The other churchman formed a singular contrast to the burly priest. He was a small, attenuated, intelligent-looking personage, possessing natural courage and a restless and irascible disposition. A fellow of the university, he had retired upon a college living—and having obtained, unhappily for himself, a commission of the peace, he exercised his powers with greater zeal than discretion; in short, he had made himself so obnoxious to the peasantry that his life was not worth a pin’s fee. Like Colonel O’Halloran, he too was doomed to death, and in the black list his name was second to that of my father. A few nights before, his glebe-house had been burnt to the ground; and, having escaped assassination by a miracle, he found that protection at Knockloftie, which, from a more timid proprietor, might have been sought and asked in vain.
But there were others besides Doctor Hamilton, who during this reign of terror had been obliged to abandon their own homes, and elsewhere seek a shelter. Several of the poorer farmers had given testimony in recent prosecutions which led to the conviction of an assassin, on whom the extreme penalty of the law had been justly executed. This in the eyes of his guilty companions was a crime beyond the pale of mercy, and the unfortunate men were accordingly denounced. They fled for protection to Knockloftie—there, they were now residing—and, as if the measure of my father’s offendings was not already full, the daring act of interposing between a lawless confederacy and its victims had heaped it even to an overflow. No wonder therefore, that the full fury of rebel vengeance was to be turned against himself and all whom his roof-tree covered.
“Well, William,” said my mother, as she renewed a conversation which had been accidentally interrupted, “when you were struck down—”
“My foster brother sprang from the ranks, threw away his musket, lifted me lightly as even with this lone arm I would lift you, and carried me—”
“In safety from the danger?”
“No, no, love—we had to pass through a cross fire of musketry—a ball struck him, and when he fell dead—I was in his arms.”
“Would,” said my mother with a sigh, “that our Hector had a foster brother!”
“Would that he had! and one so faithful and devoted!”—my father drew his hand across his eyes—“this is too womanly, but—”
As he was speaking, the mastiff chained in a kennel beside the hall door began to growl, and the priest rose and peeped cautiously through a shot-hole in the shutters, to ascertain what might have disturbed the dog. Nothing to cause alarm was visible—and the churchman returned to the table, observing, that the night froze keenly.
My mother had dropped her knitting on the carpet.—“What a horrid state of things,” observed the lady, as she picked the worsted from the floor, “that a growl from Cæsar sets my heart beating for an hour, and a knock after dark terrifies me almost to death!”