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Updated: June 22, 2025
"It WAS a great day," Walter Skirving muttered, letting his arm rest on the little square deal table which stood beside him with his great Bible open upon it "a great day aye, Maister Peden's laddie i' my hoose! He's welcome, he's mair nor welcome."
"Walter Skirving and his spouse do not receive company of such dignity; and besides them there are only the maids that I know of." "Who made you my father confessor?" mocked Agnew Greatorix, with an unpleasant sneer on his handsome face. "The right of being minister in the things of the Spirit to all that dwell in Craig Ronald House," said the minister of the Marrow firmly.
And now, half a century after William Skirving, as he rose to receive his sentence, declared to his judges, "You may condemn us as felons, but your sentence shall yet be reversed by the people," the names of these men are once more familiar to British lips. The sentence has been reversed; the prophecy of Skirving has become history.
Ballantyne and Skirving have consulted all the older original references available and eliminated duplications of reports and, adhering to their original definition, have collected and described individually 20 cases; they offer the following conclusions:
There silent and unregarding Walter Skirving sat a man still splendid in frame and build, erect in his chair, a shawl over his knees even in this day of fervent heat, looking out dumbly on the drowsing, humming world of broad, shadowless noonshine, and often also on the equable silences of the night. "No that I regret it the day, when he is but the name o' the man he yince was.
It might have been that very day that Skirving had defied him in these words: "It is altogether unavailing for your lordship to menace me; for I have long learned to fear not the face of man;" and I can fancy, as Braxfield reflected on the number of what he called GRUMBLETONIANS in Edinburgh, and of how many of them must bear special malice against so upright and inflexible a judge, nay, and might at that very moment be lurking in the mouth of a dark close with hostile intent I can fancy that he indulged in a sour smile, as he reflected that he also was not especially afraid of men's faces or men's fists, and had hitherto found no occasion to embody this insensibility in heroic words.
But Walter Skirving was keenly awake when Ralph Peden entered. It was in fact he, and not his partner, who spoke first for Walter Skirving's wife had among other things learned when to be silent which was, when she must. "You honour my hoose," he said; "though it grieves me indeed that I canna rise to receive yin o' your family an' name!
As Ralph rose reverently and kissed her hand before retiring, Walter Skirving motioned him near his chair. Then he drew him downward till Ralph was bending on one knee. He laid a nerveless heavy hand on the young man's head, and looked for a minute which seemed years to Ralph very fixedly on his eyes. Then dropping his hand and turning to the window, he drew a long, heavy breath.
For fifty years since there was nae lad like Walter Skirving cam into Dumfries High Street frae Stewartry or frae Shire. Walter Skirving could button his knee-breeks withoot bendin' his back that nane could do but the king's son himsel'; an' sic a dancer as he was afore guid an' godly Maister Cauldsowans took hand o' him at the tent, wi' preachin' a sermon on booin' the knee to Baal.
And now, half a century after William Skirving, as he rose to receive his sentence, declared to his judges, "You may condemn us as felons, but your sentence shall yet be reversed by the people," the names of these men are once more familiar to British lips. The sentence has been reversed; the prophecy of Skirving has become history.
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