The Men of the Moss-Hags Part 17

"At the Yule stroke John Gib fell into a moss-hole. We could not easily see what followed then. But the grievous cudgel steadfastly rose and fell like the flail of a man that threshes corn in a barn, and a howling and roaring that was aught but sweet singing came to us over the moor.

"Presently Anton returned, striding back to where I sat upon David Jamie his back.

"'Rise!' he said. And that was all he said.

"But he took his foot and turned the bit clerk over, pulling him out of the moss with a _cloop_ like the cork being drawn out of a brisk bottle of small ale.

"'David, lad, do ye renounce John Gib and all his ways?'

"The limber-limbed student looked doubtful, but the sight of the cudgel and the distant sound of the sweet singing of Muckle John decided him.

"'Ay,' he said. 'I am content to renounce them and him.'

"'See ye and stick to it then!' said Anton, and went after Walter Ker and John Young, who stood together as though they had gotten a dead stroke.

"'Ye saw visions, did ye?' he said. 'See ye if this be a vision?'

"And he gave them certain dour strokes on their bodies, for they were strong carles and could bide the like--not like the poor f.e.c.kless loon of a colleger.

"'Did ye see a light shining in the moss late yestreen?' he asked them.

"'It was but glow-worms!' said Walter Ker.

"'It was, aiblins, Wull-o'-the-Wisp?' said John Young.

"'Ay, that's mair like the thing, noo!' said Auld Anton, with something like a smile on his face.

"So saying he drove all the women (save two or three that had scattered over the moss) before him, till we came to the place of the ordinary Societies' Meeting at Howmuir, from which we set out.

"Here were a.s.sembled sundry of the husbands of the women--for the black shame of it was, that the most part of them were wives and mothers of families, of an age when the faults of youth were no longer either temptation or excuse.

"To them he delivered up the women; each to her own husband, with certain advice.

"'I have wrestled with the men,' he said, 'and overcome them. Wrestle ye with the women, that are your own according to the flesh. And if ye think that my oaken stave is too sore, discharge your duty with a birch rod, of the thickness of your little finger--for it is the law of the realm of Scotland that every husband is allowed to give his wife reasonable correction therewith. But gin ye need my staff or gin your wives prefer it, it is e'en at your service.'

"So saying, he threw his plaid over his shoulder, and made for the door.

"'Learn them a' the sweet singin',' he said. 'John Gib was grand at it.

He sang like a mavis oot by there, on the moor at the Deer-Slunk.'"

This was the matter of Sandy's cheerful tale about John Gib and Auld Anton Lennox.

And this cured Sandy of some part of his extremes, though to my thinking at times, he had been none the worse of Auld Anton at his elbow to give him a lesson or two in sweet singing. I might not in that case have had to buy all over again the bonny house of Earlstoun, and so had more to spend upon Afton, which is now mine own desirable residence.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HOME OF MY LOVE.

Anthony Lennox presently took me by the hand, and led me over to where in the Duchrae kitchen the dark young man sat, whose n.o.ble head and carriage I had remarked.

"Mr. Cameron," he said gravely, and with respect, "this is the son of a brave man and princely contender with his Master--William Gordon of Earlstoun, lately gone from us."

And for the first time I gave my hand to Richard Cameron, whom men called the Lion of the Covenant--a great hill-preacher, who, strangely enough, like some others of the prominent disaffected to the Government, had been bred of the party of Prelacy.

As I looked upon him I saw that he was girt with a sword, and that he had a habit of gripping the hilt when he spoke, as though at the pinch he had yet another argument which all might understand. And being a soldier's son I own that I liked him the better for it. Then I remembered what (it was reported) he had said on the Holms of Kirkmahoe when he preached there.

"I am no reed to be shaken with the wind, as Charles Stuart shall one day know."

And it was here that I got my first waft of the new tongue which these hill-folk spake among themselves. I heard of "singular Christians," and concerning the evils of paying the "cess" or King's tax--things of which I had never heard in my father's house, the necessity not having arisen before Bothwell to discuss these questions.

When all the men were gathered into the wide house-place, some sitting, some standing, the grave-faced woman knocked with her knuckles gently on a door which opened into an inner room. Instantly Maisie Lennox and other two maids came out bearing refreshments, which they handed round to all that were in the house. The carriage of one of these three surprised me much, and I observed that my cousin Wat did not take his eyes from her.

"Who may these maids be?" he whispered in my ear.

"Nay, but I ken not them all," I answered. "Bide, and we shall hear."

For, indeed, I knew only one of them, but her very well.

And when they came to us in our turn, Maisie Lennox nodded to me as to a friend of familiar discourse, to whom nothing needs to be explained. And she that was the tallest of the maids handed Wat the well-curled oaten cake on a trencher. Then he rose and bowed courteously to her, whereat there was first a silence and then a wonder among the men in the house, for the manner of the reverence was strange to the stiff backs of the hill-folk. But Anthony Lennox stilled them, telling of the introduction he had gotten concerning Walter, and that both our fathers had made a good end for the faith, so that we were presently considered wholly free of the meeting.

We heard that there was to be a field conventicle near by, at which Mr.

Cameron was to preach. This was the reason of so great a gathering, many having come out of Ayrshire, and even as far as Lesmahagow in the Upper Ward of Lanark, where there are many very zealous for the truth.

Then they fell again to the talking, while I noted how the maids comported themselves. The eldest of them and the tallest, was a la.s.s of mettle, with dark, bent brows. She held her head high, and seemed, by her attiring and dignity, accustomed to other places than this moorland farm-town. Yet here she was, handing victual like a servitor, before a field-preaching. And this I was soon to learn was a common thing in Galloway, where nearly the whole of the gentry, and still more of their wives and daughters, were on the side of the Covenant. It was no uncommon thing for a King's man, when he was disturbing a conventicle--"skailing a bees' byke" as it was called--to come on his own wife's or, it might be, his daughter's palfrey, tethered in waiting to the root of some birk-tree.

"Keep your black-tail coats closer in by!" said Duke Rothes once to his lady, who notoriously harboured outed preachers, "or I shall have to do some of them a hurt! Ca' your messans to your foot, else I'll hae to kennel them for ye!"

There was however no such safe hiding as in some of the great houses of the strict persecutors.

So in a little while, the most part of the company going out, this tall, dark-browed maid was made known to us by Matthew of the Dub, as Mistress Kate McGhie, daughter of the Laird of Balmaghie, within which parish we were.

Then Maisie Lennox beckoned to the third maid, and she came forward with shyness and grace. She was younger than the other two, and seemed to be a well-grown la.s.s of thirteen or fourteen.

"This," said Maisie Lennox, "is my cousin Margaret of Glen Vernock."

The maid whom she so named blushed, and spoke to us in the broader accent of the Shire, yet pleasantly and frankly as one well reared.

Presently there came to us the taller maid--she who was called Kate, the Laird's daughter.

She held out her hand to me.

"Ah, Will of Earlstoun, I have heard of you!"

I answered that I hoped it was for good.

"It was from Maisie there that I heard it," she said, which indeed told me nothing. But Kate McGhie shook her head at us, which tempted me to think her a flighty maid. However, I remembered her words often afterwards when I was in hiding.