Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 28

"That a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations, conditions, and circ.u.mstances, to uphold the cause."

"True, true, we are a' Covenanters," replied the deacon, "and Gude forbid that I should e'er forget the vows I took when I was in a manner a bairn; but there's an unco difference between the auld covenanting and this Lanerk New-light. In the auld times, our forbears and our fathers covenanted to show their power, that the King and government might consider what they were doing. And they betook not themselves to the sword, till the quiet warning of almost all the realm united in one league had proved ineffectual; and when at last there was nae help for't, and they were called by their conscience and dangers to gird themselves for battle, they went forth in the might and power of the arm of flesh, as weel as of a righteous cause. But, sirs, this donsie business of the Pentland raid was but a splurt, and the publishing of the Covenant, after the poor folk had made themselves rebels, was, to say the least o't, a weak conceit."

"We were not rebels," cried Esau Wardrop.

"Hoot toot, friend," said the counsellor, "ye're owre hasty. I did na ca' the poor folk rebels in the sense of a rebellion, where might takes the lead in a controversy wi' right, but because they had risen against the law."

"There can be nae rebellion against a law that teaches things over which man can have no control, the thought and the conscience," said Esau Wardrop.

"Aye, aye," replied the counsellor, "a' that's vera true; but if it please the wisdom of the King, by and with the advice of his privy counsellors, to prohibit certain actions,--and surely actions are neither thoughts nor consciences,--do ye mean to say that the subject's no bound to obey such royal ordinances?"

"Aye, if the acts are in themselves harmless, and trench not upon any man's rights of property and person."

"Weel, I'll no debate that wi' you," replied the worthy counsellor; "but surely ye'll ne'er maintain that conventicles, and the desertion of the regular and appointed places of worship, are harmless; nor can it be denied that sic things do not tend to aggrieve and impair the clergy baith in their minds and means?"

"I confess that," said Esau; "but think, that the conventicles and desertions, whereof ye speak, sprang out of an arbitrary and uncalled-for disturbance of the peaceful worship of G.o.d. Evil counselling caused them, and evil counselling punishes them till the punishment can be no longer endured."

"Ye're a doure-headed man," said Deacon Fulton, "and really ye hae gi'en me sic a cast o' your knowledge that I can do no less than make you a return; so tak this, and bide nae langer in Paisley than your needs call." With that he laid his purse on the table and went away. But scarcely had he departed the house when who should enter but the very soldiers from whom my brother and Esau had so marvellously escaped.

CHAPTER LXVII

The noise of taking up my brother and Esau Wardrop to the tolbooth by the soldiers bred a great wonderment in the town, and the magistrates came into the prison to see them. Then it was that they recognised their friendly adviser among those in authority. But he signified by winking to them that they should not know him; to which they comported themselves so, that it pa.s.sed as he could have wished.

"Provost," said he to the chief magistrate, who was then present with them, "though thir honest men be concerned in a fret against the King's government, they're no just iniquitous malefactors, and therefore it behoves us, for the little time they are to bide here, to deal compa.s.sionately with them. This is a damp and cauld place. I'm sure we might gi'e them the use of the council-chamber, and direk a bit s.p.u.n.k o'

fire to be kindl't. It's, ye ken, but for this night they are to be in our aught; and their crime, ye ken, provost, was mair o' the judgment than the heart, and therefore we should think how we are a' p.r.o.ne to do evil."

By this sort of pet.i.tionary exhorting that worthy man carried his point, and the provost consented that the prisoners should be removed to the council-chamber, where he directed a fire to be lighted for their solace.

"Noo, honest men," said their friend the deacon, when he was taking leave of them, after seeing them in the council-room, "I hope you'll make yoursels as comfortable as men in your situation can reasonably be; and look ye," said he to my brother, "if the wind should rise, and the smoke no vent sae weel as ye could wis, which is sometimes the case in blowy weather when the door's shut, just open a wee bit jinkie o' this window," and he gave him a squeeze on the arm--"it looks into my yard.

Heh! but it's weel mindet, the bar on my back-yett's in the want o'

reparation--I maun see til't the morn."

There was no difficulty in reading the whumplet meaning of this couthiness anent the reeking o' the chamber; and my brother and Esau, when the door was locket on them for the night, soon found it expedient to open the window, and next morning the kind counsellor had more occasion than ever to get the bar o' his back-yett repaired; for it had yielded to the grip of the prisoners, who, long afore day, were far beyond the eye and jurisdiction of the magistrates of Paisley.

They took the straight road to Kilmarnock, intending, if possible, to hide themselves among some of my brother Jacob's wife's friends in that town. He had himself been dead some short time before; but in the course of their journey, in eschewing the high-road as much as possible, they found a good friend in a cottar who lived on the edge of the Mearns moor, and with him they were persuaded to bide till the day of that night when we met in so remarkable a manner on the sands of Ardrossan; and the cause that brought him there was one of the severest trials to which he had yet been exposed, as I shall now rehea.r.s.e.

James Greig, the kind cottar who sheltered them for the better part of three weeks, was but a poor man, and two additional inmates consumed the meal which he had laid in for himself and his wife, so that he was obligated to apply twice for the loan of some from a neighbour, which caused a suspicion to arise in that neighbour's mind; and he being loose-tongued, and a talking man, let out what he thought in a public at Kilmarnock, in presence of some one connected with the soldiers then quartered in the Dean-castle. A party, in consequence, had that morning been sent out to search for them; but the thoughtless man who had done the ill was seized with a remorse of conscience for his folly, and came in time to advise them to flee; but not so much in time as to prevent them from being seen by the soldiers, who no sooner discovered them than they pursued them. What became of Esau Wardrop was never known; he was no doubt shot in his flight; but my brother was more fortunate, for he kept so far before those who in particular pursued him, that, although they kept him in view, they could not overtake him.

Running in this way for life and liberty, he came to a house on the road-side, inhabited by a lanerly woman, and the door being open he darted in, pa.s.sing through to the yard behind, where he found himself in an enclosed place, out of which he saw no other means of escape but through a ditch full of water. The depth of it at the time he did not think of, but plunging in, he found himself up to the chin; at that moment he heard the soldiers at hand; so the thought struck him to remain where he was, and to go under a bramble-bush that overhung the water. By this means he was so effectually concealed, that the soldiers, losing sight of him, wreaked their anger and disappointment on the poor woman, dragging her with them to the Dean-castle, where they threw her into the dungeon, in the darkness of which she perished, as was afterwards well known through all that country-side.

After escaping from the ditch, my brother turned his course more northerly, and had closed his day of suffering on Kilbride-hill, where, drawn by his affections to seek some knowledge of his wife and daughter, he had resolved to risk himself as near as possible to Quharist that night; and coming along with the shower on his back, which blew so strong in our faces, he saw us by the glimpses of the tempestuous moonlight as we were approaching, and had denned himself on the road-side till we should pa.s.s, being fearful we might prove enemies.

Some accidental lament or complaint, uttered unconsciously by me, made him, however, think he knew the voice, and moved thereby, he started up, and had just joined us when he was discovered in so awakening a manner.

Thus came my brother and I to meet after the raid of Pentland; and having heard from me all that he could reasonably hope for, regarding the most valued casket of his affections, he came along with Mr Witherspoon; and we were next morning safely ferried over into the wee c.u.mbrae, by James Plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known.

There was then only a herd's house on the island; but there could be no truer or kinder Christians than the herd and his wife. We staid with them till far in the year, hearing often, through James Plowter, of our friends; and above all the joyous news, in little more than a week after our landing, of Sarah Lochrig having been permitted to leave the tolbooth of Irvine, without further dule than a reproof from Provost Reid, that had more in it of commendation than reproach.

CHAPTER LXVIII

It is well set forth in all the various histories of this dismal epoch, that the cry of blood had gone so vehemently up to heaven from the graves of the martyred Covenanters, that the Lord moved the heart of Charles Stuart to more merciful measures, but only for a season. The apostate James Sharp and the other counsellors, whose weakness or wickedness fell in with his tyrannical proselytising purposes, were wised from the rule of power, and the Earls of Tweeddale and Kincardine, with that learned sage and philosopher, Sir John Murray, men of more beneficent dispositions, were appointed to sit in their places in the Privy Council at Edinburgh;--so that all in our condition were heartened to return to their homes.

As soon as we heard that the ravenous soldiery were withdrawn from the shire of Ayr, my brother and I, with Mr Witherspoon, after an abode of more than seven months in yon solitary and rocky islet, returned to Quharist. But, O courteous reader, I dare not venture to tell of the joy of the meeting, and the fond intermingling of embraces, that was too great a reward for all our sufferings;--for now I approach the memorials of those things, by which the terrible Heavens have manifested that I was ordained from the beginning to launch the bolt that was chosen from the quiver in the armoury of the Almighty avenger, to overthrow the oppressor and oppression of my native land. It is therefore enough to state that, upon my return home, where I expected to find my lands waste and my fences broken down, I found all things in better order than they maybe would have been had the eye of the master been over them; for our kind neighbours, out of a friendly consideration for my family, had in the spring tilled the ground and sown the seed by day-and-day-about labour; and surely it was a pleasant thing, in the midst of such a general depravity of the human heart, so prevalent at that period, to hear of such constancy and Christian-mindedness; for it was not towards my brother and me only that such things were done; the same was common throughout the country towards the lands and families of the persecuted.

But the lown of that time was as a pet day in winter. In the harvest, however, when the proposal came out that we should give bonds to keep the peace, I made no scruple of signing the same, and of getting my wife's father, who was not out in the raid, to be my cautioner. In the doing of this I did not renounce the Covenant; but, on the contrary, I considered that by the bonds the King was as much bound to preserve things in the state under which I granted the bond as I was to remain in the quiet condition I was when I signed it.

After the bonds of peace came the indulgence, and the chief heritors of our parish having something to say with the Lord Tweeddale, leave was obtained for Mr Swinton to come back, and we had made a paction with Andrew Dornock, the prelatic curate and inc.u.mbent, to let him have his manse again. But although Mr Swinton did return, and his family were again gathered around him, he would not, as he said himself to me, so far bow the knee to Baal as to bring the church of Christ in any measure or way into Erastian dependence on the civil magistrate. So he neither would return to the manse nor enter the pulpit, but continued, for the s.p.a.ce of several years, to reside at Quharist, and to preach on the summer Sundays from the window in the gable.

In the spring, however, of the year 1674, he, after a lingering illness, closed his life and ministry. For some time he had felt himself going hence, and the tenour of his prayers and sermons had for several months been of a high and searching efficacy; and he never failed, Sabbath after Sabbath, just before p.r.o.nouncing the blessing, to return public thanks that the Lord was drawing him so softly away from the world, and from the storms that were gathering in the black cloud of prelacy which still overhung and darkened the ministry of the Kirk of Scotland,--a method of admonition that was awfully awakening to the souls of his hearers, and treasured by them as a solemn breathing of the inspiration of prophecy.

When he was laid in the earth, and Mr Witherspoon, by some handling on my part, was invited to fill the void which his removal had left among us, the wind again began to fisle, and the signs of a tempest were seen in the changes of the royal Councils. The gracious-hearted statesmen before spoken of were removed from their benignant spheres like falling stars from the firmament, and the Duke of Lauderdale was endowed with the power to persecute and domineer.

Scarcely was he seated in the Council when the edicts of oppression were renewed. The prelates became clamorous for his interference, and the penalties of the bonds of peace presented the means of supplying the inordinate wants of his rapacious wife. Steps were accordingly soon taken to appease and pleasure both. The court-contrived crime of hearing the Gospel preached in the fields, as it was by John in the Wilderness and Jesus on the Mount, was again prohibited with new rigour; and I for one soon felt that, in the renewed persecution of those who attended the conventicles, the King had again as much broken the conditions under which I gave the bond of peace as he had before broken the vows of the Solemn League and Covenant; so that when the guilty project was ripened in his b.l.o.o.d.y councils, that the West Country should be again exasperated into rebellion, that a reason might be procured for keeping up a standing army, in order that the three kingdoms might be ruled by prerogative instead of parliament, I freely confess that I was one of those who did refuse to sign the bonds that were devised to provoke the rebellion,--bonds, the terms whereof sufficiently manifested the purpose that governed the framers in the framing. We were required by them, under severe penalties, to undertake that neither our families, nor our servants, nor our tenants, nor the servants of our tenants, nor any others residing upon our lands, should withdraw from the churches or adhere to conventicles, or succour field preachers, or persons who had incurred the penalties attached to these prelate-devised offences. And because we refused to sign these bonds, and continued to worship G.o.d in the peacefulness of the Gospel, the whole country was treated by the Duke of Lauderdale as in a state of revolt.

The English forces came mustering against us on the borders, the Irish garrisons were drawn to the coast to invade us, and the lawless Highlanders were tempted, by their need and greed, and a royal promise of indemnity for whatsoever outrages they might commit, to come down upon us in all their fury. By these means ten thousand ruthless soldiers and unreclaimed barbarians were let loose upon us, while we were sitting in the sun listening, I may say truly, to those gracious counsellings which breathe nothing but peace and good-will. When, since the burning days of Dioclesian, the Roman Emperor,--when, since the ma.s.sacre of the protestants by orders of the French king on the eve of St Bartholomew, was so black a crime ever perpetrated by a guilty government on its own subjects? But I was myself among the greatest of the sufferers; and it is needful that I should now clothe my thoughts with sobriety, and restrain the ire of the pen of grief and revenge.--Not revenge! No; let the word be here--justice.

The Highland host came on us in want, and, but for their license to destroy, in beggary. Yet when they returned to their wild homes among the distant hills, they were laden as with the household wealth of a realm, in so much that they were rendered defenceless by the weight of their spoil. At the bridge of Glasgow the students of the College and the other brave youths of that town, looking on them with true Scottish hearts, and wrathful to see that the barbarians had been such robbers of their fellow-subjects, stopped above two thousand of them, and took from them their congregations of goods and wares, wearing apparel, pots, pans, and gridirons, and other furniture, wherewith they had burdened themselves like bearers at a flitting. My house was stript to a wastage, and every thing was taken away; what was too heavy to be easily transported was, after being carried some distance, left on the road.

The very shoes were taken off my wife's feet, and "ye'll no be a refuse to gi'e me that," said a red-haired reprobate as he took hold of Sarah Lochrig's hand and robbed her of her wedding-ring. I was present and saw the deed; I felt my hands clench, but in my spirit I discovered that it was then the hour of outrage, and that the Avenger's time was not yet come.

CHAPTER LXIX

Rarely has it fallen to the lot of man to be so blessed with such children as mine; but surely I was unworthy of the blessing. And yet, though maybe unworthy, Lord, thou knowest by the nightly anthems of thankfulness that rose from my hearth, that the chief sentiment in my breast, in those moments of melody, was my inward acknowledgment to Thee for having made this world so bright to me, with an offspring so good and fair, and with Sarah Lochrig, their mother, she whose life was the sweetness in the cup of my felicity. Let me not, however, hurry on, nor forget that I am but an historian, and that it befits not the juridical pen of the character to dwell upon my own woes when I have to tell of the sufferings of others.

The trials and the tribulations which I had heard so much of, and whereof I had witnessed so many, made me in a sense but little liable to be moved when told of any new outrage. But the sight of that Highlander wrenching from Sarah Lochrig's finger our wedding-ring did, in its effects and influences, cause a change in my nature as sudden and as wonderful as that which the rod of Moses underwent in being quickened into a serpent.

For some time I sat as I was sitting while the deed was doing; and when my wife, after the plunderers had departed, said to me, soothingly, that we had reason to be thankful for having endured no other loss than a little world's gear, she was surprised at the sedateness with which I responded to her pious condolements. Michael, our first-born, then in the prime beauty of his manhood, had been absent when the robbery was committed, and coming in, on hearing what had been done, flamed with the generous rage of youth, and marvelled that I had been so calm. My blithe and blooming Mary joined her ingenuous admiration to theirs, but my mild and sensible Margaret fell upon my neck, and weeping, cried, "O! father, it's no worth the doure thought that gars your brows sae gloom;" while Joseph, the youngest of the flock, then in his twelfth year, brought the Bible and laid it on my knees.

I opened the Book, and would have read a portion, but the pa.s.sage which caught my eye was the beginning of the sixth chapter of Jeremiah, "O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction." And I thought it was a voice calling me to arm, and to raise the banner against the oppressor; and thereupon I shut the Book, and retiring to the fields, communed with myself for some time.

Having returned into the house, and sent Michael to my brother's to inquire how it had fared with him and his family, I at the same time directed Joseph to go to Irvine, and tell our friends there to help us with a supply of blankets, for the Highlanders had taken away my horses and driven off my cattle, and we had no means of bringing any thing.

But Joseph was not long gone when Michael came flying back from my brother's, and I saw by his looks that something very dreadful had been committed, and said,--

"Are they all in life?"

"Aye in life!" and, the tears rushing into his eyes, he exclaimed, "But O! I wish that my cousin Bell had been dead and buried!"

Bell Gilhaize, my brother's only daughter, was the lightest-hearted maiden in all our parish. It had long been a pleasure both to her father and me to observe a mingling of affections between her and Michael, and the year following had been fixt for their marriage.