After a hearty laugh, in which his guests generally joined, Walter concluded thus: "That meeting cost me twa or three hunder round bannocks, and mae gude ewes and wedders than I'll say; but I never missed them, and I never rued what I did. Folk may say as they like, but I think aye the prayers out amang the hags and rash-bushes that year did me nae ill--It is as good to hae a man's blessing as his curse, let him be what he may."
Walter never went farther with his story straight onward than this; for it began to involve family concerns, which he did not much like to recount. He had a number of abstract stories about the Covenanters and their persecutors; but as I must now proceed with the narrative as I gathered it from others, these will be interwoven in their due course.
Walter visited them next day at the time and place appointed, taking with him a dozen of bannocks and a small cheese. These he was obliged to steal out of his own pantry, for he durst not by any means trust his wife and family with the discovery he had made, knowing that he might as well have confided it with the curate himself, the sworn enemy of his motley protegees. They gathered around him with protestations of gratitude and esteem; for the deserted and oppressed generally cling to the first symptoms of friendship and protection with an ardency that too often overshoots its aim. Walter naturally felt an honest pride, not so much in that he had done, as that he intended to do; but before he produced his repast, he began in a most serious way to question them relating to some late incidents already mentioned.
They all with one assent declared, and took God to witness, that they knew nothing at all about the death of the five soldiers; that it was not perpetrated by them, nor any connected with them; nor could they comprehend, in the least degree, how it was effected, if not by some supernatural agency--a judgment sent down from Heaven for their bloody intent. With regard to the murder of the priest, they were sorry that they knew so much. It was perpetrated by a few rash men of their number, but entirely without their concurrent assent, as well as knowledge; that though his death might have been necessary to the saving of a great number of valuable lives, they had, nevertheless, unanimously protested against it; that the perpetrators had retired from their body, they knew not whither; and that at that very time the Rev. Messrs Alexander Shiels and James Renwick were engaged in arranging for publication a general protest against many things alleged against them by their enemies, and that among others.[A]