CHAPTER

  1. [On Devorgilla's Bridge]
  2. [Trooper Bryden of Lag's Horse]
  3. [By Blednoch Water]
  4. [The Tavern Brawl]
  5. [In the Dark of the Night]
  6. [In the Lap of the Hills]
  7. [The Flute-player]
  8. [A Covenanter's Charity]
  9. [The Story of Alexander Main]
  10. [The Field Meeting]
  11. [Flower o' the Heather]
  12. [The Greater Love]
  13. [Pursued]
  14. [In the Slough of Despond]
  15. [In the Haven of Daldowie]
  16. [Andrew Paterson, Hill-Man]
  17. [An Adopted Son]
  18. [The Wisdom of a Woman]
  19. [The Making of a Daisy Chain]
  20. [Love the All-Compelling]
  21. [The Hired Man]
  22. ["The Least of these, My brethren"]
  23. [The Search]
  24. [Baffled]
  25. [The Shattering of Dreams]
  26. [Hector the Packman]
  27. [On the Road to Dumfries]
  28. [For the Sweet Sake of Mary]
  29. [Beside the Nith]
  30. [In the Tiger's Den]
  31. [The Cave by the Linn]
  32. [Toilers of the Night]
  33. [The Going of Hector]
  34. [The Flight of Peter Burgess]
  35. [Within Sight of St. Giles]
  36. [For the Sake of the Covenant]
  37. ["Out of the snare of the Fowlers"]
  38. [The Passing of Andrew and Jean]
  39. [False Hopes]
  40. [I seek a Flower]
  41. [In the Hands of the Persecutors]
  42. [In the Tolbooth of Dumfries]
  43. [By the Tower of Lincluden]
  44. ["Quo Vadis, Petre?"]
  45. [On the Wings of the Sea-Mew]
  46. [Sunshine after Storm]
  47. [The End; and a Beginning]

FLOWER O' THE HEATHER

CHAPTER I

ON DEVORGILLA'S BRIDGE

It is a far cry from the grey walls of Balliol College to the sands at Dumfries, and there be many ways that may lead a man from the one to the other. So thought I, Walter de Brydde of the City of Warwick, when on an April morning in the year of grace 1685 I stood upon Devorgilla's bridge and watched the silver Nith glide under the red arches.

I was there in obedience to a whim; and the whim, with all that went before it--let me set it down that men may judge me for what I was--was the child of a drunken frolic. It befell in this wise.

I was a student at Balliol--a student, an' you please, by courtesy, for I had no love for book-learning, finding life alluring enough without that fragrance which high scholarship is supposed to lend it.

It was the middle of the Lent term, and a little band of men like-minded with myself had assembled in my room, whose window overlooked the quadrangle, and with cards, and ribald tales, and song, to say nothing of much good beer, we had spent a boisterous evening. Big Tom had pealed five score and one silvery notes from Christ Church Tower, and into the throbbing silence that followed his mighty strokes, I, with the fire of some bold lover, had flung the glad notes of rare old Ben's "Song to Celia." A storm of cheers greeted the first verse, and, with jocund heart, well-pleased, I was about to pour my soul into the tenderness of the second, when Maltravers, seated in the window-recess, interrupted me.

"Hush!" he cried, "there's a Proctor in the Quad, listening: what can he want?" Now when much liquor is in, a man's wits tend to forsake him, and I was in the mood to flout all authority.