It made me wonder just how much of Lily’s heart was held by Matthew, and if she’d have any left to give another man.

Chapter 25

Sunday, 28 September, 1707

I always became thoughtful when I sat in great cathedrals. I suspect that was the point. Most had been built by ancient bishops with a single purpose—to make those of us who entered them feel small and insignificant within the sight of God.

St. Giles’s had that effect upon me.

Like my country, St. Giles’s had been passed like a child’s plaything, hand to hand, down through the long wars of religion—from the Catholics to John Knox, who’d held the pulpit here with fiery sermons, to Episcopalians who’d sought the restoration of their bishops and been met with riots, back to Presbyterians who’d cheered the killing of a king, restored once more to the Episcopalians who’d seen their power falter when King James had fled to France, and now again to Presbyterians, who since the revolution had maintained it with a firm, unyielding hand.

It was in the divided days of John Knox, a hundred and fifty or more years ago, that the inside of St. Giles’s had first been divided as well with partitions, a practice that carried on through the last century so that now this one great building, although it was still whole on the outside, had been carved within to form four separate churches, each one having its own minister and congregation.

It was done, so I’d been told, to better serve the population of the growing town.

The central section of St. Giles’s became the Old Kirk, while the western end was split into the Haddo’s-hold and Tolbooth Kirks, which left this eastern end—the soaring choir—to be the High Kirk, where the queen’s pew lay and where the lords of session and a good many important men had seats.

Outwardly, it was a practical arrangement, but as I sat paying no heed whatsoever to the raging sermon of the minister this morning, I engaged myself in study of the columns that were meant to lead my eyes up to the intricately vaulted ceiling high above my head. I was thinking, not of heaven, as I was supposed to, but of how wondrous the effect would be if all the space inside that great cathedral could be opened and restored. And I was thinking of the things that had been lost by its division.

In that way, too, St. Giles’s was much like Scotland.

“Amen,” said the minister.

Helen was in no great hurry to leave. She had spotted her cousin—the one who sat on the commission—and wanted to linger and thank him in person, being somewhat puzzled she’d had no reply yet to her letter, but he was in deep conversation with two other men, so she was waiting.

After some minutes, she glanced at my face. I’d been trying to not let my restlessness show. Evidently I’d done a poor job of it.

Helen smiled. “Why don’t you step out and get some air while I am waiting?”