CHAPTER LXXXII
I slept in that ruinous room in the Bishop's house till far in the morning, when, on going to the window with the intent of dropping myself into the wynd, I saw that it was ordained and required of me to remain where I then was; for the inmates of the houses forenent were all astir at their respective vocations; and at the foot of the wynd, looking straight up, was a change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. Moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had I made any attempt to escape by the window, I must have been seen by some one, and laid hold of. I therefore retired back into the obscurity of the chamber, and sat down again on the old kist-lid, to abide the issues that were in reservation for me. I had not, however, been long there, till I heard the voices of persons entering into the next chamber behind where I was sitting, and I soon discerned by their courtesies of speech, that they were Lords of the Privy Council, who had come to walk with the Bishop to the palace, where a council was summoned in sudden haste that morning. The matter whereof they discoursed was not at first easily made out, for they were conversing on it when they entered; but I very soon gathered that it boded no good to the covenanted cause nor to the liberties of Scotland.
"What you remark, Aberdeen," said one, "is very just; man and wife are the same person; and although Queensberry has observed, that the revenue requires the penalties, and that husbands ought to pay for their wives, I look not on the question in that light; for it is not right, in my opinion, that the revenues of the crown should be in any degree dependent on fines and forfeitures. But the presbyterians are a sect whose main principle is rebellion, and it would be happy for the kingdom were the whole race rooted out; indeed I am quite of the Duke of York's opinion, that there will be little peace among us till the Lowlands are made a hunting-field, and therefore am I as earnest as Queensberry that the fines should be enforced."
"Certainly, my Lord Perth," replied Aberdeen, "it is not to be denied, that, what with their Covenants, and Solemn Leagues, and Gospel pretensions, the presbyterians are dangerous and bad subjects; and though I shall not go so far as to say, with the Duke, that the Lowlands should be laid waste, I doubt if there be a loyal subject west the castle of Edinburgh. Still the office which I have the honour to hold does not allow me to put any interpretation on the law different from the terms in which the sense is conceived."
"Then," said Perth, "if there is any doubt about the terms, the law must be altered; for, unless we can effectually crush the presbyterians, the Duke will assuredly have a rough accession. And it is better to strangle the lion in his nonage than to encounter him in his full growth."
"I fear, my Lord," replied the Earl of Aberdeen, "that the presbyterians are stronger already than we are willing to let ourselves believe. The attempt to make them accept the episcopalian establishment has now been made, without intermission, for more than twenty years, and they are even less submissive than they were at the beginning."
"Yes, I confess," said Lord Perth, "that they are most unreasonably stubborn. It is truly melancholy to see what fools many sensible men make of themselves about the forms of worship, especially about those of a religion so ungentlemanly as the presbyterian, which has no respect for the degrees of rank, neither out nor in the church."
"I'm afraid, Perth," replied Aberdeen, laughing, "that what you say is applicable both to the King and his brother; for, between ourselves, I do not think there are two persons in the realm who attach so much importance to forms as they do."
"Not the King, my Lord, not the King!" cried Perth; "Charles is too much a man of the world to trouble himself about any such trifles."