“Alexander,” said I, “ye have done that which has worked great scandal. Ye shall confess that publicly. Ye are innocent of the greater iniquity laid to your charge. Ye shall clear yourself of that by a solemn oath taken both in the presence of God and before men.”
“That I cannot,” said he, speaking for the first time; “the Presbytery have refused me the privilege.”
“There is a door open for you,” I said, “in a place where the Presbytery and your enemies have no power. It may not be long mine to offer you. But for one day it shall be yours, and after the service on Sabbath in the Kirk of Balmaghie ye shall stand up and clear yourself by oath of the greater sin—after having made confession of the more venial fault.”
“I will do it!” he said, and put his hand in mine.
So I left him sitting there with his daughter, with the knowledge that my soul had power over his. And in the eventide, greatly comforted, I took my way homewards, knowing that he would not fail me.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE STONE OF STUMBLING.
But whilst I had been going about my work the enemies had not been idle. They had deposed me from the ministry. They could not depose me from the hearts of a willing and loyal people. They had invoked the secular arm, and that had been turned back.
Now, by hasty process, they had also appointed one, McKie, to succeed me—a young man that had been a helper to one of them, harmless enough, indeed, in himself, a good and quiet lad. Him, for the sake of the stipend, they had persuaded to be their cat’s-paw.
But the folk of Balmaghie were clear against giving him any foothold, so that he made little more of it than he had done at first.
But it chanced that on the day on which I had gone to Earlstoun to speak with Alexander Gordon, the more active of the Presbytery had gathered together many of the wild and riotous out of their parishes, and had sent them to take possession of the manse and glebe of Balmaghie.