The discourse, with the summons, and a rumour and whispering that
had in the mean time taken place, caused the desired effect; in so
much, that, on the Thursday, there was a great congregation of the
male portion of the people. At the which, old Mr Dravel--a genteel
man he was, well read in matters of history, though somewhat over-
portioned with a conceit of himself--got up on the table, in one of
the table-seats forenent the poopit, and made a speech suitable to
the occasion; in the which he set forth what manful things had been
done of old by the Greeks and the Romans for their country, and,
waxing warm with his subject, he cried out with a loud voice,
towards the end of the discourse, giving at the same time a stamp
with his foot, "Come, then, as men and as citizens; the cry is for
your altars and your God."

"Gude save's, Mr Dravel, are ye gane by yoursel?" cried Willy Coggle
from the front of the loft, a daft body that was ayefar ben on all
public occasions--"to think that our God's a Pagan image in need of
sick feckless help as the like o' thine?" The which outcry of Willy
raised a most extraordinary laugh at the fine paternoster, about the
ashes of our ancestors, that Mr Dravel had been so vehemently
rehearsing; and I was greatly afraid that the solemnity of the day
would be turned into a ridicule. However, Mr Pipe, who was upon the
whole a man no without both sense and capacity, rose and said, that
our business was to strengthen the hands of government, by coming
forward as volunteers; and therefore, without thinking it necessary,
among the people of this blessed land, to urge any arguments in
furtherance of that object, he would propose that a volunteer corps
should be raised; and he begged leave of me, who, as provost, was in
the chair, to read a few words that he had hastily thrown together