Foes | Page 5

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 the world's as hot as ever--but there, too, it is my instinct to ca' canny. But if you talk of trade"--he tapped his snuff-box--"I will match you, Glenfernie! If there's wrong, pay it back! Hold to your principles! But do it cannily. Smile when there's smart, and get your own again by being supple. In the end you'll demand--and get--a higher interest. Prosper at your enemy's cost, and take repayment for your hurt sugared and spiced!"
"I'll not do it so!" said Glenfernie. "But I would take my stand at the crag's edge and cry to Grierson of Lagg, 'You or I go down!'"
Mr. Touris brushed