Capìtolo 37

assert a religious freedom beyond that of the dominie and the shepherd
Gael around them. And if men wish to quarrel, and can give their
quarrel a religious basis, they secure a tolerance and a respect which
their own characters would not give them. Tallisker might pooh-pooh
sectional or political differences, but he was himself far too
scrupulous to regard with indifference the smallest theological
hesitation.

One day as he was walking up the clachan pondering these things, he
noticed before him a Highland shepherd driving a flock to the hills.
There was a party of colliers sitting around the Change House; they
were the night-gang, and having had their sleep and their breakfast,
were now smoking and drinking away the few hours left of their rest.
Anything offering the chance of amusement was acceptable, and Jim
Armstrong, a saucy, bullying fellow from the Lonsdale mines, who had
great confidence in his Cumberland wrestling tricks, thought he saw in
the placid indifference of the shepherd a good opportunity for