“I stand no more alone,” I replied, “than your brother Richard Cameron did at Ayrsmoss when he rode into the broil and tumult of battle for the honour of the Covenant. The Banner of Christ’s cause that was trampled in the peat-brew of the moss of Ayr, is a worthier standard than the rag of submission which lies upon the table under your hand.” Cameron was silent. He liked not the memory of his great brother. I went on, for the man’s pliable pitifulness angered me. “Think you that Richard Cameron would have signed words like these? Aye, I think he would. But it would have been with his sword, cutting the vile bond into fragments, giving them to the winds, and strewing them upon the waters.” Then the Presbytery would hear no more, but by instant vote and voice they put me forth. Yet ere I went from their midst, I cried, “If there be any that think more of the freedom of God’s Kirk in this land of Scotland than of their stipends and glebes, let them come forth with me.” And two there were who rose and followed--Reid of Carsphairn, a man zealous and far-seeing, and one other, a young minister lately come within the bounds. So the door was shut upon us, and they that hated us were left to concert their measures without let or hindrance. And for a moment we three clasped hands without the door. “Let us stand by each other and the word of truth,” I said, “and the truth shall never make us ashamed.” CHAPTER XXI. THE EYES OF A MAID. Now throughout all the parish, aye, and throughout all Galloway there arose infinite noise and bruit of this thing. Specially was there the buzz of anger in the hill parishes, where the men who had lain in the moss-hags and fought for the ancient liberties dwelt thickest--in Carsphairn, in the Glenkens, and in mine own Balmaghie. As I went over the hill from farm-town to farm-town the herds would cry down “Well done!” from among the sheep. Old men who had seen the high days of the Kirk before the fatal home-coming of King Charles; rough, buirdly men who had done their share of hiding and fighting in the troubles; young men who, like myself, had heard in their cradles but the murmur of the fray, came to shake my hand and bid me strengthen my knees and stick to my testimony. “For,” said a venerable elder, one Anthony Lennox of the Duchrae, who had been a famous man in the sufferings, “this is the very truth for which we bled. We asked for the kernel, and lo! they have given us the dry and barren husk. We fought for ‘Christ’s Crown and Covenant,’ and they have sent us a banner with the device--‘Queen Anne’s Crown and the Test!’” But I think that the women were even more warmly on our side, for the canker of persecution had eaten deeper into their hearts, that had only waited and mourned while their men folk were out suffering and fighting.