"Ae
man thrashin', an' twa birdies pickin'!" she went on, quoting the
old nursery nonsense. Then she stooped, and let down her veil.
Florimel hated her, and therefore might know her.
"It's the day o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed
to herself, as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a
chosen trumpet at last! Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur for a'
that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation.
"Yon laad Flemin', 'at preached i' the Baillies' Barn aboot the
dowgs gaein' roon' an' roon' the wa's o' the New Jeroozlem, gien
he had but hauden thegither an' no gean to the worms sae sune, wad
hae dung a score o' 'im. But Sanny angers me to that degree 'at but
for rizons--like yon twa--I wad gang oot i' the mids o' ane o'
's palahvers, an' never come back, though I ha'e a haill quarter o'
my sittin' to sit oot yet, an' it cost me dear, an' fits the auld
back o' me no that ill."
When Mr Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina's
disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort
with the place--mean and dreary--of the chapel very chapelly,
and she did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had
spoken. By a strange coincidence however, a kind of occurrence as
frequent as strange, he read for his text that same passage about
the gold ring and the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly
the behaviour of the early Jewish churches corresponded to that
of the later English ones, and Clementina soon began to alter her
involuntary judgment of him when she found herself listening to
an utterance beside which her most voluble indignation would have
been but as the babble of a child.
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