der the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the
horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his
displeasure.

Deacon Sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which,
with his public enmity to the challenger of his own Archbishop, made him
take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to God,
shaking my grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps
were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not
wanting five hundred men in Glasgow who would start forward with weapons
in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of
the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of
the law against all offenders as of old. And, giving scope to his
ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in Glasgow that
men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the
churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable
against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question.

Thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the
Queen Regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one
another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the
Congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of
the citizens of Glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that
period troubled the minds and fears of all men.

My grandfather was joyfully heartened by what he heard, and before
coming away from the deacon who, with the hospitality common to his
townsmen, would fain have had him to prolong their sederunt over the
gardevine, he said that if Glasgow were as true and valiant as it was
thought, there could be no doubt that her declaration for the Lords of
the Congregation would work out a great redress of public wrongs. For,
from all he could learn and understand, those high and pious noblemen
had nothing more at heart than to procure for the people the free
exercise of their right to worship God according to their conscience and
the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments.

But though over the liquor-cup the deacon had spoken so dreadless and
like a manly citizen, my grandfather resolved with himself to depart
betimes for Kilmarnock, in case of any change in his temper.
Accordingly, he requested the hostler of the hostel where he had taken
his bed, to which his day's hard journey early inclined him, to have his
hors