ers of those who had been
solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to
the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.

"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not
meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in
thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats
among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without
question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a
courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a
man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman,
and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an
eydent ettler for preferment."

So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the
hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went
with him.

CHAPTER LIX

The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his
house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it
together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not
time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at
the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was
the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts
had tasted for more than eight months.

"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to
think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly
institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole
people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their
iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the
power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what
is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again
in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction
and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say,
that the peaceful worshipping according to the Word is either a sin, a
shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and
the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt
of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."

As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and
pointed out to him a lassie coming running towards us. It was his
daughter; and whe