I cleft him to the teeth, through steel and bone. It has done
great deeds, this little weapon, and each of these blows was a
deliverance to the Church. This sword," he said, again sheathing it,
"has yet more to do,--to weed out this base and pestilential heresy of
Erastianism; to vindicate the true liberty of the Kirk in her purity;
to restore the Covenant in its glory,--then let it moulder and rust
beside the bones of its master."
"You have neither men nor means, Mr. Balfour, to disturb the Government
as now settled," argued Morton; "the people are in general satisfied,
excepting only the gentlemen of the Jacobite interest; and surely you
would not join with those who would only use you for their own purposes?"
"It is they," answered Burley, "that should serve ours. I went to the
camp of the malignant Claver'se, as the future King of Israel sought the
land of the Philistines; I arranged with him a rising; and but for the
villain Evandale, the Erastians ere now had been driven from the West.--
I could slay him," he added, with a vindictive scowl, "were he grasping
the horns of the altar!" He then proceeded in a calmer tone: "If thou,
son of mine ancient comrade, were suitor for thyself to this Edith
Bellenden, and wert willing to put thy hand to the great work with zeal
equal to thy courage, think not I would prefer the friendship of Basil
Olifant to thine; thou shouldst then have the means that this document
[he produced a parchment] affords to place her in possession of the lands
of her fathers.
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