ere
loyal to principle, both courageous; but the inappropriate and
promiscuous scriptural language of many Covenanters was, and remains,
ridiculous. Let us admit that the Covenanters were not averse to all
games. In one or two sermons they illustrate religion by phrases derived
from golf!

When Dr. McCrie exclaims, in a rich anger, "Your Fathers!" as if Scott's
must either have been Presbyterians or Cavaliers, the retort is cleverly
put by Sir Walter in the mouth of Jedediah. His ancestors of these days
had been Quakers, and persecuted by both parties.

Throughout the novel Scott keeps insisting that the Presbyterians had
been goaded into rebellion, and even into revenge, by cruelty of
persecution, and that excesses and bloodthirstiness were confined to the
"High Flyers," as the milder Covenanters called them. Morton represents
the ideal of a good Scot in the circumstances. He comes to be ashamed of
his passive attitude in the face of oppression. He stands up for "that
freedom from stripes and bondage" which was claimed, as you may read in
Scripture, by the Apostle Paul, and which every man who is free-born is
called upon to defend, for his own sake and that of his countrymen. The
terms demanded by Morton from Monmouth before the battle of Bothwell
Bridge are such as Scott recognises to be fair. Freedom of worship, and a
free Parliament, are included.

Dr. McCrie's chief charges are that Scott does not insist enough on the
hardships and brutalities of the persecution, and that the ferocity of
the Covenanters is overstated. He does not admit that the picture drawn
of "the more rigid Presbyterians" is just. But it is almost impossible to
overstate the ferocity of the High Flyers' conduct and creed. Thus
Wodrow, a witness not quite unfriendly to the rigid Presbyterians, though
not high-flying enough for Patrick Walker, writes "Mr. Tate informs me
that he had this account front Mr. Antony Shau, and others of the
Indulged; that at some time, under the Indulgence, there was a meeting of
some people, when they resolved in one night . . . to go to every house
of the Indulged Ministers and kill them, and all in one night."
This anecdote was confirmed by Mr. John Millar, to whose father's house
one of these High Flyers came, on this errand. This massacre was not
aimed at the persecutors, but at the Poundtexts. As to their creed,
Wodrow has an anecdote of one of his own elders, who told a poor woman
with many children that "it