s in the bluidy persecuting saint-killing times? I
trow, gin ya werena blinded wi' the graces and favours, and services and
enjoyments, and employments and inheritances, of this wicked world, I
could prove to you, by the Scripture, in what a filthy rag ye put your
trust; and that your surplices, and your copes and vestments, are but
cast-off-garments of the muckle harlot, that sitteth upon seven hills,
and drinketh of the cup of abomination. But, I trow, ye are deaf
as adders upon that side of the head; aye, ye are deceived with her
enchantments, and ye traffic with her merchandise, and ye are drunk with
the cup of her fornication!'

How much longer this military theologist might have continued his
invective, in which he spared nobody but the scattered remnant of
HILL-FOLK, as he called them, is absolutely uncertain. His matter was
copious, his voice powerful, and his memory strong; so that there was
little chance of his ending his exhortation till the party had reached
Stirling, had not his attention been attracted by a pedlar who had
joined the march from a cross-road, and who sighed or groaned with great
regularity at all fitting pauses of his homily.

'And what may ya be, friend?' said the Gifted Gilfillan.

'A puir pedler, that's bound for Stirling, and craves the protection of
your honour's party in these kittle times. Ah! your honour has a notable
faculty in searching and explaining the secret,--aye, the secret and
obscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the land;
aye, your honour touches the root o' the matter.'

'Friend,' said Gilfillan, with a more complacent voice than he had
hitherto used, 'honour not me. I do not go out to park-dikes, and to
steadings, and to market-towns, to have herds and cottars and
burghers pull off their bonnets to me as they do to Major Melville o'
Cairnvreckan, and ca' me laird, or captain, or honour;--no; my sma'
means, whilk are not aboon twenty thousand merk, have had the blessing
of increase, but the pride of heart has not increased with them; nor do
I delight to be called captain, though I have the subscribed commission
of that gospel-searching nobleman, the Earl of Glencairn, in whilk I am
so designated. While I live, I am and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan,
who will stand up for the standards of doctrine agreed on by the
ance-famous Kirk of Scotland, before she trafficked with the accursed
Achan, while he has a plack in his purse, or a drap o' bluid in