n sects--was once chaplain to the
Harden Scotts, but he could see no heroism in the uncompromising preacher,
who had dared to rebuke Harden's too compliant faith and indulgent temper.
Yet over Annandale, throughout Moffatdale, thence flowing over into the
Forest, the name of Cameron was one of power. The heroic strain in him
suited the mood of the ancient reivers, who loved strength and iron in the
blood. But the Scotts had ridden and lorded it over the Marches too long
to love iron in any blood save their own. Their feud with the preachers
began early, for John Welsh, Knox's son-in-law, was persecuted out of
Selkirk, whither he had gone to convert the souters and reform the
freebooters of the Forest, by a Scott of Headshaw. But the man who ought
here to be placed foremost is a man who became minister of Ettrick three
years before John Rutherford, Scott's ancestor, died--Thomas Boston.
Cotter Morrison quoted some of his fierce sayings with the horror of a son
of light suddenly confronting an altogether incredible darkness. But no
man ignorant of the deeds of Boston can judge his speech. In some of his
words there is a wonderful tenderness, in his acts a marvellous integrity,
and in his thought a rare power to move the hearts, stir the consciences,
and awaken the intellects of his people. It was a brave thing to make the
stern Presbyterian discipline a reality among these men of the Forest, in
whom the old reiving instinct was still strong, at once kept alive and
glorified by the ballads which were known in every cottage, and recited at
every hearth. But the man was patient and strong enough to do it; nothing
was too minute to escape his eye; nothing was too inveterate to silence or
too ancient to overcome his religion."[138] It is undoubtedly to the
influence of such preachers, men of faith and character, scholarship and
genius, that Borderers owe many of the best qualities, both of intellect
and heart, for which, in later times, they have become distinguished.

XVI.

THE HARVEST OF PEACE.

When this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hope;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

SHAKESPEARE.

To those familiar with the hi