The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

Duncan of Knock to a sense of reverend decency during
public worship, that he altogether forgot to inquire
whether Butler was called upon to subscribe the oaths
to Government.
Some have insinuated, that his neglect on this head
was, in some degree, intentional; but I think this explanation
inconsistent with the simplicity of my friend
David’s character. Neither have I ever been able, by the
most minute inquiries, to know whether the formula, at
which he so much scrupled, had been exacted from Butler,
ay or no. The books of the kirk-session might have
thrown some light on this matter; but unfortunately they
were destroyed in the year 1746, by one Donacha Dhu
na Dunaigh, at the instance, it was said, or at least by
the connivance, of the gracious Duncan of Knock, who
had a desire to obliterate the recorded foibles of a certain
Kate Finlayson.
Sir Walter Scott
539
CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND
Now butt and ben the change-house fills
Wi’ yill-caup commentators,
Here’s crying out for bakes and gills,
And there the pint-stoup clatters.
Wi’ thick and thrang, and loud and lang,—
Wi’ logic and wi’ scripture,
They raise a din that in the end
Is like to breed a rupture,
O’ wrath that day.
Burns.
A PLENTIFUL ENTERTAINMENT, at the Duke of Argyle’s
cost, regaled the reverend gentlemen who had assisted
at the ordination of Reuben Butler, and almost all the
respectable part of the parish. The feast was, indeed,
such as the country itself furnished; for plenty of all
the requisites for “a rough and round dinner” were al-