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.
 

                              Chapter Forty-Fifth

 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 always at Duncan of Knock's command. There was the beef and mutton
on the braes, the fresh and salt-water fish in the lochs, the brooks, and firth;
game of every kind, from the deer to the leveret, were to be had for the
killing, in the Duke's forests, moors, heaths, and mosses; and for liquor,
home-brewed ale flowed as freely as water; brandy and usquebaugh both were had
in those happy times without duty; even white wine and claret were got for
nothing, since the Duke's extensive rights of admiralty gave him a title to all
the wine in cask which is drifted ashore on the western coast and isles of
Scotland, when shipping have suffered by severe weather. In short, as Duncan
boasted, the entertainment did not cost MacCallummore a plack out of his
sporran, and was nevertheless not only liberal, but overflowing.
    The Duke's health was solemnised in a bonâ fide bumper, and David Deans
himself added perhaps the first huzza that his lungs had ever