But he pulled out of his pocket a small book, and began to read over some words to himself, which filled us with amazement and indignation." So they fired their pistols into the old man, and then chopped him up with their swords, supposing that he had a charm against bullets! Dr. McCrie seems to have forgotten, or may have disbelieved the narrative telling how Sharpe's use of the Prayer Book, like Morton's, "enraged" his murderers. The incident does not occur in the story of the murder by Russell, one of the murderers, a document published in C. K. Sharpe's edition of Kirkton. It need not be true, but it may have suggested the prayer of Morton. If Scott thought that the Prayer Book was ordained to be read in Scotch churches, he was wrong; if he merely thought that it might have been read in some churches, was "working amongst us," he was right: at least, according to Mr. James Guthrie. Dr. McCrie argues that Burley would never have wrestled with a soldier in an inn, especially in the circumstances. This, he says, was inconsistent with Balfour's "character." Wodrow remarks, "I cannot hear that this gentleman had ever any great character for religion among those that knew him, and such were the accounts of him, when abroad, that the reverend ministers of the Scots congregation at Rotterdam would never allow him to communicate with them." In Scott's reading of Burley's character, there was a great deal of the old Adam. That such a man should so resent the insolence of a soldier is far from improbable, and our sympathies are with Burley on this occasion. Mause Headrigg is next criticised. Scott never asserted that she was a representative of sober Presbyterianism. She had long conducted herself prudently, but, when she gave way to her indignation, she only used such language as we find on many pages of Wodrow, in the mouths of many Covenanters. Indeed, though Manse is undeniably comic, she also commands as much respect as the Spartan mother when she bids her only son bear himself boldly in the face of torture. If Scott makes her grotesque, he also makes her heroic. But Dr. McCrie could not endure the ridiculous element, which surely no fair critic can fail to observe in the speeches of the gallant and courageous, but not philosophical, members of the Covenant's Extreme Left. Dr. McCrie talks of "the creeping loyalty of the Cavaliers." "Staggering" were a more appropriate epithet. Both sides were loyal to principle, both courageous; but the inappropriate and promiscuous scriptural language of many Covenanters was, and remains, ridiculous. Let us admit that the Covenanters were not averse to all games. In one or two sermons they illustrate religion by phrases derived from golf! When Dr. McCrie exclaims, in a rich anger, "Your Fathers!" as if Scott's must either have been Presbyterians or Cavaliers, the retort is cleverly put by Sir Walter in the mouth of Jedediah. His ancestors of these days had been Quakers, and persecuted by both parties.