The candle keeps guttering because of the air wafting in through the window. But I can't allow darkness and sleep to invade the room, and I must keep the window open to survey the heath which is moonless tonight, a formless expanse of shadows. There is no light whether of torch or lantern for at least two miles, that's for sure, nor any sound other than the cry of the grouse, and the footsteps of the guard on the castle walls. A night like any other, and yet the MacDickinsons' attack could come before the day dawns. I must spend the night keeping watch and reflecting on the predicament we find ourselves in. A little while ago Dugald, the oldest and most loyal of my men, came up to my room to reveal a problem of conscience: like most of the peasants around here he is a member of the Episcopal church and his bishop has ordered all the faithful to take the MacDickinson family's side, forbidding them to bear arms for any other clan. We, the MacFergusons, belong to the Presbyterian church, but out of an old tradition of tolerance we don't make religion an issue for our people. I told Dugald I considered him free to act according to his conscience and his faith, but I couldn't help reminding him how much he and his family owed to our clan. When that rough and ready soldier left, his white whiskers were dripping tears. I still don't know what he has decided. It's no use pretending otherwise: the ancient conflict between the MacFergusons and the MacDickinsons is about to erupt in a war of religion.
Since time immemorial the highland clans have fought it out amongst themselves along the lines of good old Scottish custom: every time we get the chance we avenge the murder of our kinsmen by murdering members of rival families, while each in turn seeks to occupy and devastate the lands and castles of the others, yet this strip of Scotland has so far been spared the ferocity of a religious war. Of course everybody knows that the Episcopal church has always openly supported the MacDickinsons, and if today these poor highlands are ravaged more by the raids of the MacDickinsons than by the hail, we owe it to the fact that the Episcopal clergy have always made fair weather or foul in this land. But so long as the greatest enemy of the MacDickinsons and the Episcopal church were the MacConnollys, who being proselytes of the pernicious Methodist sect believe that peasants who don't pay their rents should be pardoned and ultimately that one should hand out one's lands and chattels to the poor, the clans hostile to the MacDickinsons all preferred to turn a blind eye. From every Episcopal pulpit ministers preached hell and damnation on the MacConnollys and whomsoever bore arms under them or even so much as served in their household, and we MacFergusons, or MacStewarts, or MacBurtons, good Presbyterian families, let the matter pass. Of course the MacConnollys were themselves partly responsible for this state of affairs. Hadn't it been they who, when their clan was far more powerful than now, recognized the Episcopal clergy's old right to a tithe upon our lands? Why did they do it? Because, as they said, it was not these things (mere formalities or little more) that were important in their religion, but other more substantial matters; or because, as we said, those damned Methodists thought they could beat the Devil at his own game and fool us all. In any event ill befell them and in very short order. We, for our part, certainly can't complain. We were allied to the MacDickinsons then and took care to increase the strength of their clan, since they were the only ones who could take on the MacConnollys and their accursed ideas with regard to oat harvest taxes. When we saw the Episcopalians leading one of MacConnolly's men into the village square with a noose round his neck and proclaiming him a creature of the Devil, we didn't turn our horses that way because it was none of our business.
And now that the MacDickinsons and their people are lording it in every village and hostelry, bullying and browbeating everybody so that no one can walk the high roads of Scotland without a kilt of their tartan, the Episcopal church chooses this moment to hurl anathema at us, the families of the upright Presbyterian faith, and to stir up our peasants and even our cooks against us. It's clear what they're after: an alliance with the Mac-duffs or the MacCockburns, old supporters of King James Stuart, papists or very nearly, that will bring them down from their mountain castles where they have been reduced to living like bandits among the goats.
Will it be a religious war? Really there's nobody, not even the most bigoted Episcopalian, who believes that fighting for steak-guzzling MacDickinsons capable of knocking back pints of beer even on a Sunday would amount to fighting for the faith. How do they see it, then? Perhaps they think that this is part of God's plan, like the captivity in Egypt. But Isaac's offspring were never asked to fight for the Pharaohs, even if God did choose to make them suffer so long in exile! If there is a war of religion, we MacFergusons will accept it as a test to strengthen our faith. But we know that on these shores the faithful of the rightful Church of Scotland are an elect minority, and that they may have been chosen by God -- though God forbid! -- for martyrdom. I have picked up my Bible again, which in the recent months of frequent enemy forays I had somewhat neglected, and now I leaf through the pages in the candlelight, though never losing sight of the moor down below where a rustle of wind has lifted, as always just before dawn. No, I'm at my wit's end; if God starts getting involved in our Scottish family quarrels -- and in the event of a war of religion he can hardly do otherwise -- who knows where it will end; each of us has his interests and his sins, the MacDickinsons more than anybody, and the Bible is there to tell us that God's intentions are always different from those that men imagine.
Perhaps this is where we have sinned, in always refusing to think of our wars as wars of religion, in the illusion that we would thus have greater liberty to compromise when it suited us. There is too great a spirit of appeasement in this part of Scotland, not a clan that doesn't fight without its ulterior motives. We have never taken sufficiently seriously the question of whether our religion should be administered by the hierarchy of this or that church, or through the community of the faithful, or from the depths of our consciences.
There, down there, at the edge of the heath, I can see them, torches gathering. Our guards have seen them too: I can hear the whistle sounding the alarm from the top of the tower. How will the battle go? All of us perhaps are about to pay for our sins: we didn't have the courage to be ourselves. The truth is that amongst all these Presbyterians Episcopalians Methodists there's not one in this part of Scotland who believes in God: not one I say, whether noble or cleric, tenant or serf, who truly believes in that God whose name is forever on his lips. There, the clouds are paling to the east. Come on, everybody, awake! Quick, saddle me my horse!