f the moment, or the work that fell
to her hand. All her ways were dominating without ever being
domineering. But in the house of Heathknowes all knew that she had just
to be obeyed, and there was an end to it.

When my father and she clashed, it was like the meeting of Miltonic
thunderclouds over the Caspian. But on the whole it was safe to wager
that even then grandmother got her way. John MacAlpine first discharged
his Celtic electricity, and then disengaged his responsibility with the
shrug of the right shoulder which was habitual to him. After all, was
there not always Horace in his pocket--which he would finger to calm
himself even in the heat of a family dispute?

A great school-master was my father, far ben in the secrets of the
ancient world--and such a man is always very much of a humanist. My
grandmother, alert, clear, decided on all doctrinal points,
argumentative, with all her wits fine-edged by the Shorter Catechism,
could not abide the least haziness of outline in religious belief.

She did not agree with my grandfather's easier ways, but then he did not
argue with her, being far too wise a man.

"Eh, William," she would say, "ye will carry even to the grave some rag
of the Scarlet Woman. And at the end I will not be surprised to find ye
sitting on some knowetap amang the Seven Hills!"

But at least my grandfather was a Cameronian elder, in the little kirk
down by the ford, to which the Lyons had resorted ever since the days of
the societies--long before even worthy Mr. MacMillan of Balmaghie came
into the Church, ordaining elders, and, along with the pious Mr. Logan
of Buittle, even ordaining ministers for carrying on the work of the
faithful protesting remnant.

But my father, John MacAlpine, both by office and by temperament,
belonged to the Kirk of Scotland as by law established. So indeed did
nine-tenths of the folk in the parish of Eden Valley. The band of
Cameronians at the Ford, and the forlorn hope of Episcopalians in their
hewn-stone chapel with the strange decorations, built on the parcel of
ground pertaining to Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe, were the only
non-Establishers in the parish. Yet both, nevertheless, claimed to be
the only true Church of Scotland, claimed it fiercely, with a fervour
sharpened by the antiquity of their claims and the smallness of their
numbers. This was especially true of the Cameronians, who were ever
ready to give a reason for the faith that was in them. The
Episc