’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.’