At this one of the others, a dark man from the West, spoke up sharply. "What do I hear, Maister Lockhart? It’s no by ony goodwill to James Stewart that we can hope to set things richt in thae dark times. Rather let our mouths be filled with psalms and our hands with the sword-hilt, and let us teach the wanton and the scorner what manner o’ men are bred by the Covenant and the Word." The speech was hateful to me, and yet as I looked in the dark, rugged face of the man I could not keep from liking it. Here, at any rate, was a soul of iron. My heart stirred at his words, and I could have found it in me to cast in my lot even with such as these, and bide the bent with naught but a good sword and faith in God. Howbeit, it was well I made no such decision, for I was never meant for one of them. I ever saw things too clearly, both the evil and the good; and whereas this quality hinders from swift and resolute action, it yet leads more plainly to a happy life. Then the old man, him whom I have spoken of, beckoned to me with his staff and bade me come and sit by him. He looked so kinglike even in his affliction that I thought on the old blind king Oedipus in the Greek play. "Ye kenna me, John Burnet, but weel ken I you. Often in the auld days your father and me had gey ploys hunting and fechting roond a’ the muirs o’ Tweed. He was a guid man, was Gilbert, and I hear he had glimpses o’ grace in the hinner end." "Maybe," said I, being in perplexity, for from the grace that he spoke of, my father had ever been far. "Ay, and I was sair vexed I saw him so little. For he had to bide at hame for the last years, and I was aye busied wi’ other work. Yeddie o’ the Linns was never an idle man, and less than ever in thae days."