indeed, the two were never well or for any length of time
acquainted. At Esk Grove, either in earnest, or, as seems more likely,
in banter of the architectural incongruities of Abbotsford, Galt
announced his intention of building a "veritable fortress," exactly in
the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare. _En attendant_, he
worked hard with his pen, the first fruits of his industry appearing in
the novel which is here reprinted after some six-and-seventy years.

What of the merits of this first attempt in a line that was new to him?
In the first place, he had at least been guided in his choice of subject
by an unerring historical instinct. For, surpassingly rich as is
Scottish history in the elements both of picturesque and romantic
incident and of wild and fascinating character, it is none the less a
fact that there is but one period during which that history rises to the
dignity of a really wide and permanent interest. And that period is of
course the century, or century and a half, of the national struggle for
religious liberty. It is not necessary to remind the reader that upon
that struggle, and on those who maintained it, much has been written as
well in the terms of undiscriminating eulogy as in those of
uncomprehending condemnation. Nor is it more to the purpose to add that
the truth lies neither entirely on one side nor the other. For--as in
the earlier struggle for political independence, and, indeed, more or
less in all other great national movements--the motives of most of those
who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. Thus it is
undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming Scottish laird of the
sixteenth century, mistrust of Rome was a subordinate feeling to the
covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated
Church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few
persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the
intolerance embodied even by the martyr Guthrie in his celebrated
Remonstrance--to say nothing of that which made the mere hearing of the
mass, under certain circumstances, a capital offence. These things are,
however, more or less accidental, and supply no criterion by which the
true character of the reforming movement may be tested; for during the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the very nature of tolerance, if
understood by one here and there, was beyond the comprehension of the
masses of the people. And yet we belie