The other occasion was that of the appearance shortly after, in the church, of Kirkaldy, accompanied by a strong armed escort, composed of those who had been most conspicuous in the recent outrages. He had not attended the public services for nearly a year, and Knox looked upon his presence so surrounded as an attempt to overawe him. But he was not the man to be thus intimidated, and so, as his good servant Ballantyne tells us, he took occasion then and there to inveigh "against all such as forget God's benefits received, and in treating of God's great mercies bestowed upon penitents, according to his common manner, he forewarned proud contemners that God's mercy appertained not to such as with knowledge proudly transgressed, and after, more proudly maintained the same." Kirkaldy was greatly {189} enraged at these words, and even in the church he gave vent to his anger so loudly as to be heard by a great part of the congregation. The report went out in consequence that he meant to kill the preacher; but Knox held on his way, dealing defiantly with the anonymous libels that were sent him, and publicly declaring in words that have become proverbial, that "from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other inspired writers, he had learned to call a fig a fig, and a spade a spade." But when, in 1571, Kirkaldy received the Hamiltons and their forces into the Castle, the friends of Knox became seriously alarmed for his safety. They proposed to form a guard who should constantly accompany him for his protection; but he would not accept the offer, and even if he had accepted it Kirkaldy would not have permitted it to be carried out. It was according to military etiquette that he should suppress or prevent all such outrages, and he expressed his willingness to provide a guard for Knox from the soldiers of his garrison. He even tried to get the Hamiltons to guarantee the safety of the Reformer, but they declared that they could not enter into any such engagement, "because there were many rascals and others among them who loved him not, who might do him harm without their knowledge." One evening a musket was fired into his window, and had he not been sitting in a place different from that which he usually occupied, the ball must have struck him, and would in all probability have mortally wounded him. After that he {190} was importuned by his friends to seek a place of safety elsewhere, but he refused to leave his post until they told him that they had made up their minds to defend him, if need be, with their lives, and that if blood was shed they would leave it on his head. This argument prevailed, and he consented to remove to St. Andrews, whither he went by easy stages, and where he arrived in the month of May, 1571. In his absence his pulpit in St. Giles was filled for a while by Alexander Gordon, Bishop of Galloway, who pleased the Queen's party but displeased the vast majority of the Protestants, so that the