that he is performing a duty towards the Almighty. Honest intention will not cure faulty practice, and the fool is the fool whether he be unbeliever or professor.’
David shook his head. ‘Where does your argument tend? I fear to schism.’
‘Not so. I am an orthodox son of the Kirk, a loyal servant of his Majesty, and a passionate Scot. Here, my friend, is my simple confession. There is but one master in the land and its name is Law—which is in itself a creation of a free people under the inspiration of the Almighty. That law may be changed by the people’s will, but till it be so changed it is to be revered and obeyed. It has ordained the King’s prerogative, the rights of the subject, and the rights and duties of the Kirk. The state is like the body, whose health is only to be maintained by a just proportion among its members. If a man’s belly be his god his limbs will suffer, if he use only his legs his arms will dwindle. If therefore the King should intrude upon the subject’s rights, or the subject whittle at the King’s prerogative, or the Kirk set herself above the Crown, there will be a sick state and an ailing people.’
Nicholas Hawkshaw had been listening intently with a puzzled air, his eyes fixed on the groom’s face, but the two troopers seemed ill at ease.
‘Man, James,’ said the tall man, ‘you’ve mistook your calling. You should have been a regent in the college of St. Andrew’s, and hammered sense into the thick heads of the bejaunts.’
Rollo, the lame man, shifted his seat and seemed inclined to turn the conversation.
‘Patience, Mark,’ said the groom. ‘It’s not often a poor soldier of Leven’s gets a chance of a crack with a like-minded friend. For I’m certain that Mr Sempill is very near my way of thinking.’
‘I do not quarrel with your premises,’ said David, ‘but I’m not clear about the conclusion.’
‘It’s writ large in this land today. There are those that would make the King a puppet and put all authority in parliaments, and there are those who would make the Kirk like Calvin’s at Geneva, a ruler over both civil and religious matters. I say that both ways lie madness and grief. If you upset the just proportion of the law you will gain not liberty but confusion. You are a scholar, Mr Sempill, and have read the histories of Thucydides? Let me counsel you to read them again and consider the moral.’
‘What side are you on?’ David asked abruptly.
‘I am on the side of the free people of Scotland. And you by your vows are on the same side, for your concern is to feed the flock of God which is among us. Think you, sir, if you depress the balance against the King, that thereby you will win more for the people? Nay, nay, what is lost to the prerogative will go, not to the people, but to those who prey on them. You will have that anarchy which gives his chance to the spoiler, and out of anarchy will come some day a man of violence who will tyrannically make order again. It is the way of the world, my friend.’
‘Are you for the covenant?’
At the question the others started. ‘Enough of politics,’ cried Rollo. ‘These are no matters to debate among weary folk.’ But the groom raised his hand and they were silent.
‘I am for the Covenant. Six years back I drew sword for it, and I did not sheathe that sword till we had established the liberties of this land. That was indeed a Covenant of Grace.’
‘There is another and a later. What say you of that?’
‘I say of that other that it is a Covenant of Works in which I have no part, nor any true lover of the Kirk. It is a stepping of the Kirk beyond the bounds prescribed by the law of God and the law of man, and it will mean a weakening of the Kirk in its proper duties. And that I need not tell you, as a minister of Christ, will be the starvation and oppression of Christ’s simple folk. Quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi. Is it not more pleasing to God that His ministers should comfort the sick and the widow and the fatherless and guide souls to Heaven than that they should scrabble for civil pre-eminence?’
Into David’s mind came two visions—that of the complacent ministers of Kirk Aller and Bold as they had discoursed at meat, and that of the old herd at the Greenshiel sitting by his dead wife. The pictures belonged to different worlds, and at the moment he felt that these worlds were eternally apart. He had the disquieting thought that the one had only the husks of faith and the other the grain. Dimly he heard the voice of the groom. ‘I will give you a text, Mr Sempill. “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant; and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.”’
He scarcely realised that the others had sprung to their feet, and it was only when Nicholas Hawkshaw exclaimed that he turned his head.
A girl stood before them, the girl who had opened the door, but whose face he had scarcely seen at the time in the poor light.
‘Katrine, my dear, you’ve been long of coming.’ It was Nicholas who spoke. ‘I thought you had slipped off to your bed. This is my sister’s child, sirs, who keeps me company in this auld barrack—Robert Yester’s daughter, him that fell with Monro in the year ’thirty-four. You see three gentlemen-troopers of Leven’s, my dear, and Mr Sempill, the new minister of Woodilee.’
The girl was dressed in a gown of blue velvet, the skins of which were drawn back in front to show an embroidered petticoat of stiff yellow satin. It was cut low at the neck and shoulders, and round the top ran a broad edging of fine lace. Her dark hair was caught up in a knot behind, but allowed to fall in curls on each side of her face. That face, to David’s startled eyes, was like none that he had ever seen before, certainly like none of the Edinburgh burger girls whom he had observed in their finery on the Saturday causeway. It was small and delicately featured, the cheeks flushed with youth and health, the eyes dark, brilliant, and mirthful. At another time he would have been shocked at her dress, for the fashion of a low bodice had not spread much beyond the Court, but now he did not take note of what she wore. He was gazing moonstruck upon a revelation.
She smiled on him—she smiled on them all. She curtsied lightly to her uncle, to Rollo, and to the dark man. But she did not curtsy to the minister. For suddenly, as she looked at the groom her composure deserted her. Her mouth moved as if she would have spoken, and then she checked herself, for David saw that the groom had put his finger to his lips. Instead she curtsied almost to the ground, a reverence far more deep than she had accorded to the others, and when he gave her his hand she bent her head as if her impulse was to kiss it.
All this David saw with a confused vision. He had scarcely spoken ten words in his life to a woman outside his own kin, and this bright apparition loosened his knees with nervousness. He stammered his farewells. He had already outstayed the bounds of decency, and he had a long ride home—he wished his friends a safe conclusion to their journey—in the course of his pastoral visitations he would have the chance of coming again to Calidon. ‘’Deed, sir, and you’ll make sure of that,’ said the hospitable Nicholas. ‘There’s aye a bite and a sup at Calidon for the minister of Woodilee.’
He bowed to the girl, and she looked at him for the first time, a quizzical appraising look, and gave him a fleeting smile. Five minutes later he was on his horse and fording Rood.
He took the long road by the back of the Hill of Deer, riding in bright moonshine up the benty slopes and past the hazel thickets. His mind was in a noble confusion, for on this, his first day in his parish, experiences had thronged on him too thick and fast. Out of the welter two faces stood clear, the groom’s and the girl’s …. He remembered the talk, and his conscience pricked him. Had he been
