"What gars you, young man," said I to the fiercest of the two dragoons, an Englisher, "what gars you in that dreadful manner hate and blaspheme honest men, who would, if they were permitted, dwell in peace with all mankind?"
"Permitted!" cried he, turning round and placing his chair between me and the door, "and who does not permit them? Let them seek the way to heaven according to law, and no one will trouble them."
"The law, I'm thinking," replied I very mildly, "is mair likely to direct them to another place."
"Here's a fellow," cried the soldier, riotously laughing to his companion, "that calls the King's proclamation the devil's finger-post. I say, friend, come a little nearer the light. Is your name Cargill?"
"No," replied I; and the light of the fire then happening to shine bright in his face, my son laid his trembling hand on mine, and whispered to me with a faltering tongue,—
"O! it's one of the villains that burnt our house, and—"
What more he added I know not, for at the word I leapt from my seat, and rushed upon the soldier. His companion flew in between us; but the moment that the criminal saw my son, who also sprung forward, he uttered a fearful howl of horror, and darted out of the house.
The other soldier was surprised, but collected; and shutting the door, to prevent us from pursuing or escaping, said,—
"What the devil's this?"
"That's my father," said my son boldly, "Ringan Gilhaize of Quharist."
The dragoon looked at me for a moment, with concern in his countenance, and then replied, "I have heard of your name but I was not of the party. It was a damned black job. But sit down, Ecclesfield will not be back. He has ever since of a night been afraid of ghosts, and he's off as if he had seen one. So don't disturb yourself, but be cool."
I made no answer, nor could I; but I returned and sat down in the corner where we had been sitting, and my son, at the same time, took his place beside me, laying his hand on mine: and I heard his heart beating, but he too said not a word.
It happened that none of the people belonging to the house were present at the uproar; but hearing the noise, the mistress and the gudeman came rushing ben. The soldier, who still stood calmly with his back to the door, nodded to them to come towards him, which they did, and he began to tell them something in a whisper. The landlord held up his hands and shook his head, and the mistress cried, with tears in her eyes, "No wonder! no wonder!"
"Had ye no better gang out and see for Ecclesfield?" said the landlord, with a significant look to the soldier.
The young man cast his eyes down, and seemed thoughtful.
"I may be blamed," said he.
"Gang but the house, gudewife, and bring the gardivine," resumed the gudeman; and I saw him touch her on the arm, and she immediately went again into the room whence they had issued. "Come into the fire, Jack Windsor, and sit down," continued he; and the soldier, with some reluctance, quitted the door, and took his seat between me and it, where Ecclesfield had been sitting.
"Ye ken, Jack," he resumed when they were seated, "that unless there are two of you present, ye canna put any man to the test, so that every body who has not been tested is free to go wheresoever it pleasures himsel."
The dragoon looked compassionately towards me; and the mistress coming in at the time with a case-bottle under her arm, and a green Dutch dram-glass in her hand, she filled it with brandy, and gave it to her husband.
"Here's to you, Jack Windsor," said the landlord, as he put the glass to his lips, "and I wish a' the English in England were as orderly and good-hearted as yoursel, Jack Windsor."
He then held the glass to the mistress, and she made it a lippy.
"Hae, Jack," said the landlord, "I'm sure, after your hard travail the day, ye'll no be the waur o' a dram."
"Curse the liquor," exclaimed the dragoon, "I'm not to be bribed by a dram."
"Nay," cried the landlord, "Gude forbid that I should be a briber," still holding the glass towards the soldier, who sat in a thoughtful posture, plainly swithering.
"That fellow Ecclesfield," said he, as it were to himself, "the game's up with him in this world."
"And in the next too, Jack Windsor, if he does na repent," replied the landlord; and the dragoon put forth his hand, and, taking the glass, drank off the brandy.
"It's a damned hard service this here in Scotland," said Windsor, holding the empty glass in his hand.
"'Deed is't, Jack," said the landlord, "and it canna be a pleasant thing to a warm-hearted lad like you, Jack Windsor, to be ravaging poor country folk, only because they hae gotten a bee in their bonnets about prelacy."
"Damn prelacy, says I," exclaimed the dragoon.
"Whisht, whisht, Jack," said the landlord; "but when a man's sae scomfisht as ye maun be the night after your skirring, a word o' vexation canna be a great faut. Gudewife, fill Jack's glass again. Ye'll be a' the better o't, Jack;" and he took the glass from the dragoon's hand and held it to his wife, who again filled it to the flowing eye.
"I should think," said the dragoon, "that Ecclesfield cannot be far off. He ought not to have run away till we had tested the strangers."
"Ah! Jack Windsor," replied the landlord, holding out the glass to him, "that's easy for you, an honest lad wi' a clear conscience, to say, but think o' what Ecclesfield was art and part in. Ye may thank your stars, Jack, that ye hae ne'er been guilty o' the foul things that he's wyted wi'. Are your father and mother living, Jack Windsor?"
"I hope so," said the dragoon; "but the old man was a little so so when I last heard of 'em."
"Aye, Jack," replied the landlord, "auld folks are failing subjects. Ye hae some brothers and sisters nae doubt? They maun be weel-looked an they're ony thing like you, Jack."
"I have but one sister," replied the dragoon, "and there's not a gooder girl in England, nor a lady in it that has the bloom of Sally Windsor."
"Ye're braw folk, you Englishers, and ye're happy folk, whilk is far better," said the landlord, presenting the second glass, which Jack drank off at once, and returned to the mistress, signifying with his hand that he wanted no more; upon which she retired with the gardivine, while the landlord continued, "it's weel for you in the south yonder, Jack, that your prelates do not harass honest folk."
"We have no prelates in England, thank God," said the dragoon; "we wouldn't have 'em; our parsons are other sort o' things."
"I thought ye had an host o' bishops, Jack," said the landlord.
"True, and good fellows some on 'em are; but though prelates be bishops, bishops ain't prelates, which makes a difference."
"And a blessed difference it is; for how would ye like to hear of your father's house being burnt and him in prison, and your bonny innocent sister?—Eh! is nae that Ecclesfield's foot clampering wi' his spurs at the door?"
The dragoon listened again, and looked thoughtful for a little time, and turned his eyes hastily towards the corner where we were sitting.
The landlord eyed him anxiously.
"Yes," cried the poor fellow, starting from his seat, and striking his closed right hand sharply into his left; "yes, I ought and I will;" adding calmly to the landlord, "confound Ecclesfield, where the devil is he gone? I'll go see;" and he instantly went out.
The moment he had left the kitchen the landlord rose and said to us, "Flee, flee, and quit this dangerous town!"
Whereupon we rose hastily, and my son lifting the Bible, which he had laid in the darkness of the corner, we instanter left the house, and, notwithstanding the speed that was in our steps as we hurried up the street, I had a glimpse of the compassionate soldier standing at the corner of the house when we ran by.
Thus, in a very extraordinary manner, was the dreadful woe that had befallen me and mine most wonderfully made a mean, through the conscience of Ecclesfield, to effectuate our escape.
On leaving the public we went straight to the place where our blades and belts lay, and took them up, and proceeded in an easterly direction. But I soon found that I was no longer the man I had once been; suffering and the fever of my frenzy had impaired my strength, and the weight of four-and-fifty years was on my back; so that I began to weary for a place of rest for the night, and I looked often around to discover the star of any window; but all was dark, and the bleak easterly wind searched my very bones; even my son, whose sturdy health and youthy blood made him abler to thole the night air, complained of the nipping cold.
Many a time yet, when I remember that night, do I think with wonder and reverence of our condition. An infirm, grey-haired man, with a deranged head and a broken heart, going forth amidst the winter's wind, with a little boy, not passing thirteen years of age, to pull down from his throne the guarded King of three mighty kingdoms,—and we did it,—such was the doom of avenging justice, and such the pleasure of Heaven. But let me proceed to rehearse the trials I was required to undergo before the accomplishment of that high predestination.
Weary, as I have said, very cold and disconsolate, we walked hirpling together for some time; at last we heard the rumbling of wheels before us, and my son running forward came back and told me it was a carrier. I hastened on, and with a great satisfaction found it was Robin Brown, the Ayr and Kilmarnock carrier. I had known him well for many years, and surely it was a providential thing that we met him in our distress, for he was the brother of a godly man, on whose head, while his family were around him, Claverhouse, with his own bloody hands, placed the glorious diadem of martyrdom.
He had been told what had befallen me and mine, and was greatly amazed to hear my voice, and that I was again come to myself; and he helped both my son and me into the cart; and, as he walked by the wheel, he told me of many things which had happened during my eclipse, and of the dreadful executions at Edinburgh, of the prisoners taken at Airsmoss, and how that papist James Stuart, Duke of York, the King's brother, was placed at the head of the Scottish councils, and was then rioting in the delights of cruelty, with the use of the torture and the thumbikins upon prisoners suspected, or accused of being honest to their vows and their religious profession. But my mind was unsettled, and his tale of calamity passed over it like the east wind that blew that night so freezingly, cruel to the sense at the time, but of which the morrow showed no memorial.
I said nothing to Robin Brown of what my intent was, but that I was on my way to join the Cameronians, if I knew where they might be found; and he informed me, that after the raid of Airsmoss they had scattered themselves into the South Country, where, as Claverhouse had the chief command, the number of their friends was likely to be daily increased, by the natural issue of his cruelties, and that vindictive exasperation, which was a passion and an affection of his mind for the discomfiture he had met with at Drumclog.
"But," said the worthy man, "I hope, Ringan Gilhaize, ye'll yet consider the step before ye tak it. Ye're no at this time in a condition o' health to warsle wi' hardship, and your laddie there's owre young to be o' ony fek in the way o' war; for, ye ken, the Cameronians hae declar't war against the King, and, being few and far apart, they're hunted down in a' places."
"If I canna fight wi' men," replied my brave stripling, "I can help my father; but I'm no fear't. David was but a herd laddie, maybe nae aulder nor bigger than me, when he fell't the muckle Philistine wi' a stane."
I made no answer myself to Robin Brown's remonstrance, because my resolution was girded as it were with a gir of brass and adamant, and, therefore, to reason more or farther concerning aught but of the means to achieve my purpose, was a thing I could not abide. Only I said to him, that being weary, and not in my wonted health, I would try to compose myself to sleep, and he would waken me when he thought fit, for that I would not go with him to Glasgow, but shape our way towards the South Country. So I stretched myself out, and my dear son laid himself at my back, and the worthy man happing us with his plaid, we soon fell asleep.
When the cart stopped at the Kingswell, where Robin was in the usage of halting half an hour, he awoke us; and there being no strangers in the house we alighted, and going in, warmed ourselves at the fire.
Out of a compassion for me the mistress warmed and spiced a pint of ale; but instead of doing me any good, I had not long partaken of the same when I experienced a great coldness and a trembling in my limbs, in so much that I felt myself very ill, and prayed the kind woman to allow me to lie down in a bed; which she consented to do in a most charitable manner, causing her husband, who was a covenanted man, as I afterwards found, to rise out of his, and give me their own.
The cold and the tremblings were but the symptoms and beginnings of a sore malady, which soon rose to such a head that Robin Brown taiglet more than two hours for me; but still I grew worse and worse, and could not be removed for many days. On the fifth I was brought so nigh unto the gates of death that my son, who never left the bed-stock, thought at one time I had been released from my troubles. But I was reserved for the task that the Lord had in store for me, and from that time I began to recover; and nothing could exceed the tenderness wherewith I was treated by those Samaritan Christians, the landlord and his wife of the public at Kingswell. This distemper, however, left a great imbecility of body behind it; and I wondered whether it could be of providence to prevent me from going forward with my avenging purpose against Charles Stuart and his counsellors.
Being one day in this frame of dubiety, lying in the bed, and my son sitting at my pillow, I said to him, "Get the Book and open, and read," which he accordingly did; and the first verse that he cast his eye upon was the twenty-fourth of the seventh chapter of Isaiah, "With arrows and with bows shall men come."
"Stop" said I, "and go to the window and see who are coming;" but when he went thither and looked out he could see no one far nor near. Yet still I heard the tramp of many feet, and I said to him, "Assuredly, Joseph, there are many persons coming towards this house, and I think they are not men of war, for their steps are loose, and they march not in the order of battle."
This I have thought was a wonderful sharpness of hearing with which I was for a season then gifted; for soon after a crowd of persons were discovered coming over the moor towards the house, and it proved to be Mr Cargill, with about some sixty of the Cameronians, who had been hunted from out their hiding-places in the south.
It is surely a most strange matter, that whenever I come to think and to write of the events of that period, and of my sickness at Kingswell, my thoughts relapse into infirmity, and all which then passed move, as it were, before me in mist, disorderly and fantastical. But wherefore need I thus descant of my own estate, when so many things of the highest concernment are pressing upon my tablets for registration? Be it therefore enough that I mention here how much I was refreshed by the prayers of Mr Cargill, who was brought into my sick-chamber, where he wrestled with great efficacy for my recovery; and that after he had made an end, I felt so much strengthened that I caused myself to be raised from my bed and placed in a chair at the open window, that I might see the men who had been heartened from on high by the sense of their sufferings, to proclaim war against the man-sworn King, our common foe.
They were scattered before the house, to the number of more than fifty, some sitting on stones, others stretched on the heather, and a few walking about by themselves, ruminating on mournful fancies. Their appearance was a thought wild and raised,—their beards had not been shaven for many a day,—their apparel was also much rent, and they had all endured great misfortunes in their families and substance. Their homes had been made desolate; some had seen their sons put to death, and not a few the ruin of their innocent daughters and the virtuous wives of their bosoms,—all by the fruit of laws and edicts which had issued from the councils of Charles Stuart, and were enforced by men drunken with the authority of his arbitrary will.
But though my spirit clove to theirs, and was in unison with their intent, I could not but doubt of so poor a handful of forlorn men, though it be written, that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, and I called to my son to bring me the Book, that I might be instructed from the Word what I ought at that time to do; and when he had done so I opened it, and the twenty-second chapter of Genesis met my eye, and I was awed and trembled, and my heart was melted with sadness and an agonising grief. For the command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac his only son, whom he so loved, on the mountains in the land of Moriah, required of me to part with my son, and to send him with the Cameronians; and I prayed with a weeping spirit and the imploring silence of a parent's heart, that the Lord would be pleased not to put my faith to so great a trial.
I took the Book again, and I opened it a second time, and the command of the sacred oracle was presented to me in the fifth verse of the fifth chapter of Ecclesiastes,—
"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."
But still the man and the father were powerful with my soul; and the weakness of disease was in me, and I called my son towards me, and I bowed my head upon his hands as he stood before me, and wept very bitterly, and pressed him to my bosom, and was loath to send him away.
He knew not what caused the struggle wherewith he saw me so moved, and he became touched with fear lest my reason was again going from me. But I dried my eyes, and told him it was not so, and that maybe I would be better if I could compose myself to read a chapter. So I again opened the volume, and the third command was in the twenty-sixth verse of the eight chapter of St Matthew,—
"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"
But still notwithstanding my rebellious heart would not consent;—and I cried, "I am a poor, infirm, desolate, and destitute man, and he is all that is left me. O that mine eyes were closed in death, and that this head, which sorrow and care and much misery have made untimely grey, were laid on its cold pillow, and the green curtain of the still kirk yard were drawn around me in my last long sleep."
Then again the softness of a mother's fondness came upon my heart, and I grasped the wondering stripling's hands in mine, and shook them, saying, "But it must be so. It is the Lord's will; thrice has he commanded, and I dare not rebel thrice."
"What has He commanded, father?" said the boy, "what is His will? for ye ken it maun be done."
"Read," said I, "the twenty-second chapter of Genesis."
"I ken't, father; it's about Abraham and wee Isaac; but though ye tak me into the land of Moriah, and up to the top of the hill, maybe a ram will be catched by the horns in a whin-bush for the burnt-offering, and ye'll no hae ony need to kill me."
At that moment Mr Cargill came again into the room to bid me farewell; but seeing my son standing with a tear of simplicity in his eye, and me in the weakness of my infirm estate weeping upon his hands, he stopped and inquired what then had so moved us; whereupon I looked towards him and said,—
"When I was taken with the malady that has thus changed the man in me to more than the gentleness of woman, ye ken, as I have already told you, we were bowne to seek your folk out and to fight on your side. But when I beheld your dejected and much-persecuted host, a doubt came to me, that surely it could not be that the Lord intended through them to bring about the deliverance of the land; and under this doubt as to what I should now do, and my limbs being moreover still in the fetters of sickness, I consulted the oracle of God."
"And what has been the answer?"
"It has instructed me to send my son with you. But O, it is a terrible probation."
"You have done well, my friend," replied the godly man, "to seek advice from the Word; but apply again, and maybe—maybe, Ringan, ye'll no be put to so great a trial."
To this I could only say, "Alas! sir, twice have I again consulted the oracle, and twice has the answer been an exhortation and a reproach that I should be so loath to obey."
"But what for, father," interposed my son, "need ye be sae fashed about it. I would ne'er refuse;—I'm ready to gang if ye were na sae weakly;—and though the folk afore the house are but a wee waff-like, ye ken it is written in the Book that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong."
Mr Cargill looked with admiration at the confidence of this young piety, and, laying his hand on the boy's head, said, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. The Lord is in this, Ringan, put your trust in Him."
Whereupon I took my son's hand, and I placed it in the martyr's hand, and I said, "Take him, lead him wheresoever ye will. I have sinned almost to disobedience, but the confidence has been renewed within me."
"Rejoice," said Mr Cargill, in words that were as the gift of health to my enfeebled spirit, "rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
As he pronounced the latter clause I felt my thoughts flash with a wild remembrance of the desolation of my house; but he began to return thanks for the comfort that he himself enjoyed in his outcast condition, of beholding so many proofs of the unshaken constancy of faith still in the land, and prayed for me in words of such sweet eloquence, that even in the parting from my son,—my last, whom I loved so well, they cherished me with a joy passing all understanding.
At the conclusion of his inspired thanksgiving, I kissed my Joseph on the forehead, and bidding him remember what his father's house had been, bade him farewell.
His young heart was too full to reply; and Mr Cargill too was so deeply affected that he said nothing; so, after shaking me by the hand, he led him away.
And if I did sin when they were departed, in the complaint of my childless desolation, for no less could I account it, it was a sin that surely will not be heavily laid against me. "O Absalom, my son, my son,—would I had died for thee," cried the warlike King David, when Absalom was slain in rebellion against him, and he had still many children; but my innocent Absalom was all that I had left.
During the season that the malady continued upon me, through the unsuspected agency of Robin Brown, a paction was entered into with certain of my neighbours, to take the lands of Quharist on tack among them, and to pay me a secret stipend, by which means were obtained to maintain me in a decency when I was able to be removed into Glasgow. And when my strength was so far restored that I could bear the journey, the same good man entered into a stipulation with Mrs Aird, the relict of a Gospel minister, to receive me as a lodger, and he carried me in on his cart to her house at the foot of the Stockwell.
With that excellent person I continued several months unmolested, but without hearing any tidings of my son. Afflicting tales were however of frequent occurrence, concerning the rigour wherewith the Cameronians were hunted; so that what with anxiety, and the backwardness of nature to rally in ailments ayont fifty, I continued to languish, incapable of doing anything in furtherance of the vow of vengeance that I had vowed. Nor should I suppress, that in my infirmity there was often a wildness about my thoughts, by which I was unfitted at times to hold communion with other men.
On these occasions I sat wondering if the things around me were not the substanceless imageries of a dream, and fancying that those terrible truths whereof I can yet only trust myself to hint, might be the fallacies of a diseased sleep. And I contested as it were with the reality of all that I saw, touched, and felt, and struggled like one oppressed with an incubus, that I might awake and find myself again at Quharist in the midst of my family.
At other times I felt all the loneliness of the solitude into which my lot was then cast, and it was in vain that I tried to appease my craving affections with the thought, that in parting with my son I had given him to the Lord. I durst not say to myself there was aught of frenzy in that consecration; but when I heard of Cameronians shot on the hills or brought to the scaffold, I prayed that I might receive some token of an accepted offering in what I had done.
Sterner feelings too had their turns of predominance. I recalled the manifold calamities which withered my native land—the guilty provocations that the people had received—the merciless avarice and rapacious profligacy that had ruined so many worthies—the crimes that had scattered so many families—and the contempt with which all our wrongs and woes were regarded; and then I would remember my avenging vow, and supplicate for health.
At last, one day Mrs Aird, who had been out on some household cares, returned home in great distress of mind, telling me that the soldiers had got hold of Mr Cargill, and had brought him into the town.
This happened about the ninth or tenth of July, in the afternoon; and the day being very sultry, the heat had oppressed me with langour, and I was all day as one laden with sleep. But no sooner had Mrs Aird told me this, than I felt the langour depart from me, as if a cumbrous cloak had been taken away, and I rose up a recruited and reanimated man. It was so much the end of my debility of body and sorrowing of mind, that she was loquacious with her surprise when she saw me, as it were, with a miraculous restoration, prepare myself to go out in order to learn, if possible, some account of my son.
When, however, I went into the street, and saw a crowd gathered around the guard-house, my heart failed me a little, not for fear, but because the shouts of the multitude were like the yells and derisions of insult; and I thought they were poured upon the holy sufferer. It was not, however, so; the Gospel-taught people of Glasgow were, notwithstanding their prelatic thraldom, moved far otherwise, and their shouts and scoffings were against a townsman of their own, who had reviled the man of God on seeing him a prisoner among the soldiers in the guard-house.
Not then knowing this I halted, dubious if I should go forward; and while standing in a swither at the corner of the Stockwell, a cart came up from the bridge, driven by a stripling. I saw that the cart and horse were Robin Brown's, and before I had time to look around, my son had me by the hand.
We said little, but rejoiced to see each other again. I observed, however, that his apparel was become old and that his eyes were grown quick and eager like those of the hunted Cameronians whom I saw at Kingswell.
"We hae ta'en Robin Brown's cart frae him," said he; "that I might come wi't unjealoused into the town, to hear what's to be done wi' the minister; but I maun tak it back the night, and maybe we'll fa' in thegither again when I hae done my errand."
With that he parted from me, and giving the horse a touch with his whip, drove it along towards the guard-house, whistling like a blithe country lad that had no care.
As soon as he had so left me I went back to Mrs Aird, and providing myself with what money I had in the house, I went to a shop and bought certain articles of apparel, which having made up into a bundle, I requested, the better to disguise my intent, the merchant to carry it himself to Robin Brown the Ayr carrier's cart, and give it to the lad who was with it, to take to Joseph Gilhaize,—a thing easy to be done, both the horse and cart being well known in those days to the chief merchants then in Glasgow.
When I had done this, I went to the bridge, and leaning over it, looked into the peaceful flowing tide, and there waited for nearly an hour before I saw my son returning; and when at last he came, I could perceive, as he was approaching, that he did not wish I should speak to him, while at the same time he edged towards me, and in passing, said as it were to himself, "The bundle's safe, and he's for Edinburgh;" by which I knew that the apparel I had bought for him was in his hands, and that he had learnt Mr Cargill was to be sent to Edinburgh.
This latter circumstance, however, opened to me a new light with respect to the Cameronians, and I guessed that they had friends in the town with whom they were in secret correspondence. But, alas! the espionage was not all on their part, as I very soon was taught to know by experience.
Though the interviews with Joseph my son passed, as I have herein narrated, they had not escaped observance. For some time before, though I was seen but as I was, an invalid man, somewhat unsettled in his mind, there were persons who marvelled wherefore it was that I dwelt in such sequestration with Mrs Aird; and their marvelling set the espial of the prelacy upon me. And it so fell out that some of those evil persons, who, for hire or malice, had made themselves the beagles of the persecutors, happened to notice the manner in which my son came up to me when he entered the city driving Robert Brown's cart, and they jealoused somewhat of the truth.
They followed him unsuspected, and saw in what manner he mingled with the crowd; and they traced him returning out of the town with seemingly no other cause for having come into it, than to receive the little store of apparel that I had provided for him. This was ground enough to justify any molestation against us, and accordingly the same night I was arrested, and carried next morning to Edinburgh. The cruel officers would have forced me to walk with the soldiers, but every one who beheld my pale face and emaciated frame, cried out against it, and a cart was allowed to me.
On reaching Edinburgh, I was placed in the tolbooth, where many other sufferers for the cause of the Gospel were then lying. It was a foul and an unwholesome den: many of the guiltless inmates were so wasted that they were rather like frightful effigies of death than living men. Their skins were yellow, and their hands were roped and warpt with veins and sinews in a manner very awful to see. Their eyes were vivid with a strange distemperature, and there was a charnel-house anatomy in the melancholy with which they welcomed a new brother in affliction, that made me feel, when I entered among them, as if I had come into the dark abode of spectres, and manes, and dismal shadows.
The prison was crowded over-much, and though life was to many not worth the care of preservation, they yet esteemed it as the gift of their Maker, and as such considered it their duty to prolong for His sake. It was, therefore, a rule with them to stand in successive bands at the windows, in order that they might taste of the living air from without; and knowing from dismal experience, that those who came in the last suffered at first more than those who were before, it was a charitable self-denial among them to allow to such a longer period of the window, their only solace.
Thus it was that on the morning of the third day after I had been immured in that doleful place, I was standing with several others behind a party of those who were in possession of the enjoyment, in order that we might take their places when the hour expired; and while we were thus awaiting in patience the tedious elapse of the weary moments, a noise was heard in the streets, as of the approach of a multitude.
There was something in the coming sound of that tumult unlike the noise of any other multitude;—ever and anon a feeble shouting, and then the roll of a drum; but the general sough was a murmur of horror followed by a rushing as if the people were scared by some dreadful sight.
The noise grew louder and nearer, and hoarse bursts of aversion and anger, mingled with lamentations, were distinctly heard. Every one in the prison pressed to the window, wondering what hideous procession could occasion the expression of such contrarious feelings in the populace, and all eager to catch a glimpse of the dismal pageant, expecting that it was some devoted victim, who, according to the practice of the time, was treated as a sentenced criminal, even as he was conveyed to his trial.
"What do you see?" said I to one of the prisoners, who clung to the bars of iron with which the window near where I stood was grated, and who thereby saw farther down the street.
"I can see but the crowd coming," said he, "and every one is looking as if he grewed at something not yet in sight."
At that moment, and while he was speaking, there was a sudden silence in the street.
"What has happened?" said one of the sufferers near me: my heart beat so wildly that I would not myself inquire.
"They have stopped," was the answer; "but now they come. I see the magistrates. Their guard is before them,—the provost is first—they are coming two and two—and they look very sorrowful."
"Are there but the magistrates?" said I, making an effort to press in closer to the window.
"Aye, now it is at hand," said the man who was clinging to the grating of the window. "The soldiers are marching on each side—I see the prisoners;—their hands are tied behind, ilk loaded wi' a goad of iron—they are bareheaded—ane—twa—three—four—five—they are five fatherly-looking men."
"They are Cameronians," said I, somewhat released, I know not wherefore, unless it was because he spoke of no youth being among them.
"Hush!" said he, "here is another—He is on horseback—I see the horse's head—Oh! the sufferer is an old grey-headed minister—his head is uncovered—he is placed with his face to the horse's tail—his hands are tied, and his feet are fastened with a rope beneath the horse's belly.—Hush! they are passing under the window."
At that moment a shriek of horror rose from all then looking out, and every one recoiled from the window. In the same instant a bloody head on a halbert was held up to us.—I looked—I saw the ghastly features, and I would have kissed those lifeless lips; for, O! they were my son's.
I had laid that son, my only son, whom I so loved, on the altar of the Covenant, an offering unto the Lord; but still I did hope that maybe it would be according to the mercy of wisdom that He would provide a lamb in the bush for the sacrifice; and when the stripling had parted from me, I often felt as the mother feels when the milk of love is in her bosom, and her babe no longer there. I shall not, however, here relate how my soul was wounded at yon sight, nor ask the courteous reader to conceive with what agony I exclaimed, "Wherefore was it, Lord, that I was commanded to do that unfruitful thing!" for in that very moment the cry of my failing faith was rebuked, and the mystery of the required sacrifice was brought into wonderful effect, manifesting that it was for no light purpose I had been so tried.
My fellow-sufferer, who hung by the bars of the prison-window, was, like the other witnesses, so shaken by the woful spectacle, that he suddenly jerked himself aside to avoid the sight, and by that action the weight of his body loosened the bar, so that when the pageantry of horrors had passed by, he felt it move in his grip, and he told us that surely Providence had an invisible hand in the bloody scene; for, by the loosening of that stancher, a mean was given whereby we might all escape. Accordingly it was agreed that as soon as the night closed over the world, we should join our strengths together to bend the bar from its socket in the lintel.
And then it was I told them that what they had seen was the last relic of my martyred family; and we made ourselves wroth with the recital of our several wrongs; for all there had endured the scourge of the persecutors; and we took each other by the hand, and swore a dreadful oath, never to desist in our endeavours till we had wrenched the sceptre from the tyrannical grasp of the Stuarts, and broken it into pieces for ever; and we burst into a wild strain of complaint and clamour, calling on the blood of our murdered friends to mount, with our cries, to the gates of Heaven; and we sang, as it were, with the voices of the angry waters and the winds, the hundred and ninth psalm; and at the end of every verse we joined our hands, crying, "Upon Charles and James Stuart, and all their guilty line, O Lord, let it be done;" and a vast multitude gathered around the prison, and the lamentations of many without was a chorus in unison with the dismal song of our vengeance and despair.
At last the shadows of the twilight began to darken in the town, and the lights of the windows were to us as the courses of the stars of that sky which, from our prison chamber, could not be seen. We watched their progress, from the earliest yellow glimmering of the lamp in the darksome wynd, till the last little twinkling light in the dwelling of the widow that sits and sighs companionless with her distaff in the summits of the city. And we continued our vigil till they were all one by one extinguished, save only the candles at the bedsides of the dying. Then we twined a portion of our clothes into a rope, and, having fastened it to the iron bar, soon drew it from its place in the stone; but just as we were preparing to take it in, by some accident it fell into the street.
The panic which this caused prevented us from attempting any thing more at that time; for a sentinel walked his rounds on the outside of the tolbooth, and we could not but think he must have heard the noise. A sullen despair in consequence entered into many of our hearts, and we continued for the remainder of the night silent.
But though others were then shaken in their faith, mine was now confident. I saw, by what had happened in the moment of my remonstrance, that there was some great deliverance in reservation; so I sat apart by myself, and I spent the night in inward thanksgiving for what had been already done. Nor was this confidence long without its reward.
In the morning a brother of one of my fellow-sufferers coming to condole with him, it being generally reported that we were all doomed to die, he happened to see the bar lying on the street, and, taking it up, hid it till he had gone into a shop and provided himself with a cord. He then hastened to us, gave us the cord, and making what speed he could, brought the iron in his plaid; and, we having lowered the string from the window, he fastened the bar to it, and we drew it up undiscovered, and reset it in its place, by which the defect could not be seen by any one, not even from the street.
That morning, by the providence which was visible in this, became, in our prison, a season indeed of light and gratulation; and the day passed with us as a Sabbath to our spirits. The anvils of Fear were hushed, and the shuttles in the looms of Anxiety were at rest, while Hope again walked abroad in those sunny fields where, amidst vernal blossoms and shining dews, she expatiates on the delights of the flowing cluster and the ripened fruit.
The young man, who had been so guided to find the bar of iron, concerted with another friend of his to be in readiness at night on a signal from us, to master the sentinel. And at the time appointed they did so; and it happened that the soldier was the same humane Englisher, Jack Windsor, who had allowed me to escape at Kilmarnock, and he not only remained silent, but even when relieved from his post, said nothing; so that, to the number of more than twenty, we lowered ourselves into the street and escaped.
But the city gates at that hour being shut, there was no egress from the town, and many of us knew not where to hide ourselves till the morning. Such was my condition; and wandering up and down for some time, at last I turned into the Blackfriars-wynd, where I saw a light in a window: on looking around I beheld, by that light, engraven on the lintel of an opposite door, "In the Lord is my Hope."
Heartened by the singular providence that was so manifest in that cheering text, I went to the door and knocked, and a maiden answered to the knocking.
I told her what I was, and whence I had come, and entreated her to have compassion, and shelter me for the night.
"Alas!" said she, "what can hae sent you here, for this is a bishop's house?"
I was astounded to hear that I had been so led into the lion's den; but I saw pity in the countenance of the damsel, and I told her that I was the father of the poor youth whose head had been carried by the executioner through the town the day before, and that I could not but believe Providence had sent me thither; for surely no one would ever think of searching for me in a bishop's house.
Greatly moved by what I said, she bade me softly follow her, and she led me to a solitary and ruinous chamber. She then retired, but presently returned with some refreshment, which having placed on an old chest, she bade God be with me, and went away.
With a spirit of inexpressible admiration and thanksgiving I partook of that repast, and then laying myself down on the bare floor, was blessed with the enjoyment of a downy sleep.
I slept in that ruinous room in the Bishop's house till far in the morning, when, on going to the window with the intent of dropping myself into the wynd, I saw that it was ordained and required of me to remain where I then was; for the inmates of the houses forenent were all astir at their respective vocations; and at the foot of the wynd, looking straight up, was a change-house, into which there was, even at that early hour, a great resorting of bein elderly citizens for their dram and snap. Moreover, at the head of the wynd, an aged carlin, with a distaff in her arms and a whorl in her hand, sat on a doorstep tending a stand of apples and comfits; so that, to a surety, had I made any attempt to escape by the window, I must have been seen by some one, and laid hold of. I therefore retired back into the obscurity of the chamber, and sat down again on the old kist-lid, to abide the issues that were in reservation for me. I had not, however, been long there, till I heard the voices of persons entering into the next chamber behind where I was sitting, and I soon discerned by their courtesies of speech, that they were Lords of the Privy Council, who had come to walk with the Bishop to the palace, where a council was summoned in sudden haste that morning. The matter whereof they discoursed was not at first easily made out, for they were conversing on it when they entered; but I very soon gathered that it boded no good to the covenanted cause nor to the liberties of Scotland.
"What you remark, Aberdeen," said one, "is very just; man and wife are the same person; and although Queensberry has observed, that the revenue requires the penalties, and that husbands ought to pay for their wives, I look not on the question in that light; for it is not right, in my opinion, that the revenues of the crown should be in any degree dependent on fines and forfeitures. But the presbyterians are a sect whose main principle is rebellion, and it would be happy for the kingdom were the whole race rooted out; indeed I am quite of the Duke of York's opinion, that there will be little peace among us till the Lowlands are made a hunting-field, and therefore am I as earnest as Queensberry that the fines should be enforced."
"Certainly, my Lord Perth," replied Aberdeen, "it is not to be denied, that, what with their Covenants, and Solemn Leagues, and Gospel pretensions, the presbyterians are dangerous and bad subjects; and though I shall not go so far as to say, with the Duke, that the Lowlands should be laid waste, I doubt if there be a loyal subject west the castle of Edinburgh. Still the office which I have the honour to hold does not allow me to put any interpretation on the law different from the terms in which the sense is conceived."
"Then," said Perth, "if there is any doubt about the terms, the law must be altered; for, unless we can effectually crush the presbyterians, the Duke will assuredly have a rough accession. And it is better to strangle the lion in his nonage than to encounter him in his full growth."
"I fear, my Lord," replied the Earl of Aberdeen, "that the presbyterians are stronger already than we are willing to let ourselves believe. The attempt to make them accept the episcopalian establishment has now been made, without intermission, for more than twenty years, and they are even less submissive than they were at the beginning."
"Yes, I confess," said Lord Perth, "that they are most unreasonably stubborn. It is truly melancholy to see what fools many sensible men make of themselves about the forms of worship, especially about those of a religion so ungentlemanly as the presbyterian, which has no respect for the degrees of rank, neither out nor in the church."
"I'm afraid, Perth," replied Aberdeen, laughing, "that what you say is applicable both to the King and his brother; for, between ourselves, I do not think there are two persons in the realm who attach so much importance to forms as they do."
"Not the King, my Lord, not the King!" cried Perth; "Charles is too much a man of the world to trouble himself about any such trifles."
"They are surely not trifles, for they overturned his father's throne, and are shaking his own," replied Aberdeen, emphatically. "Pray, have you heard any thing of Argyle lately?"
"O yes," exclaimed Perth, merrily; "a capital story. He has got in with a rich burgomaster's frow at Amsterdam; and she has guilders anew to indemnify him for the loss of half the Highlands."
"Aye," replied Aberdeen, "I do not like that; for there has been of late a flocking of the presbyterian malcontents to Holland, and the Prince of Orange gives them a better reception than an honest man should do, standing as he does, both with respect to the crown and the Duke. This, take my word for it, Perth, is not a thing to be laughed at."
"All that, Aberdeen, only shows the necessity of exterminating these cursed presbyterians. We shall have no peace in Scotland till they are swept clean away. It is not to be endured that a King shall not rule his own kingdom as he pleases. How would Argyle, and there was no man prouder in his jurisdictions, have liked had his tenants covenanted against him as the presbyterians have so insultingly done against his Majesty's government? Let every man bring the question home to his own business and bosom and the answer will be a short one, Down with the presbyterians!"
While they were thus speaking, and I need not advert to what passed in my breast as I overheard them, Patterson the Bishop of Edinburgh came in; and with many interjections, mingled with wishes for a calm procedure, he told the Lords of our escape. He was indeed, to do him justice, a man of some repute for plausibility, and take him all in all for a prelate, he was, in truth, not void of the charities of human nature, compared with others of his sect.
"Your news," said the Lord Perth to him, "does not surprise me. The societies, as the Cameronians are called, have inserted their roots and feelers every where. Rely upon't, Bishop Patterson, that, unless we chop off the whole connexions of the conspiracy, you can hope neither for homage nor reverence in your appointments."
"I could wish," replied the Bishop, "that some experiment were made of a gentler course than has hitherto been tried. It is now a long time since force was first employed: perhaps, were his Royal Highness to slacken the severities, conformity would lose some of its terrors in the eyes of the misguided presbyterians; at all events, a more lenient policy could do no harm; and if it did no good, it would at least be free from those imputed cruelties, which are supposed to justify the long-continued resistance that has brought the royal authority into such difficulties."
At this juncture of their conversation a gentleman announced, that his master was ready to proceed with them to the palace, and they forthwith retired. Thus did I obtain a glimpse of the inner mind of the Privy Council, by which I clearly saw, that what with those members who satisfied their consciences as to iniquity, because it was made seemingly lawful by human statutes, and what with those who, like Lord Perth, considered the kingdom the King's estate, and the people his tenantry, not the subjects of laws by which he was bound as much as they; together with those others who, like the Bishop, considered mercy and justice as expedients of state policy, that there was no hope for the peace and religious liberties of the presbyterians, merely by resistance; and I, from that time, began to think it was only through the instrumentality of the Prince of Orange, then heir-presumptive to the crown, failing James Stuart, Duke of York, that my vow could be effectually brought to pass.
As soon as those of the Privy Council had, with their attendants, left the house, and proceeded to join the Duke of York in the palace, the charitable damsel came to me, and conveyed me, undiscovered, through the hall and into the Cowgate, where she had provided a man, a friend of her own, one Charles Brownlee, who had been himself in the hands of the Philistines, to conduct me out of the town; and by him I was guided in safety through the Cowgate, and put into a house just without the same, where his mother resided.
"Here," said he, "it will be as well for you to bide out the daylight, and being now forth the town-wall, ye'll can gang where ye like unquestioned in the gloaming." And so saying he went away, leaving me with his mother, an ancient matron, with something of the remnant of ladyness about her, yet was she not altogether an entire gentlewoman, though at the first glimpse she had the look of one of the very highest degree.
Notwithstanding, however, that apparition of finery which was about her, she was in truth and in heart a sincere woman, and had, in the better days of her younger years, been, as she rehearsed to me, gentlewoman to the Countess of Argyle's mother, and was on a footing of cordiality with divers ladies of the bedchamber of what she called the three nobilities, meaning those of Scotland, England, and Ireland; so that I saw there might by her be opened a mean of espial into the camp of the adversaries. So I told her of my long severe malady, and the shock I had suffered by what I had seen of my martyred son, and entreated that she would allow me to abide with her until my spirits were more composed.
Mrs Brownlee having the compassion of a Christian, and the tenderness of her gentle sex, was moved by my story, and very readily consented. Instead therefore of going forth at random in the evening, as I was at one time mindet, I remained in her house; where indeed could I at that time flee in the hope of finding any place of refuge? But although this was adopted on the considerations of human reason, it was nevertheless a link in the chain of providential methods by which I was to achieve the fulfilment of my vow.
The house of Mrs Brownlee being, as I have intimated, nigh to the gate of the city, I saw from the window all that went into and came out therefrom; and the same afternoon I had visible evidence of the temper wherewith the Duke of York and his counsellors had been actuated that day at Holyrood, in consequence of the manner in which we had been delivered from prison;—for Jack Windsor, the poor sentinel who was on guard when we escaped by the window, was brought out, supported by two of his companions, his feet having been so crushed in the torturous boots before the Council, during his examination anent us, that he could scarcely mark them to the ground; his hands were also bound in cloths, through which the blood was still oozing, from the pressure of those dreadful thumbikins of iron, that were so often used in those days to screw accusations out of honest men. A sympathizing crowd followed the destroyed sufferer, and the sight for a little while afflicted me with sore regret. But when I considered the compassion that the people showed for him, I was filled with a strange satisfaction, deducing therefrom encouraging persuasions, that every new sin of the persecutors removed a prop from their own power, making its overthrow more and more inevitable.
While I was peering from the window in these reflections, I saw Quintin Fullarton, the grandson of John Fullarton of Dykedivots, in the street, and knowing that from the time of Bothwell-brigg he had been joined with that zealous and martyred youth, Richard Cameron, and was, as Robin Brown told me, among other acquaintances at Airsmoss, I entreated Mrs Brownlee to go after him and bid him come to me,—which he readily did, and we had a mournful communing for some time.
He told me the particulars of my gallant Joseph's death, and that it was by the command of Claverhouse himself that the brave stripling's head was cut off and sent in ignominy to Edinburgh; where, by order of the Privy Council, it was placed on the Netherbow.
"What I hae suffered from that man," said I, "Heaven may pardon, but I can neither forget nor forgive."
"The judgment time's coming," replied Quintin Fullarton; "and your part in it, Ringan Gilhaize, assuredly will not be forgotten, for in the heavens there is a Doer of justice and an Avenger of wrongs."
And then he proceeded to tell me, that on the following afternoon there was to be a meeting of the heads of the Cameronian societies, with Mr Renwick, in a dell of the Esk, about half a mile above Laswade, to consult what ought to be done, the pursuit and persecution being so hot against them, that life was become a burden, and their minds desperate.
"We hae many friens," said he, "in Edinburgh, and I am entrusted to warn them to the meeting, which is the end of my coming to the town; and maybe, Ringan Gilhaize, ye'll no objek yoursel to be there?"
"I will be there, Quintin Fullarton," said I; "and in the strength of the Lord I will come armed, with a weapon of more might than the sword and more terrible than the ball that flieth unseen."
"What mean you, Ringan?" said he, compassionately; for he knew of my infirmity, and thought that I was still fevered in the mind. But I told him, that for some time, feeling myself unable for warlike enterprises, I had meditated on a way to perplex our guilty adversaries, the which was to menace them with retaliation, for resistance alone was no longer enough.
"We have disowned Charles Stuart as our king," said I, "and we must wage war accordingly. But go your ways and execute your purposes; and by the time you return this way I shall have a paper ready, the sending forth of which will strike terror into the brazen hearts of our foes."
I perceived that he was still dubious of me; but nevertheless he promised to call as he came back; and, having gone away, I set myself down and drew up that declaration, wherein, after again calmly disowning the royal authority of Charles Stuart, we admonished our sanguinary persecutors, that, for self-preservation, we would retaliate according to our power, and the degree of guilt on such privy counsellors, lords of justiciary, officers and soldiers, their abettors and informers, whose hands should continue to be imbrued in our blood. And on the return of Quintin Fullarton, I gave the paper to him, that it might be seen and considered by Mr Renwick and others, previous to offering it to the consideration of the meeting.
He read it over very sedately, and folded it up and put it in the crown of his bonnet without saying a word; but several times, while he was reading, he cast his eyes towards me, and when he rose to go away he said, "Ringan Gilhaize, you have endured much; but verily, if this thing can be brought to pass, your own and all our sufferings will soon be richly revenged."
"Not revenged," said I; "revenge, Quintin Fullarton, becomes not Christian men. But we shall be the executioners of the just judgments of Him whose ministers are flaming fires, and pestilence, and war, and storms, and perjured kings."
With these words we parted; and next morning, by break of day, I rose, after the enjoyment of a solacing sleep, such as I had not known for many days, and searched my way across the fields towards Laswade. I did not, however, enter the clachan, but lingered among the woods till the afternoon, when, descending towards the river, I walked leisurely up the banks, where I soon fell in with others of the associated friends.
The place where we met was a deep glen, the scroggy sides whereof were as if rocks, and trees and brambles, with here and there a yellow primrose and a blue hyacinth between, had been thrown by some wild architect into many a difficult and fantastical form. Over a ledge of rock fell the bright waters of the Esk, and in the clear linn the trouts shuttled from stone and crevice, dreading the persecutions of the angler, who, in the luxury of his pastime, heedeth not what they may in their cool element suffer.
It was then the skirt of the afternoon, about the time when the sweet breathing of flowers and boughs first begins to freshen to the gentle senses, and the shadows deepen in the cliffs of the rocks and darken among the bushes. The yellow sunbeams were still bright on the flickering leaves of a few trees, which here and there raised their tufty heads above the glen; but in the hollow of the chasm the evening had commenced, and the sobriety of the fragrant twilight was coming on.
As we assembled one by one, we said little to each other. Some indeed said nothing, nor even shook hands, but went and seated themselves on the rocks, round which the limpid waters were swirling with a soft and pleasant din, as if they solicited tranquillity. For myself, I had come with the sternest intents, and I neither noticed nor spoke to any one; but going to the brink of the linn, I sat myself down in a gloomy nook, and was sullen, that the scene was not better troubled into unison with the resentful mood of my spirit.
At last Mr Renwick came, and when he had descended into the dell, where we were gathered together, after speaking a few words of courtesy to certain of his acquaintance, he went to a place on the shelvy side of the glen, and took his station between two birch-trees.
"I will be short with you, friends," said he; "for here we are too nigh unto the adversaries to hazard ourselves in any long debate; and therefore I will tell you, as a man speaking the honesty that is within him, I neither can nor do approve of the paper that I understand some among you desire we should send forth. I have, however, according to what was exhibited to me in private, brought here a proclamation, such as those who are most vehement among us wish to propound; but I still leave it with yourselves to determine whether or not it should be adopted—entering, as I here do, my caveat as an individual against it. This paper will cut off all hope of reconciliation—we have already disowned King Charles, it is true; but this implies, that we are also resolved to avenge, even unto blood and death, whatsoever injury we may in our own persons and friends be subjected to suffer. It pledges us to a war of revenge and extermination; and we have to consider, before we wage the same, the strength of our adversary—the craft of his counsellors—and the malice with which their fears and their hatred will inspire them. For my own part, fellow-sufferers, I do doubt if there be any warrandice in the Scriptures for such a defiance as this paper contains, and I would fain entreat you to reflect, whether it be not better to keep the door of reconciliation open, than to shut it for ever, as the promulgation of this retaliatory edict will assuredly do."
The earnest manner in which Mr Renwick thus delivered himself had a powerful effect, and many thought as he did, and several rose and said that it was not Christian to bar the door on peace, and to shut out even the chance of contrition on the part of the King and his ministers.
I heard what they said—I listened to what they argued—and I allowed them to tell that they were willing to agree to more moderate counsels; but I could abide no more.
"Moderation!—You, Mr Renwick," said I, "counsel moderation—you recommend the door of peace to be still kept open—you doubt if the Scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; and you hope that our forbearance may work to repentance among our enemies. Mr Renwick, you have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you the resistance to Charles Stuart's government has been a thing of doctrine—of no more than doctrine, Mr Renwick—with us it is a consideration of facts. Judge ye therefore between yourself and us,—I say between yourself and us; for I ask no other judge to decide, whether we are not, by all the laws of God and man, justified in avowing, that we mean to do as we are done by.
"And, Mr Renwick, you will call to mind, that in this sore controversy, the cause of debate came not from us. We were peaceable Christians, enjoying the shade of the vine and fig-tree of the Gospel, planted by the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the laws, and gladdened in our protection by the oaths and the covenants which the King had sworn to maintain. The presbyterian freedom of worship was our property,—we were in possession and enjoyment, no man could call our right to it in question,—the King had vowed, as a condition before he was allowed to receive the crown, that he would preserve it. Yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavour instituted, and carried on, to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. We were asking no new thing from Government, we were taking no step to disturb Government, we were in peace with all men, when Government, with the principles of a robber and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended; to deny the Gospel as it is written in the Evangelists, and to accept the commentary of Charles Stuart, a man who has had no respect to the most solemn oaths, and of James Sharp, the apostate of St Andrews, whose crimes provoked a deed, that but for their crimson hue, no man could have doubted to call a most foul murder. The King and his crew, Mr Renwick, are, to the indubitable judgment of all just men, the causers and the aggressors in the existing difference between his subjects and him. In so far, therefore, if blame there be, it lieth not with us nor in our cause.
"But, sir, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of religious worship, Charles Stuart and his abettors have pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than they ever did any crime. I speak not to you, Mr Renwick, of your own outcast condition,—perhaps you delight in the perils of martyrdom; I speak not to those around us, who, in their persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture, poverty, and irremediable dishonour,—they may be meek and hallowed men, willing to endure. But I call to mind what I am and was myself. I think of my quiet home,—it is all ashes. I remember my brave first-born,—he was slain at Bothwell-brigg. Why need I speak of my honest brother; the waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutors, have triumphed over him in the cold seas of the Orkneys; and as for my wife, what was she to you? Ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. No, ye are quiet, calm, and prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of you, you who have suffered no wrong yourselves, to stir on her account; and then how unreasonable I should be, were I to speak of two fair and innocent maidens.—It is weak of me to weep, though they were my daughters. O men and Christians, brothers, fathers! but ye are content to bear with such wrongs, and I alone of all here may go to the gates of the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering there belongs to a son or a friend. Nor is it of any account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. To the dead all places are alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. Let us therefore forget the past,—let us keep open the door of reconciliation,—smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler. We have our lives; we have been spared; the merciless blood-hounds have not yet reached us. Let us therefore be humble and thankful, and cry to Charles Stuart, O King live for ever!—for he has but cast us into a fiery furnace and a lion's den.
"In truth, friends, Mr Renwick is quite right. This feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing. If we desire to enjoy our own contempt, and to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of Heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that Charles Stuart and his sect require. We can do nothing better, nothing so meritorious, nothing by which we can so reasonably hope for punishment here and condemnation hereafter. But if there is one man at this meeting,—I am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings,—if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword, and say with me, Woe to the house of Stuart! Woe to the oppressors! Blood for blood! Judge and avenge our cause, O Lord!"