The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

“I have business here,” said the young man, in a tone
meant to repress farther inquiry.
“I do not doubt it, sir,” said Butler. “I trust you will
forgive my hoping that it is of a lawful kind?”
“Sir,” said the other, with marked surprise, “I never
forgive impertinence, nor can I conceive what title you
have to hope anything about what no way concerns
you.”
“I am a soldier, sir,” said Butler, “and have a charge to
arrest evil-doers in the name of my Master.”
“A soldier!” said the young man, stepping back, and
fiercely laying his hand on his sword— “A soldier, and
arrest me! Did you reckon what your life was worth,
before you took the commission upon you?”
“You mistake me, sir,” said Butler, gravely; “neither
my warfare nor my warrant are of this world. I am a
preacher of the gospel, and have power, in my Master’s
name, to command the peace upon earth and good-will
towards men, which was proclaimed with the gospel.”
“A minister!” said the stranger, carelessly, and with an
expression approaching to scorn. “I know the gentle-
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men of your cloth in Scotland claim a strange right of
intermeddling with men’s private affairs. But I have been
abroad, and know better than to be priest-ridden.”
“Sir, if it be true that any of my cloth, or, it might be
more decently said, of my calling, interfere with men’s
private affairs, for the gratification either of idle curiosity,
or for worse motives, you cannot have learned a
better lesson abroad than to contemn such practices.
But in my Master’s work, I am called to be busy in season
and out of season; and, conscious as I am of a pure
motive, it were better for me to incur your contempt for
speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for
being silent.”
“In the name of the devil!” said the young man impatiently,
“say what you have to say, then; though whom
you take me for, or what earthly concern you have with
me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives,
of which you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for
an instant.”
“You are about,” said Butler, “to violate one of your
country’s wisest laws—you are about, which is much