d, Lady Cochrane was one of the
godly women of the Covenant. The old Earl had no chance against her
resolute will, and contented himself with a quavering protest
against her ideas, and bleating disapproval of her actions. When
she denounced the Council as a set of Herods, and filled the house
with Covenanting ministers and outlawed persons, his only comfort and
sympathizer was Lady Cochrane's daughter Jean. This young woman had
of late taken on herself the office of protector, and had shown a
tendency to criticise both her mother's words and ways, which led
to one or two domestic scenes. For though her ladyship was loud
against the tyranny of the government, she was an absolute ruler in
her own home. And that day she was going to assert herself and put
down an incipient rebellion.

"I give you good-morning, Mr. Pollock," said Lady Cochrane, "and I
crave your pardon if I have done amiss, but since you were, as I take
it, wrestling in prayer I had not the mind to break in upon you; I
have therefore heard some portion of your petitions. It seems to me,
though in such matters I am but blind of eye and dull of hearing, that
God indeed is giving a sign of approval when He seems to have been
turning your heart unto the thought of the marriage between the
bridegroom and the bride in the Holy Scriptures, of which other
marriages are, I take it, a shadow and a foretaste."

"It may be your ladyship is right," said Pollock after he had returned
his hostess's greeting, "but we shall soon know, for God hath promised
that light shall arise unto the righteous. For myself, I declare that
as it has happened on the hills when I was fleeing from Claverhouse,
so it is now in my affairs. I am moving in a mist which folds me round
like a thin garment; here and there I see the light struggling
through, and it seems to me most beautiful even in its dimness; by and
by the mist shall altogether pass, and I shall stand in the light,
which is the shining of His face. But whether I shall then find myself
at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane, I know not."

"If it were in my handling," said Lady Cochrane, regarding her guest
with a mixed expression of admiration and pity, "ye would find
yourself, and that without overmuch delay, at a marriage feast. The
dispensation of John Baptist is done with in my humble judgment,
and I count the refusing to marry to be pure will-worship and a
soul-destroying snare of the Papists. Ye are a good man,