So when Elspeth addressed Meg with reference
to the sermon in a manner which showed her determination to acknowledge
no failure, Meg took her cue directly.
"Eh! woman; it's a sair ootluik for puir fowk like us, gin things be
gaein that gait!"
"And 'deed it's that, lass! Gin the hairst be gaein to the moles and
the bats, it's time we war awa hame; for it'll be a cauld winter."
"Ay, that it will! The minister was sair owercome at the prospec',
honest man. It was a' he cud do, to win at the en' o' his discoorse ohn
grutten ootricht."
"He sees into the will o' the Almichty. He's far ben wi' Him--that's
verra clear."
"Ay, lass, ay."
And hence, by slow degrees, in the middle of the vague prophecies of
vengeance gathered a more definite kernel of prediction, believed by
some, disbelieved, yet feared, by others--that the harvest would be so
eaten of worms and blasted with smut, that bread would be up to famine
prices, and the poor would die of starvation.
But still the flowers came out and looked men in the face and went in
again; and still the sun shone on the evil and on the good, and still
the rain fell on the just and on the unjust.
And still the denunciations from the pulpits went on; but the human
souls thus exposed to the fires seemed only to harden under their
influences.
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