“What quarrel is this, Richard?” says John Paul to me.

“In truth I have no quarrel with this honest man,” I replied; “I desired but the pleasure of beating a certain evil-tongued Davie, who seems to have no stomach for blows, and hath taken his lies elsewhere.”

So quiet was the place that the tinkle of the guidwife’s needle, which she had dropped to the flags, sounded clear to all.  John Paul stood in the middle of the ring, erect, like a man inspired, and the same strange sense of prophecy that had stirred my blood crept over him and awed the rest, as tho’ ’twere suddenly given to see him, not as he was, but as he would be.  Then he spoke.

“You, who are my countrymen, who should be my oldest and best friends, are become my enemies.  You who were companions of my childhood are revilers of my manhood; you have robbed me of my good name and my honour, of my ship, of my very means of livelihood, and you are not content; you would rob me of my country, which I hold dearer than all.  And I have never done you evil, nor spoken aught against you.  As for the man Maxwell, whose part you take, his child is starving in your very midst, and you have not lifted your hands.  ’Twas for her sake I shipped him, and none other.  May God forgive you!  He alone sees the bitterness in my heart this day.  He alone knows my love for Scotland, and what it costs me to renounce her.”

He had said so much with an infinite sadness, and I read a response in the eyes of more than one of his listeners, the guidwife weeping aloud.  But now his voice rose, and he ended with a fiery vigour.

“Renounce her I do,” he cried, “now and forevermore!  Henceforth I am no countryman of yours.  And if a day of repentance should come for this evil, remember well what I have said to you.”

They stood for a moment when he had finished, shifting uneasily, their tongues gone, like lads caught in a lie.  I think they felt his greatness then, and had any one of them possessed the nobility to come forward with an honest word, John Paul might yet have been saved to Scotland.  As it was, they slunk away in twos and threes, leaving at last only the good smith with us.  He was not a man of talk, and the tears had washed the soot from his face in two white furrows.

“Ye’ll hae a waught wi’ me afore ye gang, John,” he said clumsily, “for th’ morns we’ve paddl’ ‘t thegither i’ th’ Nith.”

The ale was brought by the guidwife, who paused, as she put it down, to wipe her eyes with her apron.  She gave John Paul one furtive glance and betook herself again to her knitting with a sigh, speech having failed her likewise.  The captain grasped up his mug.

“May God bless you, Jamie,” he said.

“Ye’ll be gaen noo to see the mither,” said Jamie, after a long space.

“Ay, for the last time.  An’, Jamie, ye’ll see that nae harm cams to her when I’m far awa’?”

The smith promised, and also agreed to have John Paul’s chests sent by wagon, that very day, to Dumfries.  And we left him at his forge, his honest breast torn with emotion, looking after us.