"That’s jist exactly what I mean, Mr. Smellie!" replied Adam; "I don’t mean to receive your committee, that’s plain, and you may tak’ a minute o’t. If ye wish to ken why, ye had better speer at Mr. Porteous. But ye needna trouble yoursel’ wi’ me. What I have said I’ll stan’ to like a man; what I have promised I’ll perform like a Christian; and what I canna do, I winna do! If ye need mair explanation, this maybe will suffice:--that I’ll no’ kill my bird for you, nor for the Session, nor yet for the minister, nor for the hail parish; and that ye may as well try tae kill me wi’ blank cartridge, as try yer han’ in persuading me to kill the starling. Sae, Mr. Smellie, as far as that business is concerned, ye may gang hame, and no wat yer shoon to come my gait ony mair." "Sae be’t, sae be’t!" replied Smellie, with a cackle of a laugh, as much as to say, "I have him!" He then bowed and departed, walking silently like a cat along the street, but not purring. Yet he seemed to be feeling for something with the long hairs which projected from his whiskers like bristles. Poor Adam! Now began such a week in his history as he never had experienced before. Oh! it was cold, dark, and dreary! He had to drink the cup of loneliness in the midst of his fellowmen--the bitterest cup which can be tasted by anyone who loves his brother. But all his suffering was kept within his own heart, and found "no relief in word, or sigh, or tear". What a sinner he had become in the opinion of many of the respectable inhabitants of Drumsylie! What a double distilled spirit of evil!--far over proof, for no _proofs_ are ever applied to such evil spirits. Drumsylie was all agog about him. He was as interesting as a shipwreck to a seaport town; as a great swindle to a stock exchange; or as a murder to a quiet neighbourhood! What had he done! What had he been guilty of! Some said, or at least heard that some one else had said, that he had insulted the minister and the Kirk Session; others, that he had secretly supported himself as a poacher; others that he had been heard to declare, that rather than kill the bird, he would, out of mere spite and obstinacy, give up the eldership, the Church, ay, even Christianity itself; others, that he had stolen a child from Mrs. Craigie, whom, though a woman, he, a soldier, had threatened to strike in his own house. He was a terror even to evil doers!