Foes | Page 5

Mr. Touris,
but I dare say you can give us more?"
"The chief news, ma'am, is that we want war with Spain and Walpole
won't give it to us. But we'll have it--British trade must have it or lower
her colors to the Dons! France, too--"
Supper went on, with abundant and good food and drink. The laird sat
silent. Strickland gave Mrs. Jardine yeoman aid. Jamie and Alice now
listened to the elders, now in an undertone discoursed their own affairs.
Mr. Touris talked, large trader talk, sprinkled with terms of commerce
and Indian policy. Supper over, all rose. The table was cleared, wine
and glasses brought and set upon it, between the candles. The young
folk vanished. Bright as was the night, the air carried an edge. Mr.
Touris, standing by the fire, warmed himself and took snuff. Strickland,
who had left the hall, returned and placed her embroidery frame for
Mrs. Jardine.
"Is Alexander in yet?"
"Not yet."
She began to work in cross-stitch upon a wreath of tulips and roses.
The tutor took his book and withdrew to the table and the candles
thereon. The laird came and dropped his great form upon the settle. He
held silence a few moments, then began to speak.
"I am fifty years old. I was a bairn just talking and toddling about the
year the Stewart fled and King William came to England. My father
had Campbell blood in him and was a friend of Argyle's. The estate of
Glenfernie was not to him then, but his uncle held it and had an heir of
his body. My father was poor save in stanchness to the liberties of Kirk
and kingdom. My mother was a minister's daughter, and she and her

father and mother were among the persecuted for the sake of the true
Reformed and Covenanted Church of Scotland. My mother had a burn
in her cheek. It was put there, when she was a young lass, by order of
Grierson of Lagg. She was set among those to be sold into the
plantations in America. A kinsman who had power lifted her from that
bog, but much she suffered before she was freed.... When I was little
and sat upon her knee I would put my forefinger in that mark. 'It's a seal,
laddie,' she would say. 'Sealed to Christ and His true Kirk!' But when I
was bigger I only wanted to meet Grierson of Lagg, and grieved that he
was dead and gone and that Satan, not I, had the handling of him. My
grandfather and mother.... My grandfather was among the outed
ministers in Galloway. Thrust from his church and his parish, he
preached upon the moors--yea, to juniper and whin-bush and the
whaups that flew and nested! Then the persecuted men, women and
bairns, gathered there, and he preached to them. Aye, and he was at
Bothwell Bridge. Claverhouse's men took him, and he lay for some
months in the Edinburgh tolbooth, and then by Council and justiciary
was condemned to be hanged. And so he was hanged at the cross of
Edinburgh. And what he said before he died was 'With what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you' ... My grandmother, for hearing
preaching in the fields and for sheltering the distressed for the
Covenant's sake, was sent with other godly women to the Bass Rock.
There in cold and heat, in hunger and sickness, she bided for two years.
When at last they let her body forth her mind was found to be broken....
My father and mother married and lived, until Glenfernie came to him,
at Windygarth. I was born at Windygarth. My grandmother lived with
us. I was twelve years old before she went from earth. It was all her
pleasure to be forth from the house--any house, for she called them all
prisons. So I was sent to ramble with her. Out of doors, with the
harmless things of earth, she was wise enough--and good company.
The old of this countryside remember us, going here and there.... I used
to think, 'If I had been living then, I would not have let those things
happen!' And I dreamed of taking coin, and of dropping the same coin
into the hands that gave.... And so, the other having served your turn,
Touris, you will change back to the true Kirk?"
Mr. Touris handled his snuff-box, considered the chasing upon the gold

lid. "Those were sore happenings, Glenfernie, but they're past! I make
no wonder that, being you, you feel as you do. But the world's in a
mood, if I may say it, not to take so hardly religious differences. I trust
that I am as religious as another--but my family was always moderate
there. In matters political