On a dreary October afternoon in the year 1662, David Gray, the minister of Broomhill, was sitting in the study in his own manse, with his arms leaning on the table, and his face wearing an expression of deep perplexity and care.

That very day had been published the proclamation drawn up by the Privy Council in Glasgow, commanding the ministers to own the power of the newly-appointed bishops, and to accept anew presentations of their livings at the hands of the prelates within four weeks, on pain of being immediately, with their families, ejected from their manses, livings, and parishes, beyond even the very bounds of their Presbyteries.

In a sore strait was the minister of Broomhill that day. In his own mind there was not the slightest hesitation as to the course to be pursued; he had already refused to own the power of the Bishop of Glasgow, in whose diocese was the parish of Broomhill. The trouble lay not with his own conscience; it was connected with his wife and her kinsfolk, who had already made his life miserable with their reproaches concerning what they termed his obstinacy and bigoted Presbyterianism. She was not yet aware of this new proclamation, and the minister bethought himself that he might try to enlist her sympathies on his side before she was influenced by her friends at Haughhead. Accordingly he rose from his chair, and went to the living-room in search of his wife. Hearing his foot in the passage, his little daughter, now able to run alone, came toddling to meet him, and stooping, the father raised her in his arms and passionately clasped her to his heart. Her little arms met fondly round his neck, her rosy cheek was pressed lovingly to his; the grave disturbed look on her father's face could not awe or frighten the little one, for he was her father still. That sweet caress did the heart of the minister good, and he entered the inner room with a lighter step than that with which he had left his study. Another child, a little son, just three months old, lay in the wooden cradle which the young mother was gently rocking with her foot, while over her sewing she crooned a lullaby to hush the babe to rest. She looked up at her husband's entrance, and slightly smiled in recognition.

"Is the child asleep? can we talk here, Lilian?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes, he is very sound now, and will not awake for an hour," she answered. "What is it you have to say?"

For answer he drew from an inner pocket a copy of the proclamation and handed it for her perusal. She carelessly glanced it over and laid it aside, while a peculiar little smile touched her red lips.

"I am not surprised; my father has always said the Government would resort to more extreme measures. Well, would it not have been better to have owned the bishop's sway of your free will, without being hunted and compelled to do it like this?" she asked.

The tone of her voice as well as her words went to her husband's heart like a knife. He wearily passed his hand across his brow, and offered up a silent prayer for guidance and strength to stand firm in the struggle he knew was at hand.

"When I refused to own the bishop of my own free will, as you say, Lilian, do you think it a likely thing that such an edict, compiled by a few drunken and infamous men, will compel me to it? Middleton and his underlings have mistaken the men with whom they have to deal," he said, quietly, yet with unmistakable firmness.

His wife lifted her light blue eyes to his face, with a look of incredulous wonder on her own.

"Do you really mean that you would sooner bear the penalty than obey, David Gray?" she asked.

"The penalty I would bear gladly if it did not involve breaking up our home. I doubt not the Lord will guide my feet in the right way. If He shows me that it is my duty to endure hardship for His sake, will my wife not willingly endure with me? On such a vital question, Lilian, we cannot, dare not be divided!" said the minister, hoarsely.

Lilian Gray shrugged her slender shoulders, and an expression of scorn somewhat marred the childish beauty of her face.

"None but a madman, David, would give up a comfortable manse and a good stipend for such a small thing; but doubtless though your folly should render your wife and children homeless, it would not greatly exercise your spirit. But I am glad to think that my father's house will not be closed against me," she said, pettishly, and turned her face away from her husband.

The minister groaned in the anguish of his spirit for his shallow-hearted wife tried him to the utmost limit of endurance. Before he had time to frame an answer to her most unfeeling speech, there came a loud knocking to the outer door, and presently he heard the voice of his father-in-law, Gilbert Burnet of Haughhead, enquiring whether he was within. So he turned upon his heel, and, quitting the room, met his father-in-law in the hall. Opening the study door, he motioned him to enter therein, for he saw well enough that it was the proclamation which had brought him to the manse. Burnet of Haughhead was a little burly man, of very self-important and consequential demeanour, for, in truth, he thought himself of no mean importance in the parish, and considered that he had greatly honoured the minister of Broomhill in giving him his daughter to wife.

"I see by your face, son-in-law, that you have already received notification of the august decree concerning the bishops and the ministers," he said, in a facetious voice. "Ha! ha! they are to be dealt with like refractory schoolboys now--mastered or expelled."

David Gray turned his head away with a swift gesture, for he was tempted to speak somewhat unbecomingly to the father of his wife. Such jesting and mocking allusion to such a serious matter were more than painful to him; nay, he could scarcely endure it in patience.

"Would it not have been a much more satisfactory state of things had you quietly acquiesced in the desires of the king, without having to be brought under this humiliating ban?" said Haughhead presently. "You are still a young man, and ought to have been guided by the counsels of your elders."

"Mr. Burnet, do you think that, though still a young man, I have neither opinions nor conscience of my own?" enquired David Gray, hotly, for his quick temper was touched by the manner and words addressed to him.

"A conscience is a very good thing within certain bounds, young man," said Gilbert Burnet, drily. "I suppose now you will be halting still betwixt two alternatives. Perhaps the wording of the Act is not yet plain enough for your understanding."

"Sir, I know not why you should address such insulting and extraordinary remarks to me. I fear I must have fallen far short of my profession as a minister of the Gospel that you should entertain for me so small a measure of respect," said the minister of Broomhill, with quiet but rebuking dignity. "I am halting betwixt no two alternatives. As I have hitherto refused to acknowledge the bishop as the head of the Church, so I refuse still, at any cost. Come what may, I humbly pray that I may be accounted worthy to suffer for Him who is the true and only head of the Church on earth."

A flush of anger overspread the face of Gilbert Burnet.

"So, sir, it was for this I gave my daughter to you," he said slowly. "Know this, if you still persist in your mad and bigoted resolve, I will remove her and her children to my own house of Haughhead, and you will see them no more."

"You have no power to do that, sir, except Lilian go with you of her own free will," said the minister, quietly. "I cannot think that she would consent to be entirely separated from me."

"We will see, we will see," fumed the irate Laird of Haughhead. "I will away home, and see what her mother says to it; no, I'll not wait to see Lilian, so good day to you, David Gray."

So saying, the Laird abruptly quitted the manse, and rode away in anger to his own house of Haughhead. In his deep perplexity and sadness, the heart of the minister turned with a strange, deep yearning to his own kinsfolk at the manse of Inverburn. So, as the day was not yet far spent, he saddled his sturdy cob, and rode away by the wild hill paths, in the bleak December weather, to his father's house. The way he took was much shorter than the public high road, the distance not exceeding five miles, so that he came within sight of the roofs of Inverburn before darkness fell. He carefully guided his steed down a very steep mountain path, and from the valley into which he descended he had a good view of his brother Andrew's house of Hartrigge on the summit of the opposite height. He could either continue his course along the valley, which would bring him by a somewhat roundabout way to the village, or climb the hill to Hartrigge, and thence reach the high road, a little to the south of the entrance to Inverburn. He bethought him that he might as well look in at Hartrigge, and enquire for the welfare of its inmates; therefore he urged his horse to make the steep ascent, and in a short space of time the animal's hoofs made a clatter on the path outside the house, and brought Andrew Gray to the door.

"David, is that indeed you in person?" he exclaimed in surprise, and hastened to relieve him of his bridle rein. "No ill news, I hope, brings you so far from home this bleak night."

"No worse news than has come to many another household this day, Andrew," replied the minister, with a sigh. "I am on my way to the manse, so you need not stable Charlie. He will stand quiet enough if he hears my voice, or if you could send one of your lads to hold him till I step in and ask for Susan and the bairns, that will suffice."

"Gavin is in the house; he has been biding with us these three days; go in and send him out," said Andrew Gray. But there was no need, for presently the lad Gavin appeared in person at the door, looking surprised and pleased to see his uncle.

"Well, Gavin, lad?" said the minister, kindly, and after shaking him by the hand passed into the house. Mrs Gray rose from her spinning-wheel to greet her brother-in-law, her comely face smiling her hearty welcome. "Come away in, David," she said in her own cheery fashion. "Hoo's a' wi' ye? Is Lily and the bairns well?"

"All well, thank you, Susan," said the minister, bending to pat, first Sandy's woolly head, and then wee Nannie's sunny curls; and he had a kind word too for douce Jeanie, who was sitting demurely by the spinning-wheel. It was a picture of quiet family happiness and contentment, soon, alas! to be looked for in vain throughout the length and breadth of bonnie Scotland.

"Doubtless you have heard concerning the new proclamation?" said the minister, turning enquiringly to his brother, who had followed him into the room.

Hartrigge nodded, and a gleam shot through his fearless eye, telling that it had roused and stirred his innermost being.

"Have you seen our father to-day?"

"Yes, and I was amazed at his serenity. Jane feels it worse than him, and Betty McBean is the worst of them all. When I was in she was audibly wishing she had her hands about Middleton's neck, and her mouth at Sharp's ear. I'll warrant she wouldna spare them," said Andrew Gray, with a grim smile.

"Eh, man, David, they's awful times for folk tae live in," said Aunt Susan, in a kind of wail. "I declare it makes a body lie doon i' their bed at nicht wi' fear an' tremblin', no kenin' what strange and waefu' thing may happen afore the daw'in'."

"You speak truly, Susan, and I fear the worse is not yet," said the minister, gravely. "My father, then, has quite made up his mind concerning his course of action?" he added to his brother.

"Of course; there is but one way open to every single-hearted servant of God," said Andrew Gray with heaving chest and flashing eye. "I would the day were here, and it is surely coming, when the people of Scotland, roused to a sense of their own wrongs will take arms in defence of their liberties."

"Wheesht, Andrew! Wheesht, wheesht!" said his wife, looking round in terror, as if expecting her husband would be laid hands on then and there for such rebellious words. "Dinna speak that way. We maun bear afore we fecht. Peace is better than war."

"Spoken like a woman, Susan," said her husband, with his grim smile. "But there is peace which means degradation and dishonour, as well as war, which is honourable and richt. Must you go already, David? I wouldna mind yoking the beast and following ye to the manse."

"Let me go too, father," called out Gavin's shrill eager tones from the doorstep, where he had been a breathless listener to what was passing. The lad, young as he was, had as deep and heartfelt an interest in public affairs as his elders, and he was as intelligent in his interest as any of them all.

His father did not say him nay, but directly the minister rode away, sent him to get out their own horse and cart.

Betty McBean answered the minister's knock at the manse door, and at sight of the younger son of the manse, threw up her hands and burst into a loud wail.

"Eh, Maister Dauvit, man, come awa'! It's a waefu' hoose ye're comin' intil the nicht; it'll be the last time ye'll cross in safety the doorstane o' the manse," she exclaimed, incoherently. "Eh, sir, they bluidy and perjured monsters wha hae sold themsels tae Sautan for the persecution o' the servants o' the Maist High. Tae think they wad tak' the very rooftree frae above focks' heids, the very flure frae under their feet, and cast them oot intae the howlin' wilderness, because they'll no----"

The old woman's incoherent ramblings were here interrupted by Jane Gray, who, hearing the great commotion of Betty's shrill tongue, came out to see what was the matter, and at sight of her brother, her tears also flowed afresh. Her face was pale and anxious-looking, her eyes already red with weeping. The minister of Broomhill held her hand long in his fervent grip, and said tremblingly,

"God go with and comfort you, my sister, as He had need to comfort us all in this desolation."

Then the twain entered the study where their father sat, and at sight of that aged face, so peaceful and benignant in its expression, David Gray felt rebuked and ashamed.

"David, my son, my heart was much with you. You are very welcome to your father's house this night," said the old man, in significant tones.

For a moment David Gray was unable to speak, but sat him down by the hearthstone in utter silence. It was broken at last by the reverent tones of his father's voice.

"If we must go forth from our heritage, David, it is the Lord's will. Let us see to it that, instead of vain grumbling and looking back, we examine ourselves, and be glad that we are accounted worthy. They may take from us our earthly habitations, but, blessed be His name, they cannot rob us of that Heavenly City, whose builder and whose maker is God. How has the proclamation been received in the parish of Broomhill?"

For answer David Gray gladly poured forth into his father's sympathising ears the substance of his father-in-law's remarks, as well as the disposition of his wife's mind respecting the alternatives offered in the Act.

"Verily, she is a thorn in the flesh, and Gilbert Burnet of Haughhead showed his little discretion when he so harrowed up your soul, my son," said the old man, with sorrowful indignation. "But be of good courage. With God all things are possible, and your backsliding wife may yet be the brightest jewel in your crown. My son, I hope the arguments brought to bear upon you will not turn your heart away from the Covenant which, in boyish and trembling handwriting, you attested in the kirkyard of the Greyfriars," he added, with anxious solicitude.

David Gray flung up his head, while his eyes beamed with a new and unmistakable resolve.

"Nay, father; not so lightly have your precepts and example taken hold upon my heart. My wife and children are as dear to me as they are to most men, but the God of the Covenant is dearer still. Therefore, whatever may befall me or mine, I am in the Lord's hands, only desirous that I be accounted worthy to suffer for His sake."

"God grant that the like spirit may be abroad throughout the Lord's Zion, stimulating her ministers to the glory of self-sacrifice rather than to dwell at ease at the expense of conscience," said the minister, in tones of lively satisfaction. "Fear not, my son; the God of Hosts will not desert His covenanted people in their hour of need. Therefore, I say, be of good cheer."