With the accession of William, and total subversion of the old high church party, all the sourness and severity of Presbyterian discipline (which at times compelled the proudest peers to endure a rebuke on the ignominious repentance-stool, or at least before a congregation) was resumed by the overbearing clergy in full sway. From the innate cavalier sentiments of her family, and the wavering politics of Aunt Grisel, Lilian had never been a very rigid Presbyterian; and now, looking upon the triumph of "the Kirk" as having driven her lover into exile, she felt her heart further than ever removed from Presbytery. She had still to endure the persecution of Clermistonlee, who, having in a few months spent all the Revolution had enabled him to extort by fines from his old cavalier friends, was now more reduced and desperate than ever; and, as a last shift, was compelled to dispose of his tower of Clermiston for a trifling sum to his more cautious gossip Mersington; and though the gaming-table replenished his exchequer at times, gaunt starvation stared him hourly in the face. Though the native kindness and exceeding gentleness of Lilian's manner had always given this indefatigable suitor some hope of ultimate success, he soon found that, besieging her whenever she went abroad, and keeping spies upon her when at home--pestering her with presents, and letters the most flattering and submissive his ingenuity and skill could indite, did not bring him nearer the summit of his wishes. As his funds waxed lower, his perseverance increased; and he brought a new ally into the field, in the person of our old friend Mr. Ichabod Bummel, whose zeal for the Revolution had procured him an incumbency in the city, where, every Sunday, he had the felicity of preaching in a pulpit of his own, quoting that immortal work the _Bombshell_, railing at the exiled King, and all other "bloody-minded massmongers," and "dinging" many successive bibles to "blads" in the true Knox-like energy of his discourse. This meddling preacher, after the abduction of Lilian, and the scandalous reports the kirk party had so industriously circulated concerning it, had long deemed it, in his own phraseology, "a shameful and malapert fact, unseemly to men, and abominable in the sight of Heaven, that these twain should remain unwedded;" and by his influence, Clermistonlee was duly cited before the kirk session. Resistance was in vain, for now the clergy had succeeded to the Council's iron rod; and temporal proscription and spiritual excommunication invariably followed delay.