be led to victory, and by whom he would never be put to shame, a master who might not praise him effusively but would never betray him, then let him, as he valued his life and his career, refuse James and cleave to William. But it is not given to a man to choose his creed, far less his destiny, and Claverhouse was never to have fortune on his side. It was to be his lot rather to be hindered at every turn where he should have been helped, and to run his race alone with many weights and over the roughest ground.
"Your Highness has of your courtesy allowed me to present in public audience the officers who have come with me from The Hague," said the Prince of Orange to James, "and now I have the pleasure to specially introduce this gentleman who was lately a captain in my cavalry, and who some while ago rendered me the last service one man can do for another. Had it not been for his presence of mind and bravery of action, I had not the supreme honor of waiting to-day upon your Highness, and the prospect of felicity before me. May I, with the utmost zeal towards him and the most profound respect towards your Highness, recommend to your service Mr. Graham of Claverhouse, who distinguished himself on many fields of battle, and who is a fine gentleman and a brave officer fit for any post, civil or military. I will only say one thing more: he belongs to the same house as the Marquis of Montrose, and has in him the same spirit of loyalty."
Claverhouse, overcome by the remembrance of the past, is stirred to the heart, and can hardly make his reverence for emotion. As he kisses James's hand he registers a vow which he was to keep with his life. And when he has left the presence of the Duke, the Prince of Orange said to Claverhouse's new master: "You have, sir, obtained a servant who will be faithful unto death; I make him over to you with confidence and with regret. This day, I believe, he will begin the work to which he has been called, and so far as a man can, he will finish it."
Book 2 Chapter 1 A Covenanting House
The glory of Paisley Castle has long departed, but it was a brave and well-furnished house in the late spring of 1684, to which this story now moves. The primroses were blooming in sheltered nooks, where the keen east wind--the curse and the strength of Scotland--could not blight them, and the sun had them for his wooing; there were signs of foliage on the trees as the buds began to burgeon, and send a shimmer of green along the branches; the grass, reviving after winter, was showing its first freshness, and the bare earth took a softer color in the caressing sunlight. The birds had taken heart again and were seeking for their mates, some were already building their summer homes. Life is one throughout the world, and the stirring of spring in the roots of the grass and in the trunks of the trees touches also human hearts and wakes them from their winter.
The season of hope, which was softening the clods of the field, and gentling the rough massive walls of the castle, were also making tender the austere face of a Covenanting minister standing in one of the deep window recesses of what was called in Scots houses of that day the gallery, and what was a long and magnificent upper hall, adorned with arms and tapestry. He was looking out upon the woods that stretched to the silver water of the Clyde, then a narrow and undeveloped river, and to the far-away hills of Argyleshire, within which lay the mystery of the Highlands. Henry Pollock had been born of a Cavalier and Episcopalian family, with blood as loyal as that of Claverhouse; he had been brought up amid what the Covenanters called malignant surroundings, and had been taught to regard the Marquis of Montrose as the first of Scotsmen and the most heroic of martyrs. Although the senior of Claverhouse by two years, he had been with him at St. Andrew's University, and knew him well, but in spite of his heredity Pollock had ever carried a more open mind than Graham.
During his university days he had heard the saint and scholar of the Covenant, Samuel Rutherford, who was principal and