Then I knew that these men were the leaders and elders among the Hill Folk, and the ancient reverence to which I was born took hold on me. For I had been brought up among them as a lad, and my mother had spoken to me constantly of their great piety and abounding steadfastness in the day of trouble. These were they who had never tangled themselves with any entrapping engagements. They alone were no seceders, for they had never entered any State Church.
With a great price had I obtained this freedom, but these men were free-born.
“I thank you, sirs,” I answered, bowing my head. “I have indeed sought to keep the Way, but I have erred so greatly in the past that I cannot hope to guide my path aright for the future. But one thing I shall at least seek after, and that is the glory of the great King, and the honour and independence of the Kirk of God in Scotland, Covenanted and Suffering!”
The dark stern-faced man spoke again.
“You are not yet one of us. You have yet a far road to travel. But I, that am old, see a vision. And one day you, Quintin MacClellan, shall serve tables among us of the Covenant. I shall not see it with the eyes of flesh. For even now my days are numbered, and the tale of them is brief. Farewell! Be not afraid. The Seven Thousand will stand behind you. No evil shall befall you here or otherwhere. The Seven Thousand have sworn it—they have sworn it on the Holy Book, in the place of Martyrs and in the House of Tears!”
And with that the six men went out through the door and were lost in the darkness of the night. And the wind from the waste swept in and the lowe of the candle flickered eerily as if they had been visitants from another world.
CHAPTER XXX.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN.
It was not long after this that I found myself, almost against my will, skirting the side of the long Loch of Ken, on the road to the Great House of Earlstoun.
The lady of the Castle met me by the outer gate. When I came near her she lifted up her hands like a prophetess.
“Three times have ye been warned! The Lord will not deal always gently with you. It is ill to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds!”