The lady sighed and clasped her hands.
“I suppose,” she said, “it must even be so; for men are carnal and their bodies must be fed. Alas, there are but few who care for the health of their souls! As for me, I was about to retire to the wood that I might for the hundred three score and ninth time renew my covenanting engagements.”
“You must break them very often, mother, that they are ever needing mending,” said her daughter, not so unkindly as the words look when written down, but rather carelessly, like one who has been oftentimes over the same ground and knows the landmarks by heart.
“Mary, Mary,” answered her mother, “I fear there is no serious or spiritual interest in you. Your father spoils and humours you. And so you have grown up—not like that godly lad Alexander Gordon the younger, who when he was but three years of his age had read the Bible through nineteen times, and could rattle off the books of the Old and New Testaments whiles I was counting ten.”
“Aye, mother,” replied the lass, “and inaddition could make faces behind your back all the time he was doing it!”
But the lady appeared not to hear her daughter. She continued to clasp her hands convulsively before her, and to repeat over and over again the words, “Eh, the blessed laddie—the blessed, blessed laddie!”
How long we might have stood thus in the glaring sun I know not; but, without waiting for her mother to take the lead or to go in of her own accord, Mary Gordon wheeled her round by the arm and led her unresisting towards the courtyard gate. She accompanied her daughter with the same weary unconcern and passionless preoccupation she had shown from the first, twisting and pulling the fringes of the shawl between her fingers, while her thin lips moved, either in covenant-making or in the murmured praises of her favourite child.
The room to which we were brought was a large one with panels of oak carven at the cornices into quaint and formal ornaments.
Mary went to the stairhead and cried down as to one in the kitchen: “Thomas Allen! Thomas Allen!”
A thin, querulous voice arose from thedepths: “Sic a fash! Wha’s come stravagin’ at this time o’ day? He will be wantin’ victual dootless. I never saw the like——”
“Thomas Allen! Haste ye fast, Thomas!”
“Comin’, mem, comin’! What’s your fret? There’s naebody in the deid-thraws,[10]is there?”
As the last words were uttered, an old serving-man, in a blue side-coat of thirty years before, with threadbare lace falling low at the neck and hands in a forgotten fashion, appeared at the doorway. His bald and shining head had still a few lyart locks clinging like white fringes about the sides. These, however, were not allowed to grow downward in the natural manner, but were trained as gardeners train fruit trees against walls that look to the south. They climbed directly upward so that the head of Thomas Allen was criss-crossed in both directions by streaks of hair, interlaced like the fingers of one’s hands netted together. But owing to the natural haste with which Thomas did his work, these were never all seen in place at one time. Invariably they had fallen to one side or the other, and being stiffened with candle grease or other greyish unguent, they stoodout at all angles like goose quills from a scrivener’s inkpot.
During the perfunctory repast which was finally brought forward and placed on the table by the reluctant Thomas, Mistress Mary sat directly opposite to me with her chin resting on her fingers and her elbows on the table. Her mother, at the upper end of the chamber, occupied herself in looking out of the window, occasionally clasping her hands in the urgency of her supplications or giving vent to a pitiful moan which indicated her sense of the hopeless iniquity of mankind.
Then with more kindliness than she had ever yet shown me, Mary Gordon asked of my people of Balmaghie, whether the call had been unanimous, who abode with me in the manse, and many other questions, to all of which I answered as well as I could. For the truth is, that the nearness of so admirable a maid and the directness of her gaze wrought in me a kind of desperation, so that it was all I could do to keep from telling her then that I had come to the house of Earlstoun to ask her to be my wife.
Not that I had the wildest hope of a favourable answer, but simply from inexperience at thebusiness of making love to a young lass I blundered blindly on. Plain ram-stam Hob could have bested me fairly at that. For he had not talked so long to the good-wives of the Lothians without getting a well-hung tongue in the head of him.
I looked sideways at the Lady of Earlstoun. She was mumbling at her devotions, or perhaps meditating other and more personal covenantings. Mary Gordon and I were in a manner alone.
“Mistress Mary,” I said, suddenly leaning towards her, my desperation getting the better of my natural prudence, “I know that I speak wholly without hope. But I came to-day to tell you that I love you. I am but a cotter’s lad, but I have loved you ever since I ferried you, a little maid, past the muskets of the troopers.”
I looked straight enough at her now. I could see the colour rise a little in her cheek, while a strange expression of wonder and pride, with something that was neither, overspread her face. Up to this point I might have been warned, but I was not to be holden now.
“Before I had no right, nor, indeed, any opportunity to tell you this. But now, as ministerof a parish, I have an income that will compare not unfavourably with that of most of the smaller gentry of the county.”
The girl nodded, with a swift hardening of the nostril.
“It will doubtless be a fine income,” she said, with a touch of scorn. “Did I understand you to offer me your manse and income?”
“I offer you that which neither dishonours an honest girl to hear or yet an honest man to speak. I am offering you my best service, the faith and devotion of a man who truly loves you.”
“I thank you, sir,” she said, lifting up her head and letting her eyes dwell on me with some of their former haughtiness; “I am honoured indeed. Your position, your manse, your glebe! How many acres did you say it was? Your income, good as that of a laird. And you come offering all these to Mary Gordon? Sir, I bid you carry your business transactions to the county market-place. Mary Gordon is not to be bought and sold. When she loves, she will give herself for love and love alone. Aye, were it to a poke-laden houseless cadger by the roadside, or a ploughman staggering between the furrows!”
And with that she rose and walked swiftly to the door. I could hear her foot die away through the courtyard; and going blankly to the window, I watched her slim figure glance between the clumps of trees, now in the light, now in the shadow, and anon lost in the yellowing depths of the forest.
Nor, though I watched all through the long hot afternoon, did she return till she came home riding upon her father’s horse, with Sandy Gordon himself walking bareheaded beside his daughter, as if he had been escorting a queen on her coronation day.
Lord! Lord! Was there ever a more bungled affair—a more humiliating confession. Our poor Quintin—great as he was at the preaching, an apostle indeed, none in broad Scotland to come within miles of him in the pulpit—with a lass was simply fair useless. I must e’en tell in a word how mine own wooing sped, that I may prove there was some airt and spunk left among the MacClellans.
For by Quintin’s own showing the girl had no loop-hole left, being wooed as if she had been so many sacks of corn. She was fairly tied up to refuse so hopeless and fushionless a suitor.
But of all this there was no suspicion at the time, neither in the parish of Balmaghie, or yet even among ourselves at Ardarroch. Forthough nothing gets wind so quickly in a parish as the news that the minister is “seekin”—that is, going from home courting, yet such was my brother’s repute for piety “within the bounds of the Presbytery,” such the reverence in which he was held, that the popular voice considered him altogether trysted to no maiden, but to the ancient and honourable Kirk of Scotland as she had been in the high days of her pride and purity.
“Na,” they would say, “our minister will never taingle himsel’ wi’ marriage engagements while there is a battle to be fought for the Auld Banner o’ Blue.” So whereas another might not so much as look over the wall, my brother might have stolen all the horses before their eyes.
And I think it was this great popular repute of him which first set his fellow-ministers against him, far more than any so-called “defections” and differences either ecclesiastical or political.
I have seen him at a sacrament at Dalry hold the listening thousands so that they swayed this way and that like barley shaken by the winds. Never beheld I the like—the multitude of the folk all bending their faces toone point—careless young lads from distant farms, light-headed limmers of lasses, bairns that had been skipping about the kirk-yard and playing “I spy” among the tombstones while other ministers were preaching—all now fixed and spellbound when my brother rose to speak, and his full bell-like voice sounded out from the preaching-tent over their heads.
I think that if at any time he had held up his hand and called them to follow him to battle, every man would have gone forth as unquestionably as did Cameron’s folk on that fatal day of the Moss of Ayr.
But I who sat there, with eyes sharpened and made jealous by exceeding love for my brother, could see clearly the looks of dark suspicion, the sneers that dwelt on sanctimonious lips, the frowns of envy and ill-will as Quintin stood up, and the folk poured anxiously inward towards the preaching-tent to hear him. I noted also the yet deeper anger of those who succeeded him, when multitudes rose and forsook the meeting because there was to be no more of the young minister o’ Balmaghie that day.
Now though it was rather on the point of politics and of the standing of the kirk, herright to rule herself without interference of the State, her ancient independence and submission to Christ the only head of the church, that Quintin was finally persecuted and called in question, yet, as all men know in Galloway, it was really on account of the popular acclaim, the bruit of great talents and godliness which he held among all men, beyond any that ever came into the countryside, and of his quietness and persistence also in holding his own and keeping a straight unvarying course amid all threatenings and defections, which brought the final wrath upon him and constituted the true head and front of his offending.
Aye, and men saw that the storm was brewing over him long before it burst.
For several of the Galloway ministers had deliberately left the folk of the mountains for the sake of a comfortable down-sitting in bein and sheltered parishes. Some of them even owed their learning at the Dutch Universities to the poor purses of these covenanting societies.
And so when papers came down from the Privy Council or from the men who, like Carstairs, posed as little gods and popes infallible,the Presbytery men greedily signed them, swallowing titles, oaths and obligations with shut eye and indiscriminate appetite lest unhappily they would be obliged to consult their consciences.
Such men as constituted the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright had but one motto—a clear and useful one indeed at such a time, “Those in power can do no wrong!”
So three years went uneasily by, and meantime the parish of Balmaghie had grown to know and love our Quintin. There was hardly a rascal drover, a common villain pig-dealer who was not ready to crack a skull at an ill word said of him even in jest. Men who in time past had sneered at religion, and had never any good report of ministers, dull clods with ideals tethered to the midden and the byre, waked up at sight of him, and would travel miles to hear him preach.
And thus three happy unstirred years went by. I abode in the manse with Quintin, and every morning when I arose at break of day to take the cattle afield, or to set the plough in the glebe, I would see that his window-blind was withdrawn, his candle alight if it were winter, and that he had already set him down withhis book. Or sometimes when the summer evening darkened to dusk I would meet him wandering, his hands clasped behind his back, and his whole soul steeped in meditation by the whispering rushes of the waterside.
Yet what a simpleton in worldly things he was; and, mayhap, that was what made me love him the more.
For about this time there began a stir and a bruit of the matter of little Jean Gemmell, a soft-voiced, die-away lass that I would not have troubled my head about for a moment. She had, truth to tell, set herself to catch our foolish Quintin, whose heart was in good sooth fully given to another. And how she did it, let himself tell. But I, that thought nothing of a lass without spirit, would often warn him to beware. But he minded me not, smiling and giving the subject the go-by in a certain sober and serious way he had which somehow silenced me against my will.
But in between my brother’s ill-starred wooing of the bonny lass of Earlstoun, and Jean Gemmell’s meek-eyed courtship of him, I also had been doing somewhat on mine own account.
At the house of Drumglass there abodeone who to my mind was worth all the haughty damsels of great houses and all the sleek and kittenish eyes-makers in broad Scotland.
When first I saw Alexander-Jonita come over the hill, riding a Galloway sheltie barebacked, her dark hair streaming in the wind, and the pony speeding over the heather like the black charger of Clavers on the side of Cairn Edward, I knew that there was no hope for my heart. I had indeed fancied myself in love before. So much was expected of a lad in our parts. But Alexander-Jonita was a quest worth some enterprising to obtain.
The neighbours, at least the rigidly righteous of them, were inclined to look somewhat askance upon a lass that went so little to the Kirk, and companioned more with the dumb things of the field than with her own kith and kin. But Quintin would ask such whether their own vineyard was so well kept, their own duty so faultlessly done, that they could afford to keep a stone ready to cast at Alexander-Jonita.
I remember the first time that ever I spoke to her words beyond the common greetings and salutations of lad and lass.
It was a clear night in early June. I had been over at Ardarroch seeing my mother, and now having passed high up the Black Water of Dee, I was making my way across the rugged fells and dark heathery fastnesses to the manse of Balmaghie.
The mist was rising about the waterside. It lingered in pools and drifts in every meadowy hollow, but the purpling hilltops were clear and bare in the long soft June twilight.
Suddenly a gun went off, as it seemed in my very ear. I sprang a foot into the air, for who on honourable business would discharge a musket in that wild place at such a time.
But ere I had time to think, above me on the ridge a figure stood black against the sky—a girl’s shape it was, slim, tall, erect. She carried something in one hand which trailed on the heather, and a musket was under her arm, muzzle down.
I had not yet recovered my breath when a voice came to me.
“Ah, Hob MacClellan, the ill deil tak’ your courting-jaunts this nicht! For had ye bidden at hame I would have gotten baith o’ the red foxes that have been killing our weakly lambs. As it is, I gat but this.”
And she held up a great dog fox by the brush before throwing the body into a convenient moss-hole.
It was Alexander-Jonita, the lass whom our college-bred Quintin had once called the Diana of Balmaghie. I care not what he called her. Without question she was the finest lass in the countryside. And that I will maintain to this day.
“Are you going home, Jonita?” cried I, for the direction in which she was proceeding led directly away from the house of Drumglass.
“No,” she answered carelessly, “I am biding all night in the upper ‘buchts.’ The foxes have been very troublesome of late, and I am thinning them with the gun. I have the feck of the lambs penned up there.”
“And who is with you to help you?” I asked her in astonishment.
“Only the dogs,” she made answer, shifting the gun from one shoulder to the other.
“But, lassie,” I cried, “ye surely do not sleep out on the hills all your lone like this?”
“And what for no?” she answered sharply. “What sweeter bed than a truss of heather? What safer than with two rough tykes of dogs and a good gun at one’s elbow, with the clearairs blowing over and the sheep lying snugly about the folds?”
“But when it rains,” I went on, still doubtfully.
“Come and see,” she laughed; “we are near the upper ‘buchts’ now!”
Great stone walls of rough hill boulders, uncut and unquarried, rose before me. I saw a couple of rough collies sit guardian one at either side of the little lintelled gate that led within. The warm smell of gathered sheep, ever kindly and welcome to a hill man, saluted my nostrils as I came near. A lamb bleated, and in the quiet I could hear it run pattering to nose its mother.
Alexander-Jonita led me about the great “bucht” to a niche formed by a kind of cairn built into the side of a wall of natural rock. Here a sort of rude shelter had been made with posts driven into the crevices of the rock and roughly covered with turves of heather round the sides of a ten-foot enclosure. The floor was of bare dry rock, but along one side there was arranged a couch of heather tops recently pulled, very soft and elastic. At first I could not see all this quite clearly in the increasing darkness, but after a little, bit by bit the planof the shelter dawned upon me, as my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light.
“When it rains,” she said, going back to my question, “I set a post in the middle for a tent pole, spread my plaid over it and fasten it down at the sides with stones.”
“Jonita,” said I, “does your sister never come up hither with you?”
“Who—our Jean!” she cried, astonished, “faith, no! Jean takes better with the inside of a box-bed and the warmth of thepeat-grieshoch[11]on the hearth! And, indeed, the lass is not over-strong. But as for me, more than the cheeping of the house-mice, I love the chunnering of the wild fowl in their nests and the bleat of the sheep. These are honey and sweetness to me.”
“But, Jonita,” I went on, “surely no girl is strong enough to take shower and wind-buffet night and day on the wild moors like this. Why, you make me ashamed, me that am born and bred to the trade.”
“And what am I?” she asked sharply, “I am over twenty, and yet nothing but an ignorant lass and careless of seeming otherwise. I am not even like my sister Jean that can lookand nod as if she understood everything your brother is talking about, knowing all the while naught of the matter. But, at least, I ken the ways of the hills. Feel that!”
She thrust her arm suddenly out to me.
I clasped it in my hands, sitting meantime on a great stone in the angle, while she stood beside me with the dogs on either side of her. It was a smooth, well-rounded arm, cool and delicate of skin, that she gave into my fingers. Her loose sleeve fell back, and if I had dared to follow my desire, I should have set my lips to it, so delightful did the touch of it seem to me. But I refrained me, and presently underneath the satin skin I felt the muscles rise nobly, tense yet easy, clean of curve and spare flesh, moulded alike for strength and suppleness.
“I would not like to pull at the swingle-tree with you, my lass,” said I, “and if it came to a Keltonhill collieshangie I would rather have you on my side than against me.”
And I think she was more pleased at that than if I had told her she was to be a great heiress.
As I waited there on the rough stones of the sheepfold, and looked at the slight figuresitting frankly and easily beside me, thinking, as I knew, no more of the things of love than if she had been a neighbour lad of the hills, a kind of jealous anger came over me.
“Jonita,” said I, “had ye never a sweetheart?”
“A what?” cried Jonita in a tone of as much surprise as if I had asked her if she had ever possessed an elephant.
“A lad that loved you as other maids are loved.”
“I have heard silly boys speak nonsense,” she said, “but I am no byre-lass to be touselled in corners by every night-raker that would come visiting at the Drumglass.”
“Jonita,” I went on, “hath none ever helped you with your sheep on the hill, run when you wanted him, stopped when you told him, come like a collie to your foot when he was called?”
“None, I tell you, has ever sat where you are sitting, Hob MacClellan! And hear ye this, had I thought you a silly ‘cuif’ like the rest, it would have been the short day of December and the long again before I had asked you to view my bower under the rock.”
“I was only asking, Jonita,” said I; “ye kenthat ye are the bonniest lass in ten parishes, and to me it seemed a strange thing that ye shouldna hae a lad.”
“Bah,” said she, “lads are like the pebbles in the brook. They are run smooth with many experiences, courting here and flattering there. What care I whether or no this one or that comes chapping at my door? There are plenty more in the brook. Besides, are there not the hills and the winds and the clear stars over all, better and more enduring than a thousand sweethearts?”
“But,” said I, “the day will come, Jonita, when you may be glad of the friend’s voice, the kindly eye, the helping hand, the arm beneath the head——”
“I did not say that I desired to have no friends,” she said, as it seemed in the darkness, a little shyly.
“Will you let me be your friend?” I said, impulsively, taking her hand.
“I do not know,” said Alexander-Jonita; “I will tell you in the morning. It is over-dark to-night to see your eyes.”
“Can you not believe?” said I. “Have you ever heard that I thus offered friendship to any other maid in all the parish?”
“You might have offered it to twenty and they taken it every one for aught I care. But Alexander-Jonita Gemmell accepts no man’s friendship till she has tried him as a fighter tries a sword.”
“Then try me, Jonita!” I cried, eagerly.
“I will,” said she, promptly; “rise this instant from the place where ye sit, look not upon me, touch me not, say neither good e’en nor yet good-day, but take the straight road and the ready to the manse of Balmaghie.”
The words were scarce out of her mouth when with a leap so quick that the collies had not even time to rise, I was over the dyke and striding across the moss and whinstone-crag towards the house by the waterside, where my brother’s light had long been burning over his books.
I did not so much as look about me till I was on the crest of the hill. Then for a single moment I stood looking back into the clear grey bath of night behind me, where the lass I loved was keeping her watch in the lonely sheepfold.
Yet I was pleased with myself too. For though my dismissal had been so swift and unexpected,I felt that I had not done by any means badly for myself.
At least I could call Alexander-Jonita my friend. And there was never a lad upon all the hills of heather that could do so much.
Itwas a day of high summer when the anger of mine enemies drew finally to a head, and that within mine own land of Balmaghie. The Presbytery were in the habit of meeting at a place a little way from the centre of the parish, called Cullenoch—or, as one would say in English, “The Woodlands.”
In twos or threes they came, riding side by side on their ponies, or appearing singly out of some pass among the hills. So, as I say, the Presbytery assembled at Cullenoch, and the master of it, Andrew Cameron of Kirkcudbright, was there, with his orders from wily Carstaires, the pope of the restored Kirk of Scotland.
To this day I can see his aspect as he rose up among the brethren with a great roll in hishand—solemn, portentous, full of suave, easy words and empty, sonorous utterances.
“Fathers and brethren,” he said, looking on us with a comprehending pity for our feebleness of capacity, “there hath come that from Her Most Noble and Christian Majesty the Queen Anna, which it behooves us to treat with all the respect due to one who is at once the Anointed of God, and also as the fountain of all authority, in some sense also the Head of the Church!”
As he finished he laid upon the table a great parchment, and tapped it impressively with his finger.
“It is, if I may be permitted the words, the message of God’s vicegerent upon earth; whom His own finger has especially designed to rule over us. And I am well assured that no one among the brethren of the Presbytery will be so ill-advised as not at once to sign this declaration of our submission and dutiful obedience to our Liege lady in all things.”
This he uttered soundingly, with much more to the same purpose, standing up all the time, and glowering about him on the look-out for contradiction.
Then, though I was the youngest memberof the Presbytery, save one, I felt that for the ancient liberty of the Kirk and for the sake of the blood shed on the moors, I could not permit so great a scandal as this to pass. I rose in my place, whilst Cameron looked steadily upon me, endeavouring to browbeat me into silence.
Somewhat thus I spoke:
“The most learned and reverend brother brings us a paper to sign—a paper which we have neither seen nor yet heard read. It comes (he tells us) from the Church’s head, from God’s vicegerent. It is to be received with hushed breath and bowed knee. ‘The Head of the Church!’ says Mr. Cameron—ah, brethren, the men who have so lately entered into rest through warring stress, sealed with their blood the testimony that the Kirk of God has no head upon earth. The Kirk of Scotland is the Kirk of Jesus Christ, the alone King and Head of the Church. The Kirk of Scotland is more noble, high and honourable in herself than any human government. She alone is God’s vicegerent. She alone has power within her own borders to rule her own affairs. The Kirk has many faults, but at least she will surely never permit herself to be ruled again by PrivyCouncils and self-seeking state-craft. Is she not the Bride, the Lamb’s wife? And for me, and for any that may adhere to me, we will sign no test nor declaration which shall put our free necks beneath the yoke of any temporal power, nor yet for fear of this or that Queen’s Majesty deny the Name that is above every name.”
Whilst these words were put into my heart and spoken by my voice, I seemed, as it were, taken possession of. A voice prompted me what I was to speak. I heard the sound of rushing wings, and though I was but lately a herd-lad on the hills of sheep I knew that the time had come, which on the day of the Killing on the Bennan Top I had seen afar off.
Whilst I was speaking, Cameron stood impatiently bending the tips of his politic fingers upon the document on the table. A dark frown had been gathering on his brow.
“This is treason, black treason! It is blank defiance of the Queen’s authority!” he cried; “I will not listen to such words. It is the voice of a man who would raise the standard of rebellion, and disturb the peace of all the parishes of our Kirk, recently and adequately settled according to the laws of the land.”
But I had yet a word to say.
“I am neither rebel nor heretic,” said I; “I am, it is true, the youngest and the least among you. But even I am old enough to have seen men shot like running deer for the liberties of the Kirk of God. I have heard the whistle of the deadly bullet flying at the command of kings and queens called in their day Heads of the Church. I have seen the martyr fall, and his blood redden the ooze of the moss hag. We have heard much of tests and papers to sign, of allegiances to other divine vicegerents upon earth, even to such Lord’s anointeds as James and Charles, the father and the uncle of her in whose name the Privy Council of Scotland now demands this most abject submission. But for myself I will sign no such undertaking, give countenance to no bond which might the second time deliver us who have fought for our ancient liberties with weapons in our hands, bound hand and foot to the powers temporal—yea, that we might wrest the powers of the spiritual arm from the Son of God and deliver them to the daughter of James Stuart.”
“And who are you,” cried Cameron, “thus to teach and instruct men who were ministerswhen you were but a bairn, to reprove those who have wrought in sun and shine, and in gloom and darkness alike, to make the Kirk of Scotland what she is this day?”
There was a noise of some approval among the Presbytery. I knew, however, that I had small sympathy among those present, men fearful of losing their pleasant livings and fat stipends. Nevertheless, very humbly I made answer. “It is not Quintin MacClellan, but the word he speaks that cannot be gainsaid. There is also an old saying that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God expects the perfection of praise.”
“Fool!” cried Cameron, “ye would endanger and cast down the fair fabric of this Kirk of Scotland, ignorantly pulling down what wiser and better men have laboriously built up. Ye are but a child throwing stones at windows and ready to run when the glass splinters. You stand alone among us, sir—alone in Scotland!”
“I stand no more alone,” I replied, “than your brother Richard Cameron did at Ayrsmoss when he rode into the broil and tumult of battle for the honour of the Covenant. The Banner of Christ’s cause that was trampled inthe peat-brew of the moss of Ayr, is a worthier standard than the rag of submission which lies upon the table under your hand.”
Cameron was silent. He liked not the memory of his great brother. I went on, for the man’s pliable pitifulness angered me.
“Think you that Richard Cameron would have signed words like these? Aye, I think he would. But it would have been with his sword, cutting the vile bond into fragments, giving them to the winds, and strewing them upon the waters.”
Then the Presbytery would hear no more, but by instant vote and voice they put me forth. Yet ere I went from their midst, I cried, “If there be any that think more of the freedom of God’s Kirk in this land of Scotland than of their stipends and glebes, let them come forth with me.”
And two there were who rose and followed—Reid of Carsphairn, a man zealous and far-seeing, and one other, a young minister lately come within the bounds.
So the door was shut upon us, and they that hated us were left to concert their measures without let or hindrance.
And for a moment we three clasped hands without the door.
“Let us stand by each other and the word of truth,” I said, “and the truth shall never make us ashamed.”
Nowthroughout all the parish, aye, and throughout all Galloway there arose infinite noise and bruit of this thing. Specially was there the buzz of anger in the hill parishes, where the men who had lain in the moss-hags and fought for the ancient liberties dwelt thickest—in Carsphairn, in the Glenkens, and in mine own Balmaghie.
As I went over the hill from farm-town to farm-town the herds would cry down “Well done!” from among the sheep. Old men who had seen the high days of the Kirk before the fatal home-coming of King Charles; rough, buirdly men who had done their share of hiding and fighting in the troubles; young men who, like myself, had heard in their cradles but the murmur of the fray, came to shake my hand and bid me strengthen my knees and stick to my testimony.
“For,” said a venerable elder, one Anthony Lennox of the Duchrae, who had been a famous man in the sufferings, “this is the very truth for which we bled. We asked for the kernel, and lo! they have given us the dry and barren husk. We fought for ‘Christ’s Crown and Covenant,’ and they have sent us a banner with the device—‘Queen Anne’s Crown and the Test!’”
But I think that the women were even more warmly on our side, for the canker of persecution had eaten deeper into their hearts, that had only waited and mourned while their men folk were out suffering and fighting.
“Be ye none feared, laddie,” said Millicent Hannay, an ancient dame who had stood the thumbikins thrice in the gaol of Kirkcudbright; “the most part of the ministers may stick like burrs to their manses and glebes, their tiends and tithings. But if so be, ye are thrust forth into the wilderness, ye will find manna there—aye, and water from the rock and a pillar of fire going before to lead you out again.”
But nowhere was I more warmly welcomed than in the good house of Drumglass. The herd lads and ploughmen were gathered at the house-end when I came up the loaning, andeven as I passed one of them came forward with his blue bonnet in his hand.
“Fear not, sir,” he said, with a kind of bold, self-respecting diffidence common among our Galloway hinds. “I speak for all our lads with hearts and hands. We will fight for you. Keep the word of your testimony, and we will sustain you and stand behind you. If we will unfurl the blue banner again, we will plant right deep the staff.”
And from the little group of stalwart men at the barn-end there came a low murmur of corroboration, “We will uphold you!”
Strange as it is to-day to think on these things when most men are so lukewarm for principle. But in those days the embers of the fires of persecution were yet warm and glowing, and men knew not when they might again be blown up and fresh fuel added thereto.
“Come awa’,” cried Nathan Gemmell heartily, from where he sat on the outer bench of moss-oak by the door-cheek, worn smooth by generations of sitters, “come awa’, minister, and tell us the news. Faith, it makes me young-like again to hear there is still a man that thinks on the Covenants and the blue banner wi’ the denty white cross. And thoughthey forget the auld flag noo, I hae seen it gang stacherin’ doon the streets o’ the toon o’ Edinburg wi’ a’ the folk cryin’ ‘Up wi’ the Kirk an’ doon wi’ the King!’ till there wasna a sodjer-body dare show his face, nor a King’s man to be found between the Castle and the Holyrood House.Hech-how-aye!auld Drumglass has seen that.
“And eke he saw the lads that were pitten doon on the green Pentland slopes in the saxty-sax start frae the Clachan o’ Saint John wi’ hopes that were high, sharpening their bits o’ swords and scythes to withstand the guns o’ Dalzyell. And but few o’ them ever wan back. But what o’ that? It’s a brave thrang there wad be about heaven’s gates that day—the souls o’ the righteous thranging and pressing to win through, the rejoicing of a multitude that had washed their robes and made them white in the blood o’ the Lamb.
“Ow, aye, ye wonder at me, that am a carnal man, speakin’ that gate. But it is juist because I am a man wha’ has been a sore sinner, that I wear thae things sae near my heart. My time is at hand. Soon, soon will auld Drumglass, wastrel loon that he is, be thrown oot like a useless root ower the wa’ and carriedfeet foremost from out his chamber door. But if it’s the Lord’s will” (he rose to his feet and shook his oaken staff) “if it’s the Lord’s will, auld Drumglass wad like to draw the blade frae the scabbard yince mair, and find the wecht o’ the steel in his hand while yet his auld numb fingers can meet aboot the basket hilt.
“Oh, I ken, I ken; ye think the weapons of our warfare are not to be swords and staves, minister—truth will fight for us, ye say.
“I daresay ye are right. But gin the hoodie-craws o’ the Presbytery come wi’ swords and staves to put ye forth from your parish and your kindly down-sitting, ye will be none the worse of the parcel o’ braw lads ye saw at the barn-end, every man o’ them wi’ a basket-hilted blade in his richt hand and a willing Galloway heart thump-thumpin’ high wi’ itching desire to be at the red coaties o’ the malignants.”
Then we went in, and there by the fireside, looking very wistfully out of her meek eyes at me, stood the young lass, Jean Gemmell. She came forward holding out her hand, saying no word, but the tears still wet on her lashes—why, I know not. And she listened as her father asked of the doings at the Presbytery, and looked eager and anxious while I was answering.Presently Auld Drumglass went forth on some errand about the work of the ploughlads, and the lass and I were left alone together in the wide kitchen.
“And they will indeed put you forth out of house and home?” she asked, looking at me with sweet, reluctant eyes, the eyes of a mourning dove. She stood by the angle of the hearth where the broad ingle-seat begins. I sat on her father’s chair where he had placed me and looked over at her. A comely lass she was, with her pale cheeks and a blush on them that went and came responsive to the beating of her heart.
I had not answered, being busy with looking at her and thinking how I wished Mistress Mary Gordon had been as gentle and biddable as this lass. So she asked again, “They will not put you forth from your kirk and parish, will they?”
“Nay, that I know not,” I said, smiling; “doubtless they will try.”
“Oh, I could not listen to another minister after——”
She stopped and sighed.
It was in my mind to rebuke her, and to bid her remember that the Word of God isnot confined to any one vessel of clay, but just then she put her hand to her side, and went withal so pale that I could not find it in my heart to speak harshly to the young lass.
Then I told her, being stirred within me by her emotion, of the two who had stood by me in the Presbytery, and how little hope I had that they would manfully see it out to the end.
“’Tis a fight that I must fight alone,” I said.
For I knew well that it would come to that, and that so soon as the affair went past mere empty words those two who had stood at my shoulder would fall behind or be content to bide snugly at home.
“Not alone!” said the young lass, quickly, and moved a step towards me with her hand held out. Then, with a deep and burning blush, her maiden modesty checked her, and she stood red like a July rose in the clear morning.
She swayed as if she would have fallen, and, leaping up quickly, I caught her in my arms ere she had time to fall.
Her eyes were closed. The blood had ebbed from her face and left her pale to thevery lips. I stood with her light weight in my arms, thrilling strangely, for, God be my judge, never woman had lain there before.
Presently she gave a long snatching breath and opened her eyes. I saw the tears gather in them as her head lay still and lax in the hollow of my arm. The drops did not fall, but rather gathered slowly like wells that are fed from beneath.
“You will not go away?” she said, and at last lifted her lashes, with a little pearl shining wet on each, like a swallow that has dipped her wings in a pool.
Then, because I could not help it, I did that which I had never done to any woman born of woman: I stooped and kissed the wet sweet eyes. And then, ere I knew it, with a little cry of frightened joy, the girl’s arms were about me. She lifted up her face, and kissed me again and again and yet again.
. . . . . . .
When I came to myself I was conscious of another presence in the kitchen. I looked up quickly, and there before me, standing with an ash switch swaying in her hand, was Alexander-Jonita. I had not supposed that she could have looked so stern.
“Well?” she said, as if waiting for my explanation.
“I love your sister,” I replied; for indeed, though I had not thought thus of the matter before, there seemed nothing else to be said.
But the face of Alexander-Jonita did not relax. She stood gazing at her sister, whose head rested quiet and content on my shoulder.
“Jean,” she said at last, “knowing that which you know, why have you done this?”
The girl lifted her head, and looked at Jonita with a kind of glad defiance.
“Sister,” she said, “you do not understand love. How should you know what one would do for love?”
“You love my sister Jean?” Jonita began again, turning to me with a sharpness in her words like the pricking of a needle’s point.
“Yes!” I answered, but perhaps a little uncertainly.
“Did you know as much when you came into the kitchen?”
“No,” said I.
For indeed I knew not what to answer, never having been thus tangled up with women’s affairs in my life before.
“I thought not,” said Jonita, curtly. Then to Jean, “How did this come about?” she said.
Jean lifted her head, her face being lily-pale and her body swaying a little to me.
“I thought he would go away and that I should never see him again!” she replied, a little pitifully, with the quavering thrill of unshed tears in her voice.
“And you did this knowing—what you know!” said Jonita again, sternly.
“I saw him first,” said Jean, a little obstinately, looking down the while.
Her sister flushed crimson.
“Oh, lassie,” she cried, “ye will drive me mad with your whims and foolish speeches; what matters who saw him first? Ye ken well that ye are not fit to be——”
“She is fit to be my wife,” I said, for I thought that this had gone far enough; “she is fit to be my wife, and my wife she shall surely be if she will have me!”
With a little joyful cry Jean Gemmell’s arms went about my neck, and her wet face was hidden in my breast. It lay there quiet a moment; then she lifted it and looked with a proud, still defiance at her sister.
Alexander-Jonita lifted up her hands in hopeless protest.
She seemed about to say more, but all suddenly she changed her mind.
“So be it,” she said. “After all, ’tis none of my business!”
And with that she turned and went out through the door of the kitchen.
I metmy lass Jonita that night by the sheep-fold on the hill. It was not yet sundown, but the spaces of the heavens had slowly grown large and vague. The wind also had gradually died away to a breathing stillness. The scent of the bog-myrtle was in our nostrils, as if the plant itself leaned against our faces.
I had been waiting a long time ere I heard her come, lissomly springing from tuft to tuft of grass and whistling that bonny dance tune, “The Broom o’ the Cowdenknowes.” But even before I looked up I caught the trouble in her tones. She whistled more shrilly than usual, and the liquid fluting of her notes, mellow mostly like those of the blackbird, had now an angry ring.
“What is the matter, Alexander-Jonita?” I cried, e’er I had so much as set eyes on her.
The whistling ceased at my question. She came near, and leaning her elbows on the dyke, she regarded me sternly.
“Then you know something about it?” she said, looking at me between the eyes, her own narrowed till they glinted wintry and keen as the gimlet-tool wherewith the joiner bores his holes.
“Has your father married the dairymaid, or Meg the pony cast a shoe?” I asked of her, with a lightness I did not feel.
“Tut,” she cried, “’tis the matter of your brother, as well you know.”
“What of my brother?”
“Why, our silly Jean has made eyes at him, and let the salt water fall on the breast of his black minister’s coat. And now the calf declares that he loves her!”
I stood up in sharp surprise.
“He no more loves her than—than——”
“Than you love me,” said Alexander-Jonita; “I know—drive on!”
I did not notice her evil-conditioned jibe.
“Why, Jonita, he has all his life been inlove with the Lady Mary—the Bull of Earlstoun’s daughter.”
Alexander-Jonita nodded pensively.
“Even so I thought,” she said, “but, as I guess, Mary Gordon has sent him about his business, and so he has been taken with our poor Jean’s puling pussydom. God forgive me that I should say so much of a dying woman.”
“A dying woman!” cried I, “there is nothing the matter with Jean.”
Alexander-Jonita shook her head.
“Jean is not long for this world,” she said, “I bid you remember. Saw you ever the red leap through the white like yon, save when the life burns fast to the ashes and the pulse beats ever more light and weak?”
“And how long hath this thing been afoot?”
“Since the day of your brother’s first preaching, when to save her shoon Jean must needs go barefoot and wash her feet in the burn that slips down by the kirkyard wall.”
“That was the day Quintin first spoke with her, when she gave him her nooning piece of bread to stay his hunger.”
“Aye,” said Alexander-Jonita; “better hadhe gone hungry all sermon-time than eaten of our Jean’s piece.”
“For shame, Alexander-Jonita!” I cried, “and a double shame to speak thus of a lassie that is, by your own tale, dying on her feet—and your sister forbye. I believe that ye are but jealous!”
She flamed up in sudden anger. If she had had a knife or a pistol in her hand, I believe she would have killed me.
“Get out of our ewe-buchts before I twist your impudent neck, Hob MacClellan!” she cried. “I care not a docken for any man alive—least of all for you and your brother. Yet I thought, from what I heard of his doings at the Presbytery, that he was more of a man than any of you. But now I see that he is feckless and feeble like the rest.”
“Ah, Jonita, you snooded folk tame us all. From David the King to Hob MacClellan there is no man so wise but a woman may tie him in knots about her little finger.”
“I thought better of your brother!” she said more mildly, her anger dying away as suddenly as it had risen, and I think she sighed.
“But not better of me!” I said.
She looked at me with contempt, but yet a contempt mightily pleasant.
“Good e’en to ye, Hob,” she cried. “I was not so far left to myself as to think about you at all!”
And with that she took her light plaid over her arm with a saucyish swirl, and whistling on her dogs, she swung down the hill, carrying, if you please, her shoulders squared and her head in the air like a young conceited birkie going to see his sweetheart.
And then, when the thing became public, what a din there was in the parish of Balmaghie! Only those who know the position of a young minister and the interest in his doings can imagine. It was somewhat thus that the good wives wagged their tongues.
“To marry Jean Gemmell! Aye, juist poor Jean, the shilpit, pewlin’ brat that never did a hand’s turn in her life, indoor or oot! Fegs, a bonny wife she will mak’ to him. Apothecaries’ drugs and red claret wine she maun hae to leeve on. A bonnie penny it will cost him, gin ever she wins to the threshold o’ his manse!
“But she’s no there yet, kimmer! Na—certes no! I mind o’ her mither weel. Jean was her name, too, juist sich anither ‘cloyt’—a feckless, white-faced bury-me-decent, withoot as muckle spirit as wad gar her turn a sow oot o’ the kail-yard. And a’ the kin o’ her were like her—no yin to better anither. There was her uncle Jacob Ahanny a’ the Risk; he keepit in wi’ the Government in the auld Persecution, and when Clavers cam’ to the door and asked him what religion he was o’, he said that the estate had changed hands lately, and that he hadna had time to speer at the new laird. And at that Clavers laughed and laughed, and it wasna often that Jockie Graham did the like. Fegs no, kimmers! But he clappit Jacob on the shooder. ‘Puir craitur,’ quo’ he; ‘ye are no the stuff that rebels are made o’. Na, there’s nocht o’ Richie Cameron aboot you.’”
“Aye, faith, do ye tell me, and Jean is to mairry the minister, and him sae bauld and croose before the Presbytery. What deil’s cantrip can hae ta’en him?”
“Hoot, Mary McKeand, I wonder to hear ye. Do ye no ken that the baulder and greater a man the easier a woman can get round him?”
“Aweel, even sae I hae heard. I wish oor Jock was a great man, then; I could maybe, keep him awa’ frae the change-hoose in theclachan. But the minister, he had far better hae ta’en yon wild sister——”
“Her? I’se warrant she wadna look at him. She doesna even gang to Balmaghie Kirk to hear him preach.”
“Mary McKeand, hae ye come to your age withoot kennin, that the woman that wad refuse the minister o’ a parish when he speers her, hasna been born?”
“Aweel, maybe no! But kimmer harken to me, there’s mony an egg laid in the nest that never leeved to craw in the morn. Him and her are no married yet. Hoot na, woman!”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
And so without further eavesdropping I took my way out of the clachan of Pluckamin, and left the good wives to arrange my brother’s future. I had not yet spoken to him on the subject, but I resolved to do so that very night.
It was already well upon the grey selvage of the dark when I strode up the manse-loaning, intent to have the matter out with my brother forthwith. It was not often that I took it on me to question him; for after all I was but a landward lout by comparison with him. I understood little of the high aims and purposes that inspired him, being at best buta plain country lad with my wits a little sharpened by thegiff-gaffof the pedlar’s trade. But when it came to the push I think that Quintin had some respect for my opinion—all the more that I so seldom troubled him with it.
I found my brother in the little gable-room where he studied, with the window open that he might hear the sough of the soft-flowing river beneath, and perhaps also that the drowsy hum of the bees and the sweet-sour smell of the hives might drift in to him upon the balmy air of night.
The minister had a great black-lettered book propped up before him, which from its upright thick and thin letters (like pea-sticks dibbled in the ground) I knew to be Hebrew. But I do not think he read in it, nor gathered much lear for his Sabbath’s sermon.
He looked up as I came in.
“Quintin,” said I, directly, lest by waiting I should lose courage, “are you to marry Jean Gemmell?”
He kept his eyes straight upon me, as indeed he did ever with whomsoever he spake.
“Aye, Hob,” he said, quietly; “have ye any word to say against that?”
“I do not know that I have,” I answered, “but what will Mary Gordon say?”
I could see him wince like one that is touched on an unhealed wound.
But he recovered himself at once, and said calmly, “She will say nothing, feel nothing, care nothing.”
“I am none so sure of that,” said I, looking as straightly at him as ever he did at me.
He started up, one hand on the table, his long hair thrown back with a certain jerk he had when he was touched, which made him look like a roused lion that stands at bay. “By what right do ye speak thus, Hob MacClellan?”
“By the right of that which I know,” said I; “but a man who will pull up the seed which he has just planted, and cast it away because he finds not ripened ears, deserves to starve all his life on sprouted and musty corn.”
“Riddle me no riddles,” said my brother, knocking on the table with his palm till the great Hebrew book slid from its prop and fell heavily to the floor; “this is too terrible a venture. Speak plainly and tell me all you mean.”
“Well,” said I, “the matter is not all mine to tell. But you are well aware that Hob MacClellancan hold his peace, and is no gossip-monger. I tell you that when you went from Earlstoun the last time the Lady Mary went to the battlement tower to watch you go, and came down with her kerchief wringing with her tears.”
“It is a thing impossible, mad, incredible!” said he, putting his elbow on the table and his hand to his eyes as if he had been looking into the glare of an overpowering sun. Yet there was hardly enough light in the little room for us to see one another by. After a long silence Quintin turned to me and said, “Tell me how ye came to ken this.”
“That,” said I, bluntly, “is not a matter that can concern you. But know it I do, or I should not have troubled you with the matter.”
At this he gave a wild kind of throat cry that I never heard before. It was the driven, throttled cry of a man’s agony, once heard, never forgotten. Would that Mary Gordon had hearkened to it! It is the one thing no woman can stand. It either melts or terrifies her. But with another man it is different.
“Ah, youhavetroubled me—you have troubled me sore!” he cried. And with nomore than that he left me abruptly and went out into the night. I looked through the window and saw him marching up and down by the kirk, on a strip of greensward for which he had ever a liking. It was pitiful to watch him. He walked fast like one that would have run away from melancholy thoughts, turning ever when he came opposite the low tomb-stone of the two martyr Hallidays. He was bareheaded, and I feared the chilling night dews. So I lifted down his minister’s hat from the deer’s horn by the hallan door and took it out to him.
At first he did not see me, being enwrapped in his own meditations, and it was only when a couple of blackbirds flew scolding out of the lilac bushes that he heard my foot and turned.
“Man Hob,” he said, speaking just the plain country speech he used to do at Ardarroch, before ever he went to the college of Edinburgh, “it’s an awfu’ thing that a man should care mair for the guid word of a lass than about the grace o’ God and the Covenanted Kirk of Scotland!”
Darkwas the day, darker the night. The matters which had sundered me from the Presbytery mended not—nor, indeed, was it possible to mend them, seeing that they and I served different gods, followed other purposes.
It was bleak December when the brethren of the Presbytery arrived to make an end of me and my work in the parish of Balmaghie. They came with their minds made up. They alone were my accusers. They were also my sole judges. As for me, I was as set and determined as they were. I refused their jurisdiction. I utterly contemned their authority. To me they were but mites in the cheese, pottle-bellied batteners on the heritage and patrimony of the Kirk of Scotland. Siller and acres spelled all their desires, chalders and tiends contained all the rounded tale of their ambitions.
But for all that, now that I am older, I can scarce blame them—at least, not so sorely as once I did.
For to them I was the youngest of them all, the least in years and learning, the smallest in influence—save, perhaps, among the Remnant who still thought about the things of the Kirk and her spiritual independence.
I was to the Presbytery of Kirkcudbright but the troubler of Israel, the disturber of a quiet Zion. Save for poor Quintin MacClellan, the watchman might have gone from tower to tower along ramparts covered and defended, and his challenge of “What of the night?” have received its fitting answer from this point and that about the city, “The morning cometh! All is well!”
Yet because of the Lad in the Brown Coat with his dead face sunk in the Bennan flowe I could not consent to putting the Kirk of Scotland, once free and independent, under the control, real or nominal, the authority, overt or latent, of any monarch in Christendom.
More than to my fathers, more than to my elders it seemed to me that the old ways were the true ways, and that kings and governments had never meddled with religion save to laywaste the vineyard and mar the bridal portion of the Kirk of God.
But all men know the cause of the struggle and what were the issues. I will choose to tell rather the tale of a man’s shame and sorrow—his, indeed, who had taken the Banner of the Covenant into unworthy hands, yet time after time had let it fall in the dust. Nevertheless, at the hinder end, I lived to see it set again in a strong base of unhewn stone, fixed as the foundations of the earth. Nor shall the golden scroll of it ever be defaced nor the covenant of the King of kings be broken.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
So on the day of trial, from all the parishes of the Presbytery east and west, gathered the men who had constituted themselves my judges—nay, the men who were already my condemnators. For Cameron had my sentence in his pocket before ever one of the brethren set a foot over his doorstep, or threw a leg across the back of his ambling sheltie.
I had judged it best to be quiet and staid in demeanour, and had gone about to quiet and persuade the folk of Balmaghie, who were eager to hold back the hunters from their prey.
The Presbytery had sent to bid me preachbefore them, even as the soldiers of the guard had bidden Christ prophesy unto them, that they might have occasion to smite Him the oftener on the mouth. So when I came before them they posed me with interrogatories, threatened me with penalties, and finally set me to conduct service before them, that they might either condemn me if I refused, alleging contumacy; or, on the other hand, if I did as they bade me, they would easily find occasion to condemn the words of my mouth.
Then I saw that though there was no way to escape their malice, yet there was a way to serve the cause.
So I went up into the pulpit after the folk had been assembled, and addressed myself to them just as if it had been an ordinary Sabbath day and the company met only for the worship of God.
For I minded the word which my good Regent, Dr. Campbell, had spoken to me in Edinburgh ere I was licensed to preach, or thought that one day I myself should be the carcase about which the ravens should gather.
“When ye preach,” said Professor Campbell, “be sure that ye heed not the five wise men!”
So I minded that word, and seeing the folk gathered together, I cast my heavy burden from me, and called them earnestly to the worship of Him who is above all courts and assemblies.
Then in came Cameron, the leader of their faction, jowled with determination and rosy-gilled with good cheer and the claret wine of St. Mary’s Isle. With him was Boyd, also a renegade from the Society Hill Folk. For with their scanty funds the men of the moss-hags had sent these two as students to Holland to gather lear that they might thereafter be their ministers. But now, when they had gotten them comfortable down-sittings in plenteous parishes, they turned with the bitter zest of the turncoat to the hunting of one who adhered to their own ancient way.
But though I could have reproached them with this and with much else, I judged that because they were met in the Kirk of God no tumult should be made, at least till they had shown the length and breadth and depth of their malice.
Then, when at the last I stood single and alone at their bar and was ready to answer their questions, they could bring nothing against me,save that I had refused their jurisdiction. Their suborned witnesses failed them. For there was none in all the parish who wished me ill, and certainly none that dared testify a word in the midst of the angry people that day in the Kirk of Balmaghie.
“Have ye naught to allege against my life and conduct?” I asked of them at last. “Ye have set false witnesses to follow me from place to place and wrest my words. Ye have spied here and there in the houses of my people. Ye have tried to entrap my elders. Is there no least thing that ye can allege? For three years I have come and gone in and out among this folk of Balmaghie. I have companioned with you. I have sat in your meetings. I have not been silent. Ye have watched me with the eyes of the greedy gled. Ye have harkened and waited and sharpened claws for me as a cat does at a mouse-hole——”
“Will ye submit and sign the submission here and now?” interrupted Cameron, who liked not the threatening murmur of approbation which began to run like wild-fire among the folk.
“There is One,” answered I, the words being as it had been given to me, “whose praiseis perfected out of the mouths of babes. It is true that among you I am like a young child without power or wisdom. Ye are great and learned, old in years and full of reverence. But this one thing a young man can do. He can stand by the truth ye have deserted, and lift again the banner staff ye have cast in the mire. As great Rutherford hath said, ‘Christ may ride upon a windle straw and not stumble.’”
Then I turned about to the people, when the Presbytery would have restrained me from further speech.
“Ye folk of this parish,” I said, “what think ye of this matter? Shall your minister be thrust out from among you? Shall he bow the head and bend the knee? Must he let principle and truth go by the board and whistle down the wind? I think ye know him better. Aye, truly, this parish and people would have a bonny bird of him, a brave minister, indeed—if he submitted before being cleared of that whereof, all unjustly, his enemies have accused him, setting him up in the presence of his people like a felon in the dock of judgment!”
Then indeed there was confusion among the black-coated ravens who had come to gloat over the feast. I had insulted (so they cried)their honourable and reverend court. I had refused a too lenient and condescending accommodation. Thus they prated, as if long words would balance the beam of an unjust cause.
But at that moment there came a stir among the folk. I saw the elders of the congregation appear at the door of the kirk. And as they marched up the aisle, behind them thronged all the men of the parish, in still, stern, and compact mass.
Then a ruling elder read the protest of the common people. It was simple and clear. The parish was wholly with me, and not with mine enemies. Almost every man within the bounds had signed the paper whereon was written the people’s protest. The Presbytery might depose the minister, but the people would uphold him. Every man in Balmaghie knew well that their pastor suffered because he had steadfastly preferred truth to compromise, honour to pelf, conscience to stipend. That the Presbytery themselves had sworn to uphold that which now they condemned.