“‘There’s nae rebel aboot this toon sae far as I ken, but ye are welcome to search and see,’ said my grandfather.
“But and ben the house did these rough soldiers go, high and low and into every nook and cranny did they peer, but all without avail. Nor were the men who searched the stables and outhouses any more successful. They came as they went. For many days did the poor fugitives keep in hiding, only coming out at night when all was dark and still to stretch their wearied and cramped limbs.
“When he had ascertained that the soldiers had left the neighborhood, my grandfather conveyed the laird and his friend to the sea-coast by night; arranged with a friend of Jacobite tendencies, who was the skipper of a fishing smack, to take them on board as deck hands, and in this way they escaped to the continent.
“Many years elapsed ere they could return to Scotland in safety, but when Darvel did return he marked his gratitude by giving to my grandfather a deed entitling him and his descendants for three generations to sit rent-free in Braeside, and at the same time he sent thae two armchairs from his ain study in Darvel House for the use and comfort of the faithful couple in their old age.”
I had listened to the old man’s tale with breathless interest, and when it was finished not a word was spoken by one of the little company. The old man again broke the silence.
“Aye, Alan, laddie, this house has seen mony strange sichts. Ye maun ken that a great number of the Jacobites were Episcopalians and, as they persistently refused to pray for the Elector of Hanover, whom they regarded as a usurper of the crown of Great Britain so long as there was a single royal Stuart to claim the throne, the most tyrannical and unjust laws were enacted against them. No more then eight Episcopalians could assemble for worship at one time, and even then it was only regarded as family worship.
“But for all that, mony a time did the good priest of Linshart meet his poor persecuted people in this very room at the midnight hour. The auld aumrie is very precious to me, for mony a time did Mr. Skinner use it as the altar from which he dispensed the bread of life to the faithful. Sae careful did they need to be that sentinels were posted all round the hoose to give warning in case of a sudden visit from the emissaries of the Government.”
“Surely there was something in their faith very precious in their eyes to cause them to be so much in earnest.”
“Aye, laddie, so ye may say. They were upholding an apostolic ministry, apostolic worship and apostolic sacraments which, with the teaching of the apostolic faith had came down to them through the ages, sometimes much disfigured by unapostolic legends and superstitions, but still there in all their fulness.”
“Mr. Lindsay lent me a book full of bonnie poems, Uncle William, and in ane o’ them there’s a stanza that says: