The Men of the Moss-Hags Part 7

Then I saw something that I had never seen but among the sheep, and it was a most pitiful and heart-wringing thing to see, though now in the telling it seems no great matter. There is a time of the year when it is fitting that the lambs should be separated from the ewes; and it ever touches me nearly to see the flock of poor lammies when first the dogs come near to them to begin the work, and wear them in the direction in which they are to depart. All their little lives the lambs had run to their mothers at the first hint of danger. Now they have no mothers to flee to, and you can see them huddle and pack in a frightened solid bunch, quivering with apprehension, all with their sweet little winsome faces turned one way. Then as the dogs run nearer to start them, there comes from them a little low broken-hearted bleating, as if terror were driving the cry out of them against their wills. Thus it is with the lambs on the hill, and so also it was with the bairns that clung together in a cl.u.s.ter on the brae-face.

A party of soldiers was now drawn out before them, and the young things were bid look into the black muzzles of the muskets. They were indeed loaded only with powder, but the children were not to know that.

"Now," cried Westerha', "tell me who comes to your houses at night, and who goes away early in the morning!"

The children crept closer to one another, but none of them answered.

Whereupon Westerha' indicated one with his finger--the lad who stood up so straightly and held his head back.

"You, young c.o.c.k-of-the-heather, what might be your black Whig's name?"

"Juist the same as your honour's--James Johnstone!" replied the boy, in no way abashed.

Methought there ran a t.i.tter of laughter among the soldiers, for Westerha' was noways so well liked among the soldiers as Claverhouse or even roaring Grier of Lag.

"And what is your father's name?" continued Westerha', bending just one black look upon the lad.

"James Johnstone!" yet again replied the boy.

Back in the ranks some one laughed.

Westerhall flung an oath over his shoulder.

"Who was the man who laughed? I shall teach you to laugh at the Johnstone in his own country!"

"It was Jeems Johnstone of Wanphray that laughed, your honour," replied the calm voice of a troop-sergeant.

Then Westerha' set himself without another word to the work of examination, which suited him well.

"You will not answer, young rebels," he cried, "ken you what they get that will not speak when the King bids them?"

"Are you the King?" said the lad of ten who had called himself James Johnstone.

At this Westerhall waxed perfectly furious, with a pale and shaking fury that I liked not to see. But indeed the whole was so distasteful to me that sometimes I could but turn my head away.

"Now, ill bairns," said Westerha', "and you, my young rebel-namesake, hearken ye. The King's command is not to be made light of. And I tell you plainly that as you will not answer, I am resolved that you shall all be shot dead on the spot!"

With that he sent men to set them out in rows, and make them kneel down with kerchiefs over their eyes.

Now when the soldiers came near to the huddled cl.u.s.ter of bairns, that same little heart-broken bleating which I have heard the lambs make, broke again from them. It made my heart bleed and the nerves tingle in my palms. And this was King Charles Stuart making war! It had not been his father's way.

But the soldiers, though some few were smiling a little as at an excellent play, were mostly black ashamed. Nevertheless they took the bairns and made them kneel, for that was the order, and without mutiny they could not better it.

"Sodger-man, wull ye let me tak' my wee brither by the hand and dee that way? I think he wad thole it better!" said a little maid of eight, looking up.

And the soldier let go a great oath and looked at Westerha' as though he could have slain him.

"Bonny wark," he cried, "deil burn me gin I listed for this!"

But the little la.s.s had already taken her brother by the hand.

"Bend doon bonny, Alec my man, doon on your knees!" said she.

The boy glanced up at her. He had long yellow hair like Jean Hamilton's little Alec.

"Wull it be sair?" he asked. "Think ye, Maggie? I houp it'll no be awfu'

sair!"

"Na, Alec," his sister made answer, "it'll no be either lang or sair."

But the boy of ten, whose name was James Johnstone, neither bent nor knelt.

"I hae dune nae wrang. I'll juist dee this way," he said; and he stood up like one that straightens himself at drill.

Then Westerha' bid fire over the bairns' heads, which was cruel, cruel work, and only some of the soldiers did it. But even the few pieces that went off made a great noise in that lonely place. At the sound of the muskets some of the bairns fell forward on their faces as if they had been really shot. Some leapt in the air, but the most part knelt quietly and composedly.

The little boy Alec, whose sister had his hand clasped in hers, made as if he would rise.

"Bide ye doon, Alec," she said, very quietly, "it's no oor turn yet!"

At this the heart within me gave way, and I roared out in my helpless pain a perfect "gowl" of anger and grief.

"Bonny Whigs ye are," cried Westerha', "to dee withoot even a prayer.

Put up a prayer this minute, for ye shall all dee, every one of you."

And the boy James Johnstone made answer to him:

"Sir, we cannot pray, for we be too young to pray."

"You are not too young to rebel, nor yet to die for it!" was the brute-beast's answer.

Then with that the little girl held up a hand as if she were answering a dominie in a cla.s.s.

"An it please ye, sir," she said, "me an' Alec canna pray, but we can sing 'The Lord's my Shepherd,' gin that wull do! My mither learned it us afore she gaed awa'."

And before any one could stop her, she stood up like one that leads the singing in a kirk. "Stan' up, Alec, my wee mannie," she said.

Then all the bairns stood up. I declare it minded me of Bethlehem and the night when Herod's troopers rode down to look for Mary's bonny Bairn.

Then from the lips of the babes and sucklings arose the quavering strains:

"The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want.

He makes me down to lie In pastures green; He leadeth me The quiet waters by."

As they sang I gripped out my pistols and began to sort and prime them, hardly knowing what I did. For I was resolved to make a break for it, and, at the least, to blow a hole in James Johnstone of Westerha' that would mar him for life before I suffered any more of it.

But as they sang I saw trooper after trooper turn away his head, for, being Scots bairns, they had all learned that psalm. The ranks shook.

Man after man fell out, and I saw the tears happing down their cheeks.

But it was Douglas of Morton, that stark persecutor, who first broke down.