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[Transcriber's Note:
I feel that it is important to note that this book is part
of the Caledonian series. The Caledonian series is a group
of 50 books comprising all of Sir Walter Scott's works.]





WAVERLEY

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

VOLUME II





WAVERLEY

OR 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE





CHAPTER XXXVI

AN INCIDENT


The dinner hour of Scotland Sixty Years Since was two o'clock. It
was therefore about four o'clock of a delightful autumn afternoon
that Mr. Gilfillan commenced his march, in hopes, although
Stirling was eighteen miles distant, he might be able, by becoming
a borrower of the night for an hour or two, to reach it that
evening. He therefore put forth his strength, and marched stoutly
along at the head of his followers, eyeing our hero from time to
time, as if he longed to enter into controversy with him. At
length, unable to resist the temptation, he slackened his pace
till he was alongside of his prisoner's horse, and after marching
a few steps in silence abreast of him, he suddenly asked--'Can ye
say wha the carle was wi' the black coat and the mousted head,
that was wi' the Laird of Cairnvreckan?'

'A Presbyterian clergyman,' answered Waverley.

'Presbyterian!' answered Gilfillan contemptuously; 'a wretched
Erastian, or rather an obscure Prelatist, a favourer of the black
indulgence, ane of thae dumb dogs that canna bark; they tell ower
a clash o' terror and a clatter o' comfort in their sermons,
without ony sense, or savour, or life. Ye've been fed in siccan a
fauld, belike?'

'No; I am of the Church of England,' said Waverley.

'And they're just neighbour-like,' replied the Covenanter; 'and
nae wonder they gree sae weel. Wha wad hae thought the goodly
structure of the Kirk of Scotland, built up by our fathers in
1642, wad hae been defaced by carnal ends and the corruptions of
the time;--ay, wha wad hae thought the carved work of the
sanctuary would hae been sae soon cut down!'

To this lamentation, which one or two of the assistants chorussed
with a deep groan, our hero thought it unnecessary to make any
reply. Whereupon Mr. Gilfillan, resolving that he should be a
hearer at least, if not a disputant, proceeded in his Jeremiade.

'And now is it wonderful, when, for lack of exercise anent the
call to the service of the altar and the duty of the day,
ministers fall into sinful compliances with patronage, and
indemnities, and oaths, and bonds, and other corruptions,--is it
wonderful, I say, that you, sir, and other sic-like unhappy
persons, should labour to build up your auld Babel of iniquity, as
in the bluidy persecuting saint-killing times? I trow, gin ye
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; ay,
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 ye be, friend?' said the Gifted Gilfillan.

'A puir pedlar, 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,--ay, the secret and obscure and incomprehensible causes of
the backslidings of the land; ay, 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 my 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, fa 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 his body.'

'Ah,' said the pedlar, 'I have seen your land about Mauchlin. A
fertile spot! your lines have fallen in pleasant places! And
siccan a breed o' cattle is not in ony laird's land in Scotland.'

'Ye say right,--ye say right, friend' retorted Gilfillan eagerly,
for he was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject,--'ye
say right; they are the real Lancashire, and there's no the like
o' them even at the mains of Kilmaurs'; and he then entered into a
discussion of their excellences, to which our readers will
probably be as indifferent as our hero. After this excursion the
leader returned to his theological discussions, while the pedlar,
less profound upon those mystic points, contented himself with
groaning and expressing his edification at suitable intervals.

'What a blessing it would be to the puir blinded popish nations
among whom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths!
I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a
travelling merchant, and I hae been through France, and the Low
Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany, and O! it
would grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring and the
singing and massing that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in
the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the
Sabbath!'

This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant,
and the Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamore's Raid,
and the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and
Shorter Catechism, and the Excommunication at Torwood, and the
slaughter of Archbishop Sharp. This last topic, again, led him
into the lawfulness of defensive arms, on which subject he uttered
much more sense than could have been expected from some other
parts of his harangue, and attracted even Waverley's attention,
who had hitherto been lost in his own sad reflections. Mr.
Gilfillan then considered the lawfulness of a private man's
standing forth as the avenger of public oppression, and as he was
labouring with great earnestness the cause of Mas James Mitchell,
who fired at the Archbishop of Saint Andrews some years before the
