It Started Wi A Cry O A Laddie...
A reek o simmer licht lay ower Perth, thick as a held breath, when the word cam hame wi John Knox frae exile and cauld Geneva.
Within St John's Kirk the stanes held the murmur o psalms and the scrape o shoon on flaggin. He stude lean as a drawn blade, voice brunt wi a fire no kindled in this toun.
He spak o idols, o painted faces that couldnae blink, o gilted saints deaf tae the puir, o the Mass as a veil drawn ower Christ’s ain licht. His words were flint on dry tow. Fowk felt the heat afore they kenned the burn.
When the prayer was dune and the folk gaed oot like a tide drawin back, a priest steppit forrit, lifting the bread as if naething had shifted. A laddie cried oot, no loud, but sharp as a gull’s skirl. The priest’s haund struck quick. The laddie’s stane flew truer.
It met the carved face on the altar. A crack ran through the saint’s ee. Dust rose, pale as incense.
Then the kirk turned tide. Benches skirled on the stane. Hands that had been steekit in prayer cam doun on timber and image. Tabernacles split. Candlesticks rang on the floor. The auld order shuddered like a rotten beam.
Knox himsel would cry them the rascal multitude, as if the storm were some ither body’s wark. But the storm had found its weather.
Frae the kirk they gaed, a river loosed its banks, through vennels and closes tae the hooses o vowed silence.
At the Greyfriars Monastery the doors gied way. Boards were riven, glass fell in shards like frozen rain. At the Blackfriars Monastery they pu’d doun what gold they could reach, rent the altars frae their stances. At the Perth Charterhouse where silence had been hoarded for years, they brak the hush wi iron and fire.
For twa days the toun shook itsel free o carved mercy and painted sorrow. Wa’s stood bare tae the haar. Roofs lay open tae the May sky. Within, there was nae chant, nae bell, nae slow turn o beads.
It wasna doctrine that walked the streets then. It was hunger, lang bankit. It was anger at stanes clad richer than men. It was the sicht o wealth set aside while bellies thinned.
By the end, the kirk’s white face was scartit and raw, the monasteries hollowed tae their ribs. Only wa’s remained, like teeth in an auld skull.
Thus the argument o scholars slippit its page and took tae the causey. Thus a sermon became a brek in the day. The Reformation didnae step canny into Scotland. It cam wi stoor on its shoon and the cry o a laddie still ringin in the air.
