rembling
at the doors of their churches,--mothers set down their infants on the
floors, and ran to inquire what had come to pass,--funerals were
suspended, and the impious and the guilty stood aghast, as if some
dreadful apocalypse had been made;--travellers, with the bridles in
their hands, lingering in profane discourse with their hosts, suddenly
mounted, and speeded into the country with the tidings. At every cottage
door and wayside bield, the inmates stood in clusters, silent and
wondering, as horseman came following horseman, crying, "John Knox is
come!" Barks that had departed, when they heard the news, bore up to
tell others that they saw afar at sea. The shepherds were called in from
the hills;--the warders on the castle, when, at the sound of many
quickened feet approaching, they challenged the comers, were answered,
"John Knox is come!" Studious men were roused from the spells of their
books;--nuns, at their windows, looked out fearful and inquiring,--and
priests and friars were seen standing by themselves, shunned like
lepers. The whole land was stirred as with the inspiration of some new
element, and the hearts of the persecutors were withered.

"No tongue," often said my grandfather, "could tell the sense of that
great event through all the bounds of Scotland, and the papistical
dominators shrunk as if they had suffered in their powers and
principalities, an awful and irremediable overthrow."

CHAPTER XVIII

When my grandfather left the Greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the
Lord James Stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken
place, which he much marvelled at, having scarcely tarried by the way in
going thither.

"Now, Gilhaize," said my Lord, "the tidings fly like wildfire, and the
Queen Regent, by the spirit that has descended into the hearts of the
people, will be constrained to act one way or another. John Knox, as you
perhaps know, stands under the ban of outlawry for conscience sake. In a
little while we shall see whether he is still to be persecuted. If left
free, the braird of the Lord, that begins to rise so green over all the
land, will grow in peace to a plentiful harvest. But if he is to be
hunted down, there will come such a cloud and storm as never raged
before in Scotland. I speak to you thus freely, that you may report my
frank sentiments to thir noble friends and trusty gentlemen, and say to
them that I am girded for the field, if need be."

He then put