CHAPTER LIII
Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and, to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities; that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights and privileges.
The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the Lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a sacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on the occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, we had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbath morning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.
But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate James Sharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to be then in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew the deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes he had made us suffer. The sough, therefore, of our approach was to the consternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of an avenging God, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of the engines of wrath and doom. Some said that he sat in the midst of the counsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying to and fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his teeth. But though all power of forethought and policy was taken from him, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were more governed, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. They commanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrors of the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were never committed, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection of their lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress, in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in their desire to come with the aid of their helps and means.
The tidings of the preparations for the security of Edinburgh, with the unhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, between the captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting the raid, had, even before we left Lanerk, bred much sedition among us, and an ominous dubiety of success. Nevertheless, our numbers continued to increase, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle, that, had the Lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was no reason to think the human means insufficient for the end. But in the mysteries of the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the great purposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer. Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town, the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening of His countenance went no farther with us at that time.
Nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for the year was old in November, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, and Nature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs, forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mourned over the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all her pleasant places.
As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm, trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal of many,—and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still more and more exasperated our discontent. I observed that the men began to turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and to mutter and murmur to one another. But still we all advanced, gradually, however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of the river's stream breaking asunder in a thaw.
In the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the clouds were gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but the rain was lavished without measure. The roads became sloughs,—our feet were drawn heavily out of the clay,—the burns and brooks raged from bank to brae,—and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that towards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of our broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night, scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left Lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came up. But still Captain Learmont thought, that as soon as the men had taken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outright to Edinburgh. Wallace, however, objected, and that night was spent between them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, our hardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-council against the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as I have said, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted to receive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but only bitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair.
Seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned of the Lord, I retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on a rock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass. It was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around was dismayed and dishevelled. The storm had abated, and the rain was over, but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environed with perils. A cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over our camp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of the castle shone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold, were fresh in strength and ready for battle.
I thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of the children of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and I marvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which I had been snatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in a scene of such inevitable woe. Sometimes, in the passion of that grief, I was tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of my affections. But as often as the thought came over my heart, with its soft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men who had borne in the march all that I had borne, and many of them in the cause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, I bowed my head and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if the arm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the Gospel, and delivering poor Scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of an anti-Christian usurpation in the kingly power.
While I was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubting that before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail that smote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have been by the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, a light broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holy experiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, I beheld as it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, and disclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to rise from the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply of arbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of God, and laid waste His vineyard.
I saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit still more grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture of the honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shown themselves so unworthy; and I had a foretaste in that hour of the fulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that were in store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. So that, although I rose from the rock whereon I was sitting, in the clear conviction that our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind, I yet had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end a link in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery with which Providence works good out of evil.
CHAPTER LIV
In the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set, some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the tidings that Dalziel and all the royal forces in Glasgow were coming upon us. This, though foreseen, caused a great panic, and a council of war, consisting, as usual, of ministers and officers, was held, to determine what should be done; but it was likewise, as usual, only a fruitless controversy. I, however, on this occasion, feeling myself sustained in spirit by the assurances I had received in my meditations on the rock, ventured to speak my mind freely; which was to the effect that, taking our dejected condition, the desertion of our friends, and our disappointments from the city, into consideration, we could do no better thing than evade the swords of our adversaries by disbanding ourselves, that each might be free to seek safety for himself.
Many were inclined to this counsel; and I doubt not it would have been followed; but, while conferring together, an officer came from the privy-council to propose a cessation of arms till our demands could be considered. It was manifest that this was a wily stratagem to keep us in the snare till Dalziel had time to come up, and I did all in my power to make the council see it in the same light; but there was a blindness of mind among us, and the greater number thought it augured a speedy redress of the wrongs for which we had come to seek reparation. Nor did their obstinacy in this relax till next morning, when, instead of anything like their improbable hopes, came a proclamation ordering us to disperse, and containing neither promise of indemnity nor of pardon. But then it was too late. Dalziel was in sight. His army was coming like a stream along the foot of the Pentland-hills,—we saw his banners and the glittering of his arms, and the sound of his musicants came swelling on the breeze.
It was plain that his purpose was to drive us in towards the town; but had we dispersed we might even then have frustrated his intent. There happened, however, besides Learmont and Wallace, to be several officers among us who had stubborn notions of military honour; and they would not permit so unsoldier-like a flight. There were also divers heated and fanatical spirits, whom, because our undertaking had been for religious ends, nothing could persuade that Providence would not interfere in some signal manner for their deliverance, yea, even to the overthrow of the enemy; and Mr Whamle, a minister, one of these, getting upon the top of the rock where I had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty things that the Lord did for the children of Israel in the valley of Ajalon, where He not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but enabled Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,—which to any composed mind was melancholious to hear.
In sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to the spot, Dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle, brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men, having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we repulsed him thrice.
But the victory, as I have said, was not ordained for us. In the afternoon Dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,—and then we began to quit the field. The number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. The dead might have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of doing as Dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common wrongs.
When I saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments scattered over the fields, I fled with the flying, and gained, with about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the Pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been inclined, could not easily follow us. There, while we halted to rest a little, we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon, rolling slowly from behind Arthur's Seat, looked from her window in the clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger.
The Reverend Mr Witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,—
"Friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the prey they pursue. They will track us long, and the hounds are not of a nature to lose scent, especially when they have tasted, as they have done this day, the rich blood of the faithful and the true. Therefore let us depart; but where, O where shall we find a home to receive us?—Where a place of rest for our weary limbs, or a safe stone for a pillow to our aching heads? But why do I doubt? Blameless as we are, even before man, of all offence, save that of seeking leave to worship God according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left without succour. No, my friends! though our bed be the damp grass and our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our drink the drumly burn, we have made for our hearts the down-beds of religious faith, and have found a banquet for our spirits in the ambrosial truths of the Gospel—luxuries that neither a James Sharp nor a Charles Stuart can ever enjoy, nor all the rents and revenues, fines and forfeitures, which princes may exact and prelates yearn to partake of, can buy."
He then offered up a thanksgiving that we had been spared from the sword in the battle; after which we shook hands in silence together, and each pursued his own way.
Mr Witherspoon lingered by my side as we descended the hill, and I discerned that he was inclined to be my companion; so we continued together, stretching towards the north-west, in order to fall into the Lithgow road, being mindet to pass along the skirts of Stirlingshire, thence into Lennox, in the hope of reaching Argyle's country by the way of the ferry of Balloch. But we had owre soon a cruel cause to change the course of our flight.
In coming down towards the Amond-water, we saw a man running before us in the glimpse of the moonshine, and it was natural to conclude, from his gestures and the solitude of the place, that no one could be so far-a-field at such a time, but some poor fellow-fugitive from Rullion-green where the battle was fought; so we called to him to stop, and to fear no ill, for we were friends. Still, however he fled on, and heeded not our entreaty, which made us both marvel and resolve to overtake him. We thought it was not safe to follow long an unknown person who was so evidently afraid, and flying, as we supposed, to his home. Accordingly we hastened our speed, and I, being the nimblest reached him at a place where he was stopped by a cleft in the rocks on the river's woody brink.
"Why do you fly so fast from us?" said I; "we're frae the Pentland-hills too."
At these words he looked wildly round, and his face was as ghastly as a ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, I discovered in him my neighbour, Nahum Chapelrig, and I spoke to him by name.
"O, Ringan Gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic manner, "I am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of my days is amaist a' run out. I had been saved from the sword, spared from the spear, and, flying from the field, I went to a farm-house yonder; I sought admission and shelter for a forlorn Christian man; but the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of God. The farmer opened his casement, and speering if I had been at the raid of the Covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of God, I couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my breast, and is fast in my—"
He could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the ground where he stood, before Mr Witherspoon had time to come up.
We both looked at poor guiltless Nahum as he lay on the grass, and, after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his martyred remains. We then consulted together; and having communed concerning the manner of Nahum's death, we resolved not to trust ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such woful evidence of depravity of heart. So, instead of continuing our journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and other untrodden ways.
CHAPTER LV
At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary, hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the birds in them were beginning to chirp,—we sat down and wist not what to do.
Mr Witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to gather in my bosom. I yearned for my family,—I mourned to know what had become of my brother in the battle,—and I grudged and marvelled wherefore it was that the royal and the great had so little respect for the religious honesty of harmless country folk.
It was now the nine-and-twentieth day of November, but the weather for the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the glory of her light and beauty. As the gay and goodly sun looked over the eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end of poor Nahum Chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe.
While we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we intended to take. She had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the field.
We both rose, and going towards her, Mr Witherspoon said, "For the love of God have compassion on two famishing Christians."
The old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence.
"Hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister of the Gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae Janet Armstrong?" And she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute in which she carried the kit, saying, "Little did I think that sic an homage was in store for me, or that the merciful Heavens would e'er requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my power to help a persecuted servant of the living God. Mr Witherspoon, I ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling I hae gotten frae you when ye preached for our minister at Camrachle in the time of the great covenanting. I was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the raid of Dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a sinful misdooting of Providence, for I had twa wee bairns and but a toom garnel."
She then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,—
"This will be a blithe morning to John Armstrong, to think that out of our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of gi'eing a pick to ane o' God's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his day's dark ae hue the dreigher for wanting his breakfast on account of sic a cause."
So we sat down, and began to partake of the repast with a greedy appetite, and the worthy woman continued to talk.
"Aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever since Dalziel left Glasgow;—we a' jealoused that the Lanerk Covenanters would na be able to withstand his power and the King's forces; for it was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'.—But, Mr Witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.—No; weel I wat that yours is a holier wisdom—ye would be for peace;—blessed are the peacemakers."
Seeing the honest woman thus inclined to prattle of things too high for her to understand, Mr Witherspoon's hunger being somewhat abated, he calmly interposed, and turned the discourse into kind inquiries concerning the state of her poor soul and her straitened worldly circumstances; and he was well content to find that she had a pleasant vista of the truths of salvation, and a confidence in the unceasing care of Providence.
"The same gracious hand that feeds the ravens," said she, "will ne'er let twa auld folk want, that it has been at the trouble to provide for so long. It's true we had a better prospek in our younger days; but our auld son was slain at the battle of Worcester, when he gaed in to help to put the English crown on the head of that false Charlie Stuart, who has broken his oath and the Covenant; and my twa winsome lassies diet in their teens, before they were come to years o' discretion. But 'few and evil are the days of man that is born of a woman,' as I hae heard you preach, Mr Witherspoon, which is a blessed truth and consolation to those who have not in this world any continued city."
We then inquired what was the religious frame of the people in that part of the country, in order that we might know how to comport ourselves; but she gave us little heartening.
"The strength and wealth o' the gentry," said she "is just sooket awa wi' ae fine after anither, and it's no in the power of nature that they can meikle langer stand out against the prelacy."
"I hope," replied Mr Witherspoon, "that there's no symptom of a laxity of principle among them?"
"I doot, I doot, Mr Witherspoon," said Janet Armstrong, "we canna hae a great dependence either on principle or doctrine when folk are driven demented wi' oppression. Many that were ance godly among us can thole no more, and they begin to fash and turn awa' at the sight of their persecuted friends."
Mr Witherspoon sighed with a heavy heart on hearing this, and mournfully shook his head. We then thanked Janet for her hospitable kindness, and rising, were moving to go away.
"I hope, Mr Witherspoon," said she, "that we're no to part in sic a knotless manner. Bide here till I gang for John Armstrong and the other twa men that howk wi' him in the quarry. They're bearing plants o' the vineyard—tarry, I pray you, and water them wi' the water of the Word."
And so saying, she hastened down the track she was going, and we continued on the spot to wait her return.
"Ringan," said Mr Witherspoon to me, "I fear there's owre meikle truth in what she says concerning the state of religion, not only here, but among all the commonality of the land. The poor beast that's overladen may be stubborn, and refuse for a time to draw; but the whip will at last prevail, until, worn out and weary, it meekly lies down to die. In like manner, the stoutness of the covenanted heart will be overcome."
Just as he was uttering these words, a whiz in a whin-bush near to where we were standing, and the sound of a gun, startled us, and on looking round we saw five men, and one of the black-cuffs with his firelock still at his shoulder, looking towards us from behind a dyke that ran along the bottom of the brae. There was no time for consultation. We fled, cowering behind the whin-bushes till we got round a turn in the hill, which, protecting us from any immediate shot, enabled us to run in freedom till we reached a hazel-wood, which having entered, we halted to take breath.
"We must not trust ourselves long here, Mr Witherspoon," said I. "Let us go forward, for assuredly the blood-hounds will follow us in."
Accordingly we went on. But it is not to be told what we suffered in passing through that wood; for the boughs and branches scourged us in the face, and the ground beneath our feet was marshy and deep, and grievously overspread with brambles that tore away our very flesh.
After enduring several hours of unspeakable suffering beneath those wild and unfrequented trees, we came to a little glen, down which a burn ran, and having stopped to consult, we resolved to go up rather than down the stream, in order that we might not be seen by the pursuers whom we supposed would naturally keep the hill. But by this time our strength was in a manner utterly gone with fatigue, in so much that Mr Witherspoon said it would be as well to fall into the hands of the enemy as to die in the wood. I however encouraged him to be of good cheer; and it so happened, in that very moment of despair, that I observed a little cavern nook aneath a rock that overhung the burn, and thither I proposed we should wade and rest ourselves in the cave, trusting that Providence would be pleased to guide our persecutors into some other path. So we passed the water, and laid ourselves down under the shelter of the rock, where we soon after fell asleep.
CHAPTER LVI
We were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay asleep under the rock. Mr Witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he sat watching beside me for some time, in great anxiety of spirit, as he afterwards told me; for the day was far spent, and the weather, as is often the custom in our climate, in the wane of the year, when the morning rises bright, had become coarse and drumly, threatening a rough night.
At last I awoke, and according to what we had previously counselled together, we went up the course of the burn, and so got out of that afflicting wood, and came to an open and wide moorland, over which we held our journeying westward, guided by the sun, that with a sickly eye was then cowering through the mist to his chamber ayont the hill.
But though all around us was a pathless scene of brown heather, here and there patched with the deceitful green of some perilous well-e'e; though the skies were sullen, and the bleak wind gusty, and every now and then a straggling flake of snow, strewed in our way from the invisible hand of the cloud, was a token of a coming drift, still a joyous encouragement was shed into our bosoms, and we saw in the wildness of the waste, and the omens of the storm, the blessed means with which Providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer and the persecutor from tracking our defenceless flight. So we journeyed onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round, and listening when startled by the wind whispering to the heath and the waving fern, till the shadows of evening began to fall, and the dangers of the night season to darken around us.
When the snow hung on the heather like its own bells, we wished, but we feared to seek a place of shelter. Fain would we have gone back to the home for the fugitive, which we had found under the rock, but we knew not how to turn ourselves; for the lights of the moon and stars were deeply concealed in the dark folds of the wintry mantle with which the heavens were wrapt up. Our hearts then grew weary, and more than once I felt as if I was very willing to die.
Still we struggled on; and when it had been dark about an hour, we came to the skirts of a field, where the strips of the stubble through the snow showed us that some house or clachan could not be far off. We then consulted together, and resolved rather to make our place of rest in the lea of a stack, or an outhouse, than to apply to the dwelling; for the thought of the untimely end of harmless Nahum Chapelrig lay like clay on our hearts, and we could not but sorrow that, among the other woes of the vial of the prelatic dispensation, the hearts of the people of Scotland should be so turned against one another.
Accordingly going down the rigs, with as little interchange of discourse as could well be, we descried, by the schimmer of the snow, and a ghastly streak of moonlight that passed over the fields, a farm steading, with several trees and stacks around it, and thither we softly directed our steps. Greatly, however, were we surprised and touched with distress, when, as we drew near, we saw that there was no light in the house, nor the sign of fire within, nor inhabitant about the place.
On reaching the door we found it open, and on entering in, everything seemed as if it had been suddenly abandoned; but by the help of a pistol, which I had taken in the raid from one of Turner's disarmed troopers, and putting our trust in the protection we had so far enjoyed, I struck a light and kindled the fire, over which there was still hanging, on the swee, a kail-pot, wherein the family at the time of their flight had been preparing their dinner; and we judged by this token, and by the visible desertion, that we were in the house of some of God's people who had been suddenly scattered. Accordingly we scrupled not to help ourselves from the aumrie, knowing how readily they would pardon the freedom of need in a Gospel minister, and a covenanted brother dejected with want and much suffering.
Having finished our supper, instead of sitting by the fire, as we at first proposed to do, we thought it would be safer to take the blankets from the beds and make our lair in the barn; so we accordingly retired thither, and lay down among some unthreshed corn that was lying ready on the floor for the flail.
But we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons near us. As there was no light, and Mr Witherspoon guessing by what we had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family, he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. At the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife, who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong.
"But what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know not,—we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been, and all the sacred exhortations that Mr Witherspoon could employ softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the dishonoured wife. He, however, persuaded them to return with us to the house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he would that night come again. As for me, during the dismal recital, I could not speak. The eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure I had left at home. Every word I heard was like the sting of an adder. My horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that I could no longer master them. I started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected dwelling.
Mr Witherspoon followed me, thinking I had gone by myself, and caught me by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into the house. But while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me, something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. The accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and I stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,—
"In the name of Heaven, what is this?
"What is it?" said I, filled with unutterable dread.
"Hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years old. I could endure no more; I thought the voices of my own innocents cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment I left the godly man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way I went.
CHAPTER LVII
A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold; but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.
The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.—I began to reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of the eloquent orator can express.—I stopped to collect my reason and my thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that drifts in the tempestuous air.—I considered, that I knew not a footstep of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful in that woful time.
But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up, and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my spirit in its power of resolution.
I had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on Rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows, I had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in so much that about sunrise I found myself, I cannot well tell how, on the heights to the south of Castlemilk, and the city of Glasgow, with her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in sight some few miles off on the north. I knew it not; but a herd that I fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands before me.
Among others he pointed out to me Nether Pollock in the midst of a skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted Christian and true Covenanter, Sir George Maxwell, the savour of whose piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon him, shortly after that conclave of Satan, Middleton's sederunt of the privy-council at Glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of her first-born, in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of the Persecution, whereof I have described the promulgation as it took place at Irvine.
Being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd, who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, I resolved to bend my way toward Nether Pollock, in the confident faith that the master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to compassionate a persecuted brother. And often since I have thought that there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this confidence; for indeed, had I reasoned from what was commonly said—and, alas! owre truly—that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, I would have feared to seek the gates of Sir George Maxwell, lest the love he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. But I was encouraged of the spirit to proceed.
Just, however, as I parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand, and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "Yon'er's Sir George Maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. Eh! but he has had his ain luck to fill his pock so weel already."
Whereupon I turned my steps towards Sir George, and, on approaching him, beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the Pentlands.
He stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "It was a hasty business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to Glasgow, where Colonel Drummond came yesterday with a detachment of soldiers, and has already spread them over the country."
In saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which, instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had supposed, contained a store of provisions.
"I came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting to me something to eat, "but because last night I heard that many of the outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as I could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my tenants, I have come out with some of my men, as it were to the shooting, in order to succour them. But we must not remain long together. Take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and I counsel you not to take the road to Paisley, but to cross with what speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of Drummond sending any of his force in that direction."
Accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that Worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered. With many thanks I then hastened from him, praying that his private charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. And surely it was a thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted Scottish nation to meet with such Christian fellowship. For to the perpetual renown of many honourable West Country families be it spoken, both master and men were daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the ravens that fed Elijah in the wilderness.
After parting from Sir George Maxwell, I continued to bend my course straight westward, and having crossed the road from Glasgow to Paisley, I directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded, according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.
CHAPTER LVIII
Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melancholious note of the peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was heard there. Being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed to sleep, I laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the Gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period of the year. I was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass when I heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently also the barking of a dog. From the kindly experience I had received of Sir George Maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on looking up I beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the other side of the river.
Near the spot where I lay there was a cloven rock overspread with brambles and slae-bushes. It seemed to me as if the cleft had been prepared on purpose by Providence for a hiding-place. I crept into it, and forgetting Him by whom I was protected, I trembled with a base fear. But in that very moment He at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a singular assurance of His holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into the view of the pursuers. Just, however, as in my horror I was on the point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes, and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;—at the same moment a hare was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight.
This adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the weariness with which I had been oppressed, and I rose and continued my course westward, over the hills, till I came in sight of the Shaw's-water,—the stream of which I followed for more than a mile with a beating heart; for the valley through which it flows is bare and open, and had any of the persecutors been then on the neighbouring hills, I must have soon been seen; but gradually my thoughts became more composed, and the terrors of the poor hunted creature again became changed into confidence and hope.
In this renewed spirit I slackened my pace, and seeing, at a short distance down the stream, before me a tree laid across a bridge, I was comforted with the persuasion that some farm-town could not be far off, so I resolved to linger about till the gloaming, and then to follow the path which led over the bridge. For, not knowing how the inhabitants in those parts stood inclined in their consciences, I was doubtful to trust myself in their power until I had made some espionage. Accordingly, as the sun was still above the hills, I kept the hollowest track by the river's brink, and went down its course for some little time, till I arrived where the hills come forward into the valley; then I climbed up a steep hazel bank, and sat down to rest myself on an open green plot on the brow, where a gentle west wind shook the boughs around me, as if the silent spirits of the solitude were slowly passing by.
In this place I had not been long when I heard, as if it were not far off, a sullen roar of falling waters rising hoarsely with the breeze, and listening again another sound came solemnly mingled with it, which I had soon the delight to discover was the holy harmony of worship, and to my ears it was as the first sound of the rushing water which Moses brought from the rock to those of the thirsty Israelites, and I was for some time so ravished with joy that I could not move from the spot where I was sitting.
At last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and I arose and went towards the airt from which it had come; but as I advanced, the noise of the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the breaking of the summer waves along the Ardrossan shore, and presently I found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and hazel, and garmented with ivy.
On a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall, screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising ground on the other, about thirty of the Lord's flock, old and young, were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was preaching to them,—his left hand resting on his staff,—his right was raised in exhortation,—and a Bible lay on the ground beside him.
I stood for the space of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying sight,—mournful it was, to think how God's people were so afflicted, that they durst not do their Heavenly King homage but in secrecy,—and edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold.
As I was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him, turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. I attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract drowned my voice. I then ran as swiftly as I could towards the spot of worship, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was assisting Mr Swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to a tree; for the preacher was no other than that godly man; but the courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what passed at our meeting.
Fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise, and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the Pentlands; but I importuned him to continue his blessed work, for I longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom, which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called the Killochenn,—and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from the Back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing, in marriage.
When he had closed his sermon and done these things, I went with him, walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to Glasgow and confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had been examined by the Bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with the Bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt with according to the edict.
Conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.
"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman, and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an eydent ettler for preferment."
So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went with him.
CHAPTER LIX
The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts had tasted for more than eight months.
"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say, that the peaceful worshipping according to the Word is either a sin, a shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."
As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and pointed out to him a lassie coming running towards us. It was his daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her haste she said—
"O, father ye manna gang hame;—twa of Carswell's men hae been speering for you and they had swords and guns. They're o'er the hill to the linn, for wee Willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching."
"This comes," says the afflicted Gideon, "of speaking of secret things before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old would have been an instrument of discovery?—It'll no be safe now for you to come hame wi' me, which I'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't; but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the Holmstone-hill, aboon the auld kirk; I'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter for the night."
So we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and held our course towards the house of Gideon Kemp's wife's stepmother. But it was not ordained that I was yet to enjoy the protection of a raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the Daff-burn, down the glen of which my godly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less observable way than the open road, he saw one of Ardgowan's men coming towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the Stuarts, were inclined to the prelatic side.
"Hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes."
And I den't myself in a nook of the glen, where I overheard what passed.
"I thought, Gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the conventicle this afternoon. We hae heard o't a'; and Carswell has sworn that he'll hae baith doited Swinton and Dunrod's leddy at Glasgow afore the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower."
"Carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied Gideon Kemp; "for though his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o' Carswell."
The way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle; but I hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was assuredly in them: for, since the Revolution, Carswell's family has gone all to drift, and his house become a wastege;—folk say, a new road that's talked o' between Inverkip and Greenock is to go through the very middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the godless and the wrength of the oppressors.
Ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of Gideon Kemp, and replied in a subdued manner, "It's really a melancholious thing to think that folk should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;—but tak care of yoursel, Gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to Cartsdyke to take up ony of the Rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts, and they catcht, I hear, in a public in the Stenners, three men, and have sent them to Glasgow to be hanged."
I verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom.
"Surely," replied Gideon Kemp, "the wrath of government is no so unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are doom't to die. But hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where they belong to?"
"They're o' the shire o' Ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' Irvine or Kilwinning; and I was likewise told their names, but they're no of a familiarity easy to be remembered."
The horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own peril, and I sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,—
"Do you ken if any of them was of the name of Gilhaize?"
Ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at Gideon Kemp with a jealous and troubled eye.
"Nay," said I, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy man." So I took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "Ye're in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. I, too, am a rebel, as ye say, from Rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our offence. But fear no wrong, if you have aught of Christian compassion in you. Was Gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?"
"I'll no swear't," was his answer; "but I think it was something like that;—one of them, I think, they called Finnie."
"Robin Finnie," cried I, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; I canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the tears flowed from my eyes.
The better nature of Ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my distress, and he said to Gideon Kemp,—
"Ye needna be fear't, Gideon; I hope ye ken mair o' me than to think I would betray either friend or acquaintance. But gang na' to the toun, for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing the day at Cartsdyke, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o' some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them."
"That's spoken like yoursel, Johnnie Jamieson," said Gideon Kemp; "but this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. When the sword, Johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and dejectit, and more houseless than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man that we're bound by the laws of God and nature to help."
Jamieson remained for a short space in a dubious manner, and looking mildly towards me, he said, "Gang you your ways, Gideon Kemp, and I'll ne'er say I saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and trust me: naebody in a' Inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so I'll can bring him to some place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi' you."
Troubled and sorrowful as I was, I could not but observe the look of soul-searching scrutiny that Gideon Kemp cast at Jamieson, who himself was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,—
"Dinna misdoot me, Gideon Kemp; I would sooner put my right hand in the fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in my power."
"And I'll believe you," said I; "so guide me wheresoever you will."
"Ye'll never thrive, Johnnie Jamieson," added honest Gideon, "if ye're no sincere in this trust."
So after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and I followed Jamieson down the Daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents I had met with.
"Bide you here," said Jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before I tak you into the mill I maun look that she's no there."
So he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, I had not occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me with his hand to come quickly.
CHAPTER LX
Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner, saying to Jamieson,—
"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me, "it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae to mak your bed here in the mill."
While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing like a bell.
"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."
Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder, I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the trap-door, in came his wife.
"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills, as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."
"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home, so what hae I to dread?"
"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."
"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."
"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! Sauners Paton, ye're a born rebel to your King, and kintra, and wife. But this night I'll put it out of your power to rebel on me. Stop the mill, Sauners Paton, and come out, and tak the door on your back. I hae owre meikle regard for you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here."
"Consider," said Sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion, "that this is the season of December; and where would ye hae me to gang in sic a night?"
"A grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. My jo, ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely, Sauners Paton, I'm positive, and for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.—Hae ye stoppit the mill?"
The mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel.
"Noo," said he, "to pleasure you, Kate, I hae stoppit the mill, and to pleasure me, I hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain wi' you, frae my ain house I'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't since ye will hae't, I hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at hame I will bide;—na, what's mair, Kate, it's a reason that I'll no tell to you."
"Dear pity me, Sauners Paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o' late an unco reasonable man. But Leddy Stuart's quadrooped bird they ca' a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do reason; but reason here or reason there, I'll ne'er consent to let you stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and lock the door."
To this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short silence, he said,—
"Kate, my queen, I'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' Dunrod; but some providing should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. The sun has been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a creel wi' some vivers prepared."
"Noo, that's like yoursel, Sauners Paton," replied his wife; "and surely my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable."
At these words Jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "I hope, miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll conform to her kind wishes." By which I discernt, that he had purposely egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of me.
"O, aye," replied the miller; "I could na but be consenting, poor queen, to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way that I well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready; therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation here."
The three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly mystery, I confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's ever-wakeful Sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing oblivion from all my troubles and fears.
Considering the fatigue I had undergone for so many days and nights together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to depart till he thought I was rested, soon after the moon rose came into the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. So I left my couch in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had provided for himself.
Having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by the hand, and bade me farewell,—saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,—that the gudewife would make baith him and Johnnie Jamieson suffer in the body for the fright she had gotten. "For ye should ken," said he, "that the terror she was in was a' bred o' Johnnie's pawkerie. He knew that she was aye in a dread that I would be laid hands on ever since I signed the remonstrance to the laird; and Johnnie thought, that if he could get her to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the provision yours. So, Gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted, when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'."
Being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of Inverkip, I went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my heart. The night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught, but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a softer sorrow.
But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning. Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His cattle were on the stubble—the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown of the morning—the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me. I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched him, but he was dead.
The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.
I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight of this woful murder; but I ran for help to the house; and just as I turned the corner of the barn, two soldiers met me, and I became their prisoner.
One of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind.
They took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and I could not speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and I thought it was a dream. The air I breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; I gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of Kedar.
Soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. They taunted me and plucked me by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and I inwardly chided the slow anger of the mysterious Heavens for permitting the rage of those agents of the apostate James Sharp and his compeers, whom a mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority.
But even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a seraph, that the Lord in all things moveth according to His established laws; and I was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof I was a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to return to their quarters in Irvine, I walked with them—their captive, it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at the proudness of my tread.
There was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. Hundreds that sympathised with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment. The crowd came pressing around as I was conducted up the gait to the tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children wondered whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. Some who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely upon us.