he feared
his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to
acknowledge that it was so.

"I am speaking to you, Gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld
langsyne, and I dinna scruple to confess to one that I hae often thought
of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my
conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that I am
now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the Reformed at
Geneva. And maybe I'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no
man can deny that the people of Scotland are not inwardly the warm
adversaries of the church. That last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice
of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the
humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of
the church, and there are few in Paisley whom the burning of auld Mill
has not kindled with the spirit of resistance."

The latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my
grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more
particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he
gathered that the martyrdom of Master Mill had indeed caused great
astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not
only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more
worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense
of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them,
and that they were all in all for themselves.

But as they were proceeding through the town and along the road,
conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns,
Dominick Callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren,
and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by
his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest
pleasures of man. And before they separated, it came out that he had
been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a
young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in Paisley,
and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the
Egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping
from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to
innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his
brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to
that fair blossom, the gracious and h