by John Galt
CHAPTER VIII
Mrs Kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attemptedto run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and mygrandfather was empowered, by a signal grant of great presence of mindto think that the noise might cause alarm, whereupon he sprang instanterto the door that led into the garden just as the damsel was coming up,and the fat friar hobbling as fast as he could behind her; and he hadbut time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quietin the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. She, onhearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closedand bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which hehad been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, hereturned to the scene of commotion.
In the meantime the prelatic dragon that was so ravished from the womanhad hastily risen upon his legs, and, red with a dreadful wrath, ragedas if he would have devoured her husband. In sooth, to do his Gracejustice, he lacked not the spirit of a courageous gentleman, and hecould not, my grandfather often said, have borne himself more proudlyand valiantly had he been a belted knight, bred in camps and fields ofwar, so that a discreet retreat and evasion of the house was the bestcourse they could take. But Master Kilspinnie fain would have continuedhis biting taunts to the mistress, who was enacting a most tragicalextravagance of affliction and terror. My grandfather, however, suddenlycut him short, crying, "Come, come, no more of this; an alarm is given,and we must save ourselves." With that he seized him firmly by the arm,and in a manner harled him out of the house and into the lane betweenthe dykes, along which they ran with nimble heels. On reaching theShowgate they slackened their speed, still, however, walking as fast asthey could till they came near the port, when they again drew in thebridle of their haste, going through among the guards that wereloitering around the door of the wardroom, and passed out into thefields as if they had been indifferent persons.
On escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along theroad, who, by their discourse, were returning home to Cupar, and theywalked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where mygrandfather, giving Master Kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one thatwent to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road toDysart and Crail.
"This will ne'er do," said Master Kilspinnie, "they will pursue us thisgait."
Upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped andconferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experienceand foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was allhis days protected. For it was in a manner revealed to him that heshould throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in thecastle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that theyshould turn back and cross the Cupar road, and go along the other, whichled to the Dundee waterside ferry. This he told to his fearfulcompanion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heardanybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himselfamong the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear theywere not two persons in company together.
But they had not long crossed the Cupar road and travelled the oneleading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of horsemencoming after them, at which the honest man of Crail darted aside and layflat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began tolilt as blithely as he could, "The Bonny Lass of Livingston," and thespring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words hethen sang was an auld, ranting, godless and graceless ditty of thegrooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and thecloser that the horsemen came he was strengthened to sing the louder andthe clearer.
"Saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of thepursuers, pulling up.
"What like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner.
"Ane of them was o' his Grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other,curse tak me gin I ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provostof a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly."
To this my grandfather answered briskly, "Nae sic twa ha'e past me, butas I was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa sturdy loons,ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, andI hae a thought that they took the road to Crail or Dysart."
"That was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast,and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfathergood-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance wasthere wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night.
As soon as the horsemen had gone by, Bailie Kilspinnie came from hishiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-limewas on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside,where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundeeand the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift offoreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargainwith the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and payhim like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, asthe night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boatfor Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their errortill they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town,letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morningby the Perth boat to Dundee, with which Master Kilspinnie was wellacquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as aplaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twicea week, and that the morrow was one of the days. All this they wereenabled to do with such fortitude and decorum that no one aboard thePerth boat could have divined that they were not honest men in greattrouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat.
But nothing showed more that Providence had a hand in all this than whatensued, for all the passengers in the boat had been at St Andrews tohear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehementnot only in their condemnation of the mitred Antichrist, but grievedwith a sincere sorrow that none of the nobles of Scotland would standforth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race ofoppressors more grievous than the Southrons that trode on the neck oftheir fathers in the hero-stirring times of the Wallace wight and KingRobert the Bruce. Truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation inthe company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour toavenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were dailygrowing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made theshores ring with the olden song of--
"O for my ain king, quo' gude Wallace, The rightfu' king of fair Scotlan'; Between me and my sovereign dear I think I see some ill seed sawn."
It was the grey of the morning before they reached Perth, and as soon asthey were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to thehouse of one Sawners Ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he haddealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them withbreakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that hadfallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of Scoonetaking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, againstall that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. And he counselledthem not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on toEdinburgh by the Queensferry, but to hasten up the country to Crieff andthence take the road to Stirling. In this there was much prudence, butBailie Kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children,whom he had left at his home in Crail, fearing that the talons ofAntichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he wasgiven up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that Baal, for sohe nicknamed the prelatic Hamilton, would impute to him theunpardonable sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned tobring him to the stake.
But Sawners Ruthven comforted him with the assurance that his Gracewould not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how MistressKilspinnie then lived at St Andrews as his concubine. Nevertheless, thepoor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my
grandfather travelledtowards Crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth inits grief that the right arm of the Lord might soon be manifestedagainst the Roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruptionnaught in the nostrils of Heaven.
Thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revengemixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchablea manner against the Beast and its worshippers, for in the history ofthe honest man of Crail there was a great similitude to other foul andworse things which the Roman idolaters seemed to regard among theirpestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dreadof any earthly retribution.