy, and help me to wrestle in the Spirit with these Sweet Singers.' "As he ran down the brae, David Jamie, the student youth, came at him with a little spit-stick of a sword, and cried that if he came nearer he would run him through. "'The Lord forgie ye for leein', callant,' cried Anton, catching the poor thin blade on his great oak cudgel, for Anton was a great player with the single-sticks, and as a lad had been the cock of the country-side. The steel, being spindle-thin, shivered into twenty pieces, and the poor lad stood gaping at the sword-hilt left in his hand, which had grown suddenly light. "'Bide you there and wrestle with him, Sandy!' Auld Anton cried again over his shoulder.