"'Like unto Eve,' said ye? A true word—verily, a most true word! For did not we with our own eyes see ye with her partake of the forbidden fruit? But there is a difference—your eyes, young man, have not yet been opened!"
Allan Syme began to grow angry.
"I am a free agent," he said fiercely. "I am not a child under bonds. You are not my tutors and governors by any law, human or divine. Nor am I answerable to you whom I shall woo, or whom I shall wed!"
"Ye are answerable to God and the Kirk!" cried the two with one voice.
And to this Matthew Carment again added his say. The three were now walking slowly in the direction of the lamb sale.
"Sir, I mind how ye well described the so-called ministers of the establishment—'locusts on the face of our land,' these were your words, 'instruments of inefficiency, the plague spot upon the nation, the very scorn of Reformation, and a scandal to Religion!' Ye said well, minister; and the spawn of Belial is like unto Belial!"
Allan Syme was now angry exceedingly.
"God be my judge," he cried, "she whom I love is more Christian than the whole pack of you. Never has she spoken an ill word of any, ever since I have known her!"
"And wherefore should she?" said John Allanson of Drows, as dispassionately as a clerk reading an indictment. "Hath she not been clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day? Hath she not eaten of the fine flour and the honey and the oil? Hath she not been adorned with broidered work and shod with badger skin, and, even as her sisters Aholah and Aholibah of old, hath not power been given unto her to lead even the hearts of the elect captive?"
Then Allan Syme broke forth furiously.