Claverhouse, overcome by the remembrance of the past, is stirred to
the heart, and can hardly make his reverence for emotion. As he kisses
James's hand he registers a vow which he was to keep with his life.
And when he has left the presence of the Duke, the Prince of Orange
said to Claverhouse's new master: "You have, sir, obtained a servant
who will be faithful unto death; I make him over to you with
confidence and with regret. This day, I believe, he will begin the
work to which he has been called, and so far as a man can, he will
finish it."

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

A COVENANTING HOUSE

The glory of Paisley Castle has long departed, but it was a brave and
well-furnished house in the late spring of 1684, to which this story
now moves. The primroses were blooming in sheltered nooks, where the
keen east wind--the curse and the strength of Scotland--could not
blight them, and the sun had them for his wooing; there were signs of
foliage on the trees as the buds began to burgeon, and send a shimmer
of green along the branches; the grass, reviving after winter, was
showing its first freshness, and the bare earth took a softer color in
the caressing sunlight. The birds had taken heart again and were
seeking for their mates, some were already building their summer
homes. Life is one throughout the world, and the stirring of spring in
the roots of the grass and in the trunks of the trees touches also
human hearts and wakes them from their winter. The season of hope,
which was softening the clods of the field, and gentling the rough
massive walls of the castle, were also making tender the austere face
of a Covenanting minister standing in one of the deep window recesses
of what was called in Scots houses of that day the gallery, and what
was a long and magnificent upper hall, adorned with arms and tapestry.
He was looking out upon the woods that stretched to the silver water
of the Clyde, then a narrow and undeveloped river, and to the far-away
hills of Argyleshire, within which lay the mystery of the Highlands.
Henry Pollock had been born of a Cavalier and Episcopalian family,
with blood as loyal as that of Claverhouse; he had been brought up
amid what the Covenanters called malignant surroundings, and had been
taught to regard the Marquis of Montrose as the first of Scotsmen and
the most heroic of martyrs. Although the senior of Claverhouse by two
years, he had been with him at St. Andrew's University, and knew hi