The herald., 1897-10-31

S him. showed himself a great. strong
D kindly, head-driving ''nowt' of a man
t with spiritual conceit equal to hi
+ knowledge of his bodily powers. Blu
for all his great pretensions, essenti
e ally man carnal and of the world
ever more ready to lay on Justify will
the arm of flesh than trust to tn,
sword of the spirit.
, The Bull of Earlstoun" was he righ
fifty called.
And with his children his method Of
} training would doubtless be: believe
| this! Receive that other." Debate
and appeal. there would be none. Sc
there is nothing to wonder a in the re.
volt of a nature every whit as imperi-
Gus as that of her father, set within
the periphery of a girls slender form
And then her mother! If Sandy Cor
don had proved trying to such a mind
as that of Mary Gordon, what Of Janet
Hamilton, his wife?
She had been reared in the strictest
sect of the Extremists. Every breath
OF difference or opposition to her ortho-
doXies or those of her brother, Sir Rob-
ert. was held rank treason to the cause.
She had visions-and these visions
pointed ever to the cardinal truth that
Janet Hamilton was eternally right
and every one else eternally wrong.
| SO Alexander Gordon, as often as he
was at home, bullied back and forth
concerning Covenants, and sufferings,
while al other times his wife worried
and hammered, bitter as the east wind
and irritant as thorn in the flesh, till
the girl was driven, as it were, in self
defense, into other and as intolerant
extremes.
But as for me. having had trial Of
| none of these wiles and witchcrafts,
was grieved indeed to hear one so fair
take the part of the cruel prosecutors
and murderers of our brethren, the tor
turers of her father, the men to whose
charge could be laid the pillage and
spelling of the bonny house of Ears-
toun, and the turning of her mother
out upon the inclement pitilessness of
stormy winter.
But the wearing iteration of fretful
woman's yammering tongue will drive
oftentimes further and worse than all
the Gathering horses and pricking
bayonets of persecution.
Yet, even then, i thought within me:
Far be it from me that l should ever
dream of winning the heart of so fair
and great lady. But. if by the Won
drous grace of God, so / ever did, 1
should be none afraid but that in
little blink of time she would think
even as l did, And this was the be-
ginning of the feeling l had for Mary
Gordon. Yet being but little more than
shepherd lad from off the hills of
l.. a1,,
of the angels, and thought of her not
at all as lad thinks in his heart of
pretty lass to whom, one day, if he
prosper, he may even himself, in the
way of love.
After a day or two at Earlstoun,
spent in drilling and mastering, in
which time l saw nothing more of Mary
Gordon, we set off in ordered compa-
nies toward Edinburgh.
Tie word had been brought to us
that the convention was in great need
of support, for that Clavers (whom now
they called my Lord Dundee) was gath
ering his forces to disperse it, so that
every one of the true Covenant men
went daily in fear of their lives.
Whereupon the whole seven thou
sand of the West and South were
called up by their Elders. And to those
among us who had no arms, four thou
sand muskets and swords were served
out, which We're sent by the convention
to the South and West under cover of
panic story that the wild Irishers
had landed and burnt K1rkcudbright.
Hob and I marched shoulder to shoul-
der, and our officer was Of one name
with us, one Captain Clelland, a young
soldier of a good stock, who in Hol-
land had learnt, in his youth, the art
of war. But Colonel William Gordon,
the uncle of the lass Mary, commanded
all our forces.
So in time we reached the brow of the
hill of Liberton and looked northward
toward the town of Edinburgh, reeling
slant-ways down its windy ridge, and
crowned with the old Imperial coronet
of ST. Giles, where Knox had preached,
while the castle lowered in pride high
over all.
1t was a great day for me when first
I saw those gray towers against the
sky. But down in the howe of the
Grassmarket, there was a place that
was yet dearer-the ugly gibbet where
on so many Saints of God, dear and
precious, had counted their lives but