e free to taste of
the heavenly manna. I redde ye, therefore, Nahum Chapelrig, before these
witnesses, to unbuckle that belt of war, and lay down thae weapons of
offence. The time of the shield and banner may come owre soon upon us.
Let us not provoke the smiter, lest he draw his sword against us, and
have law and reason on his side. Therefore, I say unto thee, Peter, put
up thy sword."

The zealous dominie, being thus timeously rebuked, unharnessed himself,
and the minister having returned thanks for the softness with which the
oppression was let down upon him, and for the pious affection of his
people, we returned home to our respective dwellings.

But though by this Christian submission the power of cruelty was at that
time rendered innocent towards all those who did as Mr Swinton had done,
we were, nevertheless, not allowed to remain long unvisited by another
swirl of the rising storm. Before the year was out, Fairfoul, the
Glasgow Antichrist, sent upon us one of the getts that prelacy was then
so fast adopting for her sons and heirs. A lang, thin, bare lad he was,
that had gotten some spoonful or two of pagan philosophy at college, but
never a solid meal of learning, nor, were we to judge by his greedy
gaping, even a satisfactory meal of victuals. His name was Andrew
Dornock; and, poor fellow, being eschewed among us on account of his
spiritual leprosy, he drew up with divers loose characters, that were
nae overly nice of their company.

This made us dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of
his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his
parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught I ken to the
contrary, that, instead of believing the Gospel according to Charles
Stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called Matthew, Mark,
Luke and John, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew more
than the names. But be that as it may, to a surety he did grievously
yell and cry, because we preferred listening to the Gospel melody of Mr
Swinton under a tree to his feckless havers in the kirk; as if it was
nae a more glorious thing to worship God in the freedom and presence of
universal Nature, beneath the canopy of all the heavens, than to bow the
head in the fetters of episcopal bondage below the stoury rafters of an
auld bigging, such as our kirk was, a perfect howf of cloks and spiders.
Indeed, for that matter, it was said that the only sensible thing Andre