No sooner had Mr Henderson retired, than Master Ramsay, that horn of the
Beast, which was called the Dean of Edinburgh, appeared in the pulpit in
the pomp of his abominations, and began to read the liturgy. At the
first words of which Janet Geddes was so transported with indignation
that, starting from her stool, she made it fly whirring at his head, as
she cried, "Villain, dost thou say the mass at my lug?" Then such an
uproar began as had not been witnessed since the destruction of the
idols; the women screaming, and clapping their hands in terrification as
if the legions of the Evil One had been let loose upon them; and the men
crying aloud, "Antichrist! Antichrist! down wi' the Pope!" and all
exhortation to quiet them was drowned in the din.

Such was the beginning of those troubles in the church and state so
wantonly provoked by the weak and wicked policy of the first King
Charles, and which in the end brought himself to an ignominious death;
and such the cause of that Solemn League and Covenant, to which, in my
green years, my father, soon after his return home, took me to be a
party, and to which I have been enabled to adhere, with unerring
constancy, till the glorious purpose of it has all been fulfilled and
accomplished.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

When my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved
to see his sad and altered looks. We gathered around him, and she
thought he had failed to get the legacy, and comforted him by saying
they had hitherto fenn't without it, and so might they still do.

To her tender condolements he however made no answer; but, taking a
leathern bag, with the money in it, out of his bosom, he flung it on the
table, saying, "What care I for this world's trash, when the ark of the
Lord is taken from Israel?" which to hear daunted the hearts of all
present. And then he told us, after some time, what was doing on the
part of the King to bring in the worship of the Beast again, rehearsing,
with many circumstances, the consternation and sorrow and rage and
lamentations that he had witnessed in Edinburgh.

I, who was the ninth of his ten children, and then not passing nine
years old, was thrilled with an unspeakable fear; and all the dreadful
things, which I had heard my grandfather tell of the tribulations of his
time, came upon my spirit like visions of the visible scene, and I began
to weep with an exceeding sorrow, in so much that my father was amazed,
and caress