d often
"Shame! shame!" and with vehement gestures clave the air with their
right hands, grasping their whips and staffs with the vigour of
indignation.

At last the big bell of the cathedral began to jow, at the doleful sound
of which there was, for the space of two or three minutes, a silence and
pause in the multitude as if they had been struck with panic and
consternation, for till then there was a hope among them that the
persecutors would relent; but the din of the bell was as the signal of
death and despair, and the people were soon awakened from their
astonishment by the cry that "the bishops are coming," whereat there
was a great rush towards the gates of the church, which was presently
filled, leaving only a passage up the middle aisle.

In the quire a table was spread with a purple velvet cloth, and at the
upper end, before the high place of the mass, was a stool of state for
the Archbishop; on each side stood chairs for the Bishops of Murray,
Brechin and Caithness and his other suffragans, summoned to sit in
judgment with him.

My grandfather, armed and wearing the Archbishop's livery, was with
those that guarded the way for the cruel prelates, and by the pressure
of the throng in convoying them into their place, he was driven within
the screen of the quire, and saw and heard all that passed.

When they had taken their seats, Master Mill was brought before them
from the prior's chamber, whither he had been secretly conducted early
in the morning, to the end that his great age might not be seen of the
people to work on their compassion. But, notwithstanding the forethought
of this device, when he came in, his white hair and his saintly look and
his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. Even the very legate
of Antichrist, the Archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was
evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as
he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran
through the church.

On being taken to the bottom of the table and placed fornent the
Archbishop, Master Mill knelt down and prayed for support in a voice so
firm and clear and eloquent that all present were surprised, for it rung
to the farthest corner of that great edifice, and smote the hearts of
his oppressors as with the dread of a menacing oracle.

Sir Andrew Oliphant, who acted as clerk and chancellor on the occasion,
began to fret as he heard him thus strengthened of the Lord, and cr