“What is the book you were reading?” asked the marquis.
“I was jist readin’ a bit o’ Milton’s Eikonoklastes,” answered Malcolm, “—a buik I hae hard tell o’, but never saw wi’ my ain een afore.”
“And what’s your quarrel with it?” asked his lordship.
“I canna mak oot what sud set a great man like Milton sae sair agane a puir cratur like Cherles.”
“Read the history, and you’ll see.”
“Ow! I ken something aboot the politics o’ the time, an’ I’m no sayin’ they war that wrang to tak the heid frae him, but what for sud Milton hate the man efter the king was deid?”
“Because he didn’t think the king dead enough, I suppose.”
“I see!—an’ they war settin’ him up for a sant. Still he had a richt to fair play.—Jist hearken, my lord.”
So saying, Malcolm reopened the volume, and read the well-known passage, in the first chapter, in which Milton censures the king as guilty of utter irreverence, because of his adoption of the prayer of Pamela in the Arcadia.
“Noo, my lord,” he said, half-closing the book, “what wad ye expec’ to come upo’, efter sic a denunciation as that, but some awfu’ haithenish thing? Weel, jist hearken again, for here’s the verra prayer itsel’ in a futnote.”