"This trifling act has saved my life, but you value existence lightly on the Imperial side of the Elbe. I am full of joy and gratitude for the service you have rendered me; but why, good sir, do you seem so much dejected?"
"I am indeed dejected, and sorrowful—exceedingly sorrowful!" he replied, folding his hands heavily upon his breast, and bending his eyes upon the ground.
"For what, good sir?"
"To see my own countrymen arrayed in tens of thousands against the good cause. Ye are come to uproot and destroy that tree of knowledge whose leaves were faith, and whose fruit was life everlasting; that stately tree which, in other times, our pious countrymen, from the holy Isle of Iona, in the far west, transplanted among the barbarous Goths of Germany. For hither in those dark ages of the world, from our old Caledonian shore, came Boniface, who, after converting all the savages of Thuringia and Saxony, became first Archbishop of Mentz, as we may find in the writings of Trithemius. While his Scottish disciples founded the noble abbey of Fulda, Patto (also a Scot) converted Westphalia, and was made Bishop of Verden. In the 8th century, St. Robert, the son of a Scottish king, converted Theodo lord of Bavaria, with all his people, and is now the apostle of their descendants; while Callum Bane and Gallus of Argyle rescued Swabia from the darkness of paganrie; and the latter ceased not from his blessed labours until he perished among the Switzers, who yet preserve his reliques in the convent of St. Gall; and all these things ye are come to undo! Nor need I tell you how John the Scot became Bishop of Mecklenburg, and died a martyr, being slain by the Wendish apostles, who, in 1066, cut off his hands and feet, leaving this man of godliness to perish miserably by the wayside; or how, in the year 1000, Callunianus, the son of a Scottish prince, converted all Austria, where he was martyred, and where his reliques are yet preserved in the convent of our countrymen, near the Scottish Gate at Vienna. Argobastus," continued my companion, warming with enthusiasm and reckoning on his fingers—"Argobastus, the converter of Strasburg, and William who founded a Scottish monastery at Cologne, another at Nuremburg, another at Aix-la-chapelle, two at Ratisbon, and another at Würtsburg, were also Scots, as we may read in the writings of Baronius and Trithemius; and all these blessed works ye are come from the same land, with your muskets and bandoliers, to undo! Virgilius the Scot, was made perpetual legate of Germany by His Holiness Gregory VII.; nor need I expatiate on the piety, the virtues, and the suffering of Kilian, the Culdee of Iona, who converted all Franconia; and that ye are come to subvert and undo! Oh! why seek to convert these lands to heresy and heathendom by the sword? with drums beating and banners displayed? Why not try it, like the Scots of other times, with no other weapons than the staff and the sandals—prayer and exhortation?"
"By my faith, reverend sir, a salvo of good cannon-shot is the best exhortation for such a congregation as Tilly and his Croats," said I, half stunned by the vehemence of the Jesuit, and the facility with which he enumerated so many barbarous names. "My good father and countryman," I added; "we came hither neither to convert like the Scots of old, nor to persecute like Count Tilly. But we are come to fight the battles of those who cannot fight for themselves; to win honour and fame like true cavaliers, to clip the wings of the Austrian eagle, and to defend the civil and religious liberties of Northern Europe—a high and a glorious mission!"
"To overturn the faith of God!—the church which is founded on the rock of ages, and is cemented by the blood of many a martyr. Oh! were you to see, as I have seen at Melek, the body of our countryman St. Colman, undecayed, uncorrupted, pure and fair, as on that day in the year 1012, when, after returning there barefooted from Jerusalem, the barbarians hanged him on a tree, where he swung untainted by the weather, and untouched by the ravens, until the good Bishop of Aichstadt conveyed his reliques to Alba Regulis, upon a mountain in Hungary, where they have converted many by the miracles they work daily; but all these good and wondrous things ye are come with your pikemen and musketeers to subvert and undo!"
"By Jove! Father Daidle, I do not think the corbies would have respected me as they did this good man; but sure I am, that so far as toil and fasting go, our poor Scottish soldiers endure now as much as ever your Scottish saints did in the olden time, though not so patiently perhaps; as we can relieve our minds, now and then, by a good round oath."
The Jesuit paused, and said gravely, as if displeased, "Here we part, sir. I free you as a countryman, though as a heretic, and the soldier of a heretic king, I should have left you to the mercy of the provost-marshal."
"Do not be chafed by my heedless way, good sir," said I, glad to perceive that the close of this long harangue had brought me to the verge of a small wood. "I owe you more than I can ever repay—more than I can ever express—my life—my honour!"
"I would gladly give you a horse (though your kilt is scarcely suited for the saddle), but I possess only a poor ass for the march."