While I
live I am and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan, who will stand up for
the standards of doctrine agreed on by the ance famous Kirk of Scotland,
before she trafficked with the accursed Achan, while he has a plack in
his purse or a drap o' bluid in his body.'
'Ah,' said the pedlar, 'I have seen your land about Mauchlin. A fertile
spot! your lines have fallen in pleasant places! And siccan a breed o'
cattle is not in ony laird's land in Scotland.'
'Ye say right,--ye say right, friend' retorted Gilfillan eagerly, for he
was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject,--'ye say right; they
are the real Lancashire, and there's no the like o' them even at the
mains of Kilmaurs'; and he then entered into a discussion of their
excellences, to which our readers will probably be as indifferent as our
hero. After this excursion the leader returned to his theological
discussions, while the pedlar, less profound upon those mystic points,
contented himself with groaning and expressing his edification at
suitable intervals.
'What a blessing it would be to the puir blinded popish nations among
whom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths! I hae been
as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant, and
I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and
maist feck o' Germany, and O! it would grieve your honour's soul to see
the murmuring and the singing and massing that's in the kirk, and the
piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon
the Sabbath!'
This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant, and the
Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamore's Raid, and the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and Shorter Catechism, and the
Excommunication at Torwood, and the slaughter of Archbishop Sharp.
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