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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ringan Gilhaize
+       or The Covenanters
+
+Author: John Galt
+
+Release Date: December 24, 2009 [EBook #30749]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RINGAN GILHAIZE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins, Carla Foust, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Inconsistencies in language and dialect found in the original book have
+been retained. Minor punctuation errors have been changed without
+notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end.
+
+
+
+
+   RINGAN GILHAIZE
+
+
+
+
+   Their constancy in torture and in death--
+   These on Tradition's tongue still live, these shall
+   On History's honest page be pictured bright
+   To latest times.
+
+                               GRAHAME'S SABBATH.
+
+
+
+
+   Ringan
+   Gilhaize
+
+   OR
+
+   _THE COVENANTERS_
+
+
+
+
+   BY
+
+   JOHN GALT
+
+   AUTHOR OF
+
+   "_Annals of the Parish_," "_Sir Andrew Wylie_," "_The Entail_," _Etc._
+
+   EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY
+
+   Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS, Bart.
+
+
+
+   London
+   GREENING & CO., LTD.
+   20 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road
+   1899
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+A NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE
+
+
+There have, of course, been many men of genius who have united with
+great laxity and waywardness in their lives a high and perfect respect
+for their art; but instances of the directly contrary practice are much
+rarer, and among these there is probably none more prominent than that
+of the author of _Ringan Gilhaize_. Gifted by nature with a faculty
+which was at once brilliant, powerful and genial, he led an industrious
+life, the upright and generally exemplary character of which has never
+for a moment been called in question. But, in the sphere of his art, it
+is as undeniable as unaccountable that he cared little or nothing to do
+his best. The haps or whims of the moment seem, indeed, to have governed
+his production with an influence as of stars malign or fortunate.
+Furthermore, we know that the profession of authorship--that most
+distinguished of all professions, as, speaking in sober sadness without
+arrogance, we cannot but be bold to call it--that profession from which
+he was himself so well equipt to derive honour--was held by him in low
+esteem. So that, speaking of the time of his residence in Upper Canada,
+he thinks no shame to observe that he did _then_ consider himself
+qualified to do something more useful than "stringing blethers[1] into
+rhyme," or "writing 'clishmaclavers' in a closet." And again says he,
+"to tell the truth, I have sometimes felt a little shamefaced in
+thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in
+which I view the profession of book-making in general. A mere literary
+man--an author by profession--stands low in my opinion." Such remarks as
+these from a man of commanding literary talent are the reverse of
+pleasant reading. But let us deal with the speaker, as we would
+ourselves be dealt by--mercifully, and regard these petulant utterances
+as a mere expression of bitterness or perversity in one much tried and
+sorely disappointed. Even so, the fact remains that the sum of Galt's
+immense and varied production exhibits inequalities of execution for
+which only carelessness or contempt in the worker for his task can
+adequately account. We shall presently have occasion to speak of him in
+his relation to the great contemporary writer to whose life and work his
+own work and life present so many interesting points of similarity and
+diversity; but we may here note that, in the glaringly disparate
+character of his output, the author of _The Provost_ is in absolute
+contrast to the author of _The Antiquary_. For, if Scott's work viewed
+as a whole be rarely of the very finest literary quality, its evenness
+within its own limits is on the other hand very striking indeed. For, of
+his twenty-seven novels, there are perhaps but three which fall
+perceptibly below the general level of excellence; whilst probably any
+one of at least as many as six or eight might by a quorum of competent
+judges be selected as the best of all. And hence, where in the case of
+other authors we are called on to read this masterpiece or those
+specimens, and, having done so, are held to have acquitted ourselves,
+in the case of Scott we cannot feel that we have done our duty till we
+have read through the Waverley Novels. How entirely different is it with
+Galt--where we find _The Omen_ occupying one shelf with _The Radical_,
+_The Annals of the Parish_ catalogued with _Lawrie Todd_, and _The
+Spaewife_ side by side with _The Covenanters_! And obviously it is in
+this inequality in its author's work--in the magnitude, that is, of the
+rubbish-heap in which he chose to secrete his jewels--that the
+explanation of the neglect, if not rather oblivion, into which the work
+last-named has fallen can alone be sought and found. For, once in the
+threescore years of his busy life, Galt did his best, consistently and
+on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of
+_Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters_. What is more--however lamentably
+he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism--he knew
+when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his
+favourite. But a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral
+delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless
+tome has been exacted in the obscuration of one of the finest and truest
+of historical romances in our language.[2] A word or two as to the
+genesis and character of the book which we have ventured thus to
+describe may not be out of place as preface to our endeavour to obtain
+for it a second hearing.
+
+It was in the year 1822 or 1823 that Galt, aged then about forty-three,
+and having already seen much of life in various countries and
+capacities, settled at Esk Grove, Musselburgh, to apply himself to
+writing historical fiction. He was for the moment elated--carried away,
+perhaps, for his temper was enthusiastic even to a fault--by the recent
+and deserved success of his novels of Scottish manners, _Sir Andrew
+Wylie_ and _The Entail_; and the soaring idea appears to have entered
+his head of deliberately attempting to rival Scott in the very field
+which "the Wizard" had made peculiarly his own. From the point of view
+of prudence, though not from that of art or of sport, this enterprise
+was a mistake. For an author, serving as he does the public, shows no
+more than common sense if he endeavour to study, in the proper degree,
+the idiosyncrasies of that employer on whose favour his reputation, nay,
+perhaps the payment of his butcher's bill, depends. And it has long been
+observed that when the public has once made up its mind that one man is
+supreme in his own line, it has generally little attention to spare for
+those who seek to have it reconsider its decision. (This, by the way,
+was amply illustrated in the sequel of the very case now under
+discussion.) But the names of Galt and Prudence do not naturally go
+together: indeed, the two were never well or for any length of time
+acquainted. At Esk Grove, either in earnest, or, as seems more likely,
+in banter of the architectural incongruities of Abbotsford, Galt
+announced his intention of building a "veritable fortress," exactly in
+the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare. _En attendant_, he
+worked hard with his pen, the first fruits of his industry appearing in
+the novel which is here reprinted after some six-and-seventy years.
+
+What of the merits of this first attempt in a line that was new to him?
+In the first place, he had at least been guided in his choice of subject
+by an unerring historical instinct. For, surpassingly rich as is
+Scottish history in the elements both of picturesque and romantic
+incident and of wild and fascinating character, it is none the less a
+fact that there is but one period during which that history rises to the
+dignity of a really wide and permanent interest. And that period is of
+course the century, or century and a half, of the national struggle for
+religious liberty. It is not necessary to remind the reader that upon
+that struggle, and on those who maintained it, much has been written as
+well in the terms of undiscriminating eulogy as in those of
+uncomprehending condemnation. Nor is it more to the purpose to add that
+the truth lies neither entirely on one side nor the other. For--as in
+the earlier struggle for political independence, and, indeed, more or
+less in all other great national movements--the motives of most of those
+who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. Thus it is
+undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming Scottish laird of the
+sixteenth century, mistrust of Rome was a subordinate feeling to the
+covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated
+Church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few
+persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the
+intolerance embodied even by the martyr Guthrie in his celebrated
+Remonstrance--to say nothing of that which made the mere hearing of the
+mass, under certain circumstances, a capital offence. These things are,
+however, more or less accidental, and supply no criterion by which the
+true character of the reforming movement may be tested; for during the
+Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the very nature of tolerance, if
+understood by one here and there, was beyond the comprehension of the
+masses of the people. And yet we believe that, notwithstanding the
+intolerant and implacable spirit too often manifested by the
+Covenanters, no candid reader will read this book to the end without
+acknowledging (what is, indeed, the truth) that the soul of the
+Covenanting movement was a great and noble one. And that soul we here
+find personified in the younger Gilhaize--a type, if there be one in
+literature, of the Covenanter of the best kind.
+
+For, whatever may have been the temper of his associates in the
+aggregate, the hero of the book holds the scales between the rival
+parties with admirable evenness--and this notwithstanding the strong
+bias of his temper and upbringing. Indeed, until the time when he has
+become, not metaphorically, but literally maddened by the wrongs and
+outrages to which he has been subjected, the book, in so far as it
+constitutes an expression of his personal sentiments, is a perfect
+homily on fairness. And how much such fairness has to do with the
+winning and retaining of sympathy, perhaps only a modern reader is
+qualified to say. Gifted with the saving graces of humour and of
+fellow-feeling, the supposed annalist of our chronicle is no less
+prepared to make allowance for the faults of the other side than to
+acknowledge the shortcomings of his own. In fact he is the pattern of a
+spirit at once upright, humble, and self-respecting, whose ruling
+passion is an earnest piety, and who asks no more of those set over him
+than freedom to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.
+And for this little boon, so harshly and unjustly withheld, we see him
+called upon to sacrifice home, kindred and estate, to know his wife and
+daughters given over to death and worse than death, and finally to
+surrender his liberty and his last remaining child. Unless pity and
+terror in a master's hand have lost their power, surely this spectacle
+is a moving one! Nor must we forget that, even in the culminating scene
+of the tragedy--where Ringan makes his bold and inspired oration at the
+meeting of the Cameronian leaders with Renwick in a dell near
+Lasswade--the hero, for all his wrongs, remains unembittered, and
+retains unimpaired the gentleness and the manliness which are his
+characteristics. That there were such men as this among the Covenanters,
+or that they constituted the salt which gave its savour to the movement,
+we are forbidden to doubt. But, saving in the pages which follow, we
+know not where to seek for the ideal presentment of one such. This is
+what we mean by saying, as we have said above, that Galt has in this
+romance laid bare the soul of the Covenanting movement. And this, we may
+add, is what Scott in _Old Mortality_ most signally failed to do. For in
+that novel--in place of Galt's subtle and penetrating analysis of the
+motives which animated the Covenanters nobly to dare and nobly to
+endure--we find the author content himself with using the
+characteristics and the disturbances of the time for the mere purpose of
+providing incident and adventure, and a strong local colour for his
+puppets--in a word, for the most ordinary and conventional purposes of
+the romantic novelist. Nor is this the only instance of such
+psychological obtuseness in his work. That, in spite of this initial and
+damning defect, he does succeed in producing a fine novel, is but one
+more proof of the amazing fecundity of his genius. None the less does
+the fact remain that it is a novel, so to speak, without a soul--that,
+so far from being of the essence of the Covenant, the Burleys,
+Mucklewraths, Mauses and Macbrairs are but so many of its accidents, and
+that thus the main issues of the historical drama are not involved in
+the romance. In other words, it is as though the tragedy of _Hamlet_
+had been performed with great skill and _éclat_, only without the
+appearance of the Prince of Denmark upon the stage. And thus, if the
+historical novel is to play a part of any dignity in our literature, we
+may safely predict that it is upon the stock here supplied by Galt,
+rather than upon that supplied by Scott in _Old Mortality_, that it will
+have to be grafted.
+
+Having now assigned to our author the credit due to him for his choice
+and general treatment of a fine subject, it remains to touch briefly
+upon the technical skill which he has brought to bear upon the handling
+of its details. By resorting, then, to an ingenious and yet perfectly
+natural and legitimate device, he has contrived to extend his "household
+memorial" (for it is thus that he describes the story) so as to make it
+embrace the entire period of the religious struggle--from its inception
+under the regency of Marie of Lorraine to its close, or practical close,
+under the rule of the enlightened and tolerant William of Orange,--a
+period in all of full one hundred and thirty years. For the narrative,
+opening with the martyrdom of Walter Mill at St Andrews in 1558, is
+continued to the death of Claverhouse at Killiecrankie in 1689. And by
+this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by
+step, through the preachings of John Knox and the early image-breaking
+outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of James the First of
+England, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by
+the shifty and infatuated Martyr King to the climax of the "Killing
+Time" under the younger of his sons. Few incidents of really primary or
+representative importance are omitted, and the skill shown by the Author
+in stringing the pearls of history upon the thread of his narrative is
+not the least of the merits he displays. But, as should be in a novel,
+the historical never overweights the human or fictitious interest, but
+is always properly subordinated to it.
+
+We have spoken elsewhere[3] of Galt the novelist as being "in advance of
+his time"--a facile phrase which it is expedient to use with due reserve
+and after due consideration. But the fact that the author with whose
+work we are instinctively impelled to compare the novel of _Ringan
+Gilhaize_ is the great chief of the French "Naturalistic" School would
+appear, at least so far, to support that characterisation. It is, of
+course, undeniable that, at the outset, there confront us several
+striking points of contrast or divergence between the two authors. For
+example, of that _triste amour du laid_, which, with its concomitants,
+was for so long, and perhaps is even yet, regarded by the general public
+as Zola's one prominent characteristic--of this, Galt has absolutely
+nothing, his preoccupation being uniformly with beauty in one form or
+another, whether of matter or of spirit. With him, a gloom which, did we
+not fear to be less than just to Galt we might denominate Byronic, fills
+perhaps the place of Zola's pessimism. Next, of that misbegotten passion
+for the painter's brush which has vitiated so much of modern French
+writing, and of which Zola in inferior works has even more than his due
+share, the novel of _Ringan Gilhaize_ shows equally no trace. On the
+contrary, its brief descriptive passages, of which it is noticeable how
+many are nocturnal or crepuscular, or paint effects of mist or
+rain-cloud--these might serve as models, at once in their breadth of
+execution, their aptness and their pregnancy, or quality of
+moral suggestiveness, of what descriptions in literature
+should be. How different from those laboured outlines, laboriously
+filled in, of such a piece of writing as _La Curée_!
+
+So much, then, for the divergence of the two authors; and now as to
+their relationship. It is, perhaps, in their power of putting their
+sense of a multitude before the reader, of exhibiting the passions by
+which that multitude is animated, and of tracing the phases and
+fluctuations of that passion, that the Frenchman or Italian and the Scot
+come first and most strikingly together. Witness in this book the scene
+of the advance of the congregations to the trial of the Ministers, or
+that of the return of the Reformer, Knox, to Scotland. This of itself,
+however, is not much; nor should we have felt justified in drawing
+special attention to it, but for the fact that it seems to us to be an
+outward and visible sign of what is a vital, perhaps _the_ vital
+characteristic of either writer--or, at least, that of Galt in this
+book, and of Zola in his masterwork. It is associated, then, as we read
+it, with a desire to rise in art above the limitation of the merely
+individual, and the springs of this desire we take to lie in that noble
+and abounding pity which is the dominant passion of either author, or of
+either book. In either case it is an "objective" or artistic pity,
+called into being by the spectacle of human suffering as specific as it
+is intolerable to contemplate. Only that with Galt it is felt for a
+particular historical group of men, with Zola for a particular section
+of his contemporaries. And from this characteristic there naturally
+results a gain of the quality of artistic grandeur in the books. For it
+is less the fortunes of the individual colliers than the Rights of
+Labour and their chances of recognition which form the true theme of
+_Germinal_; whilst in _Ringan Gilhaize_ we are called to gaze upon
+nothing less than the grandiose spectacle of a nation in death-grips
+with a race of mansworn sovereigns. Hence, in either case, the
+individual characters, measured by the greatness of the issues at stake,
+sink into comparative insignificance. But this very insignificance
+serves to illustrate a fundamental truth. For, to quote the words of a
+great modern thinker, "This is the law which governs humanity: an
+immense prodigality in regard to the mere individual, a contemptuous
+heaping together of the unit of human life." He continues, "I can
+picture to myself the artificer letting great quantities of his material
+go to waste--undisturbed, indeed, although three parts of it fall
+useless to the ground. For it is the fate of the vast majority of the
+human race to serve as a mere floor-cloth on which Destiny may celebrate
+her revel, or, rather, to contribute towards the making up of one of
+those numerous persons who were known to the classical drama as the
+Chorus."[4] Impressively to exhibit this truth in art is of itself to
+accomplish much; but in the infinite pathos of the individual lot there
+is a converse side to every great drama too, and to this neither of our
+writers is insensible. Hence it is that, against the shadowy curtain or
+background formed by the crowded and suffering masses of humanity, are
+relieved and detached such tragic silhouettes as those of Ringan and of
+La Maheude. In the nature of the long-drawn unrelenting ordeal to which
+each of these is subjected they are identical; for both of them are rich
+only in human affection, and of this both live to see themselves
+entirely denuded. Gilhaize, who is raised above the struggle for mere
+daily bread, is animated by a spiritual and intellectual passion which
+would have been altogether beyond the comprehension of the miner's wife
+of Montsou; but that he is on that account the nobler or more
+interesting figure of the two, we do not take upon us to say. Neither,
+of course, must we be understood to insist unduly on the few points of
+resemblance in two books which, after all, are in so many respects
+radically unlike.
+
+There is a lighter side to Galt's book, too, and this is seen
+principally, ere the stress of the action has become intense, in the
+adventures of the astute Michael Gilhaize. At this point in his
+narrative it is probably with Stevenson that Galt suggests comparison,
+nor is it any disparagement to the delightful author of _Kidnapped_ and
+_Catriona_ to say that the best of his work is to the best of Galt's as
+a clever boy's to that of a clever man. For whilst Galt presents
+incident with all, or nearly all, the charm of Stevenson, he is master,
+besides, of an adult psychology to which the other, in his short life,
+never attained.
+
+                                           GEORGE DOUGLAS.
+
+SPRINGWOOD PARK, _August_ 1899.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Scots expletives, signifying different varieties of
+nonsense.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dismissed in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, _sub
+voce_ Galt, as one of "three forgotten novels."]
+
+[Footnote 3: In "The _Blackwood_ Group": Famous Scots' Series; Essay on
+Galt.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ernest Renan in _L'Avenir de la Science_.]
+
+
+
+
+RINGAN GILHAIZE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It is a thing past all contesting, that, in the Reformation, there was a
+spirit of far greater carnality among the champions of the cause than
+among those who in later times so courageously, under the Lord, upheld
+the unspotted banners of the Covenant. This I speak of from the
+remembrance of many aged persons, who either themselves bore a part in
+that war with the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, or who had
+heard their fathers tell of the heart and mind wherewith it was carried
+on, and could thence, with the helps of their own knowledge, discern the
+spiritual and hallowed difference. But, as I intend mainly to bear
+witness to those passages of the late bloody persecution in which I was
+myself both a soldier and a sufferer, it will not become me to brag of
+our motives and intents, as higher and holier than those of the great
+elder Worthies of "the Congregation." At the same time it is needful
+that I should rehearse as much of what happened in the troubles of the
+Reformation as, in its effects and influences, worked upon the issues of
+my own life. For my father's father was out in the raids of that
+tempestuous season, and it was by him, and from the stories he was wont
+to tell of what the Government did when drunken with the sorceries of
+the gorgeous Roman harlot, and rampaging with the wrath of Moloch and of
+Belial, it trampled on the hearts and thought to devour the souls of the
+subjects, that I first was taught to feel, know and understand the divine
+right of resistance.
+
+He was come of a stock of bein burghers in Lithgow; but his father
+having a profitable traffic in saddle-irons and bridle-rings among the
+gallants of the court, and being moreover a man who took little heed of
+the truths of religion, he continued with his wife in the delusions of
+the papistical idolatry till the last, by which my grandfather's young
+soul was put in great jeopardy. For the monks of that time were eager to
+get into their clutches such men-children as appeared to be gifted with
+any peculiar gift, in order to rear them for stoops and posts to sustain
+their Babylon, in the tower and structure whereof many rents and cracks
+were daily kithing.
+
+The Dominican friars, who had a rich howf in the town, seeing that my
+grandfather was a shrewd and sharp child, of a comely complexion, and
+possessing a studious observance, were fain to wile him into their
+power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in
+a manner that shows how wonderfully the Lord worketh out the purposes of
+His will, by ways and means of which no man can fathom the depth of the
+mysteries.
+
+Besides his traffic in the polished garniture of horse-gear, my
+grandfather's father was also a ferrier, and enjoyed a far-spread repute
+for his skill in the maladies of horses; by which, and as he dwelt near
+the palace-yett, on the south side of the street, fornent the grand
+fountain-well, his smiddy was the common haunt of the serving-men
+belonging to the nobles frequenting the court, and as often as any
+newcomers to the palace were observed in the town, some of the monks and
+friars belonging to the different convents were sure to come to the
+smiddy to converse with their grooms and to hear the news, which were
+all of the controversies raging between the priesthood and the people.
+
+My grandfather was then a little boy, but he thirsted to hear their
+conversations, and many a time, as he was wont to tell, has his very
+heart been raspet to the quick by the cruel comments in which those
+cormorants of idolatry indulged themselves with respect to the brave
+spirit of the reformers; and he rejoiced when any retainers of the
+protestant lords quarrelled with them, and dealt back to them as hard
+names as the odious epithets with which the hot-fed friars reviled the
+pious challengers of the papal iniquities. Thus it was, in the green
+years of his childhood, that the same sanctified spirit was poured out
+upon him, which roused so many of the true and faithful to resist and
+repel the attempt to quench the relighted lamps of the Gospel, preparing
+his young courage to engage in those great first trials and strong tasks
+of the Lord.
+
+The tidings and the bickerings to which he was a hearkener in the
+smiddy, he was in the practice of relating to his companions, by which
+it came to pass that, it might in a manner be said, all the boys in the
+town were leagued in spirit with the reformers, and the consequences
+were not long of ripening.
+
+In those days there was a popish saint, one St Michael, that was held in
+wonderful love and adoration by all the ranks and hierarchies of the
+ecclesiastical locust then in Lithgow; indeed, for that matter, they
+ascribed to him power and dominion over the whole town, lauding and
+worshipping him as their special god and protector. And upon a certain
+day of the year they were wont to make a great pageant and revel in
+honour of this supposed saint, and to come forth from their cloisters
+with banners, and with censers burning incense, shouting and singing
+paternosters in praise of this their Dagon, walking in procession from
+kirk to kirk, as if they were celebrating the triumph of some mighty
+conqueror.
+
+This annual abomination happening to take place shortly after the
+martyrdom of that true saint and gospel preacher Mr George Wishart, and
+while kirk and quire were resounding, to the great indignation of all
+Christians, with lamentations for the well-earned death of the cruel
+Cardinal Beaton, his ravenous persecutor, the monks and friars received
+but little homage as they passed along triumphing, though the streets
+were, as usual, filled with the multitude to see their fine show. They
+suffered, however, no molestation nor contempt till they were passing
+the Earl of Angus' house, on the outside stair of which my grandfather,
+with some two or three score of other innocent children, was standing;
+and even there they might, perhaps, have been suffered to go by
+scaithless, but for an accident that befel the bearer of a banner, on
+which was depicted a blasphemous type of the Holy Ghost in the shape and
+lineaments of a cushy-doo.
+
+It chanced that the bearer of this blazon of iniquity was a particular
+fat monk, of an arrogant nature, with the crimson complexion of surfeit
+and constipation, who for many causes and reasons was held in greater
+aversion than all the rest, especially by the boys, that never lost an
+opportunity of making him a scoff and a scorn; and it so fell out, as he
+was coming proudly along, turning his Babylonish banner to pleasure the
+women at the windows, to whom he kept nodding and winking as he passed,
+that his foot slipped and down he fell as it were with a gludder, at
+which all the thoughtless innocents on the Earl of Angus' stair set up a
+loud shout of triumphant laughter, and from less to more began to hoot
+and yell at the whole pageant, and to pelt some of the performers with
+unsavoury missiles.
+
+This, by those inordinate ministers of oppression, was deemed a horrible
+sacrilege, and the parents of all the poor children were obligated to
+give them up to punishment, of which none suffered more than did my
+grandfather, who was not only persecuted with stripes till his loins
+were black and blue, but cast into a dungeon in the Blackfriars' den,
+where for three days and three nights he was allowed no sustenance but
+gnawed crusts and foul water. The stripes and terrors of the oppressor
+are, however, the seeds which Providence sows in its mercy to grow into
+the means that shall work his own overthrow.
+
+The persecutions which from that day the monks waged, in their conclaves
+of sloth and sosherie, against the children of the town, denouncing them
+to their parents as worms of the great serpent and heirs of perdition,
+only served to make their young spirits burn fiercer. As their joints
+hardened and their sinews were knit, their hearts grew manful, and
+yearned, as my grandfather said, with the zealous longings of a
+righteous revenge, to sweep them away from the land as with a whirlwind.
+
+After enduring for several years great affliction in his father's house
+from his mother, a termagant woman, who was entirely under the dominion
+of her confessor, my grandfather entered into a paction with two other
+young lads to quit their homes for ever, and to enter the service of
+some of those pious noblemen who were then active in procuring adherents
+to the protestant cause, as set forth in the first covenant.
+Accordingly, one morning in the spring of 1558, they bade adieu to their
+fathers' doors, and set forward on foot towards Edinburgh.
+
+"We had light hearts," said my grandfather, "for our trust was in
+Heaven; we had girded ourselves for a holy enterprise, and the
+confidence of our souls broke forth into songs of battle, the melodious
+breathings of that unison of spirit which is alone known to the soldiers
+of the great Captain of Salvation."
+
+About noon they arrived at the Cross of Edinburgh, where they found a
+crowd assembled round the Luckenbooths, waiting for the breaking up of
+the States, which were then deliberating anent the proposal from the
+French king that the Prince Dolphin, his son, should marry our young
+queen, the fair and faulty Mary, whose doleful captivity and woful end
+scarcely expiated the sins and sorrows that she caused to her ill-used
+and poor misgoverned native realm of Scotland.
+
+While they were standing in this crowd, my grandfather happened to see
+one Icener Cunningham, a servant in the household of the Earl of
+Glencairn, and having some acquaintance of the man before at Lithgow, he
+went towards him, and after some common talk, told on what errand he and
+his two companions had come to Edinburgh. It was in consequence agreed
+between them that this Icener should speak to his master concerning
+them, the which he did as soon as my Lord came out from the Parliament;
+and the Earl was so well pleased with the looks of the three young men
+that he retained them for his service on the spot, and they were
+conducted by Icener Cunningham home to his Lordship's lodgings in St
+Mary's Wynd.
+
+Thus was my grandfather enlisted into the cause of the Lords of the
+Congregation, and in the service of that great champion of the
+Reformation, the renowned, valiant and pious Earl of Glencairn, he saw
+many of those things, the recital of which kindled my young mind to
+flame up with no less ardour than his against the cruel attempt that was
+made, in our own day and generation, to load the neck of Scotland with
+the grievous chains of prelatic tyranny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Earl of Glencairn, having much to do with the other Lords of the
+Congregation, did not come to his lodging till late in the afternoon,
+when, as soon as he had passed into his privy chamber, he sent for his
+three new men, and entered into some conversation with them concerning
+what the people at Lithgow said and thought of the Queen-dowager's
+government, and the proceedings at that time afoot on behalf of the
+reformed religion. But my grandfather jealoused that in this he was less
+swayed by the expectation of gathering knowledge from them, than by a
+wish to inspect their discretion and capacities; for, after conversing
+with them for the space of half an hour or thereby, he dismissed them
+courteously from his presence, without intimating that he had any
+special service for them to perform.
+
+One evening as the Earl sat alone at supper, he ordered my grandfather
+to be brought again before him, and desired him to be cup-bearer for
+that night. In this situation, as my grandfather stood holding the
+chalice and flagon at his left elbow, the Earl, as was his wonted custom
+with such of the household as he from time to time so honoured, entered
+into familiar conversation with him; and when the servitude and homages
+of the supper were over, and the servants were removing the plate and
+trenchers, he signified, by a look and a whisper, that he wished him to
+linger in the room till after they were gone.
+
+"Gilhaize," said he, when the serving-men had retired, and they were by
+themselves, "I am well content with your prudence, and therefore, before
+you are known to belong to my train, I would send you on a confidential
+errand, for which you must be ready to set forth this very night."
+
+My grandfather made no reply in words to this mark of trust, but bowed
+his head in token of his obedience to the commands of the Earl.
+
+"I need not tell you," resumed his master, "that among the friends of
+the reformed cause there are some for policy and many for gain, and that
+our adversaries, knowing this, leave no device or stratagem untried to
+sow sedition among the Lords and Leaders of the Congregation. This very
+day the Earl of Argyle has received a mealy-mouthed letter from that
+dissolute papist, the Archbishop of St Andrews, entreating him, with
+many sweet words, concerning the ancient friendship subsisting between
+their families, to banish from his protection that good and pious
+proselyte, Douglas, his chaplain, evidently presuming, from the easy
+temper of the aged Earl, that he may be wrought into compliance. But
+Argyle is an honest man, and is this night to return, by the
+Archbishop's messenger and kinsman, Sir David Hamilton, a fitting and
+proper reply. It is not, however, to be thought that this attempt to
+tamper with Argyle is the sole trial which the treacherous priest is at
+this time making to breed distrust and dissension among us, though as
+yet we have heard of none other. Now, Gilhaize, what I wish you to do,
+and I think you can do it well, is to throw yourself in Sir David's way,
+and, by hook or crook, get with him to St Andrews, and there try by all
+expedient means to gain a knowledge of what the Archbishop is at this
+time plotting--for plotting we are assured from this symptom he is--and
+it is needful to the cause of Christ that his wiles should be
+circumvented."
+
+In saying these words the Earl rose, and, taking a key from his belt,
+opened a coffer that stood in the corner of the room, and took out two
+pieces of gold, which he delivered to my grandfather, to bear the
+expenses of his journey.
+
+"I give you, Gilhaize," said he, "no farther instructions; for, unless I
+am mistaken in my man, you lack no better guide than your own
+discernment. So God be with you, and His blessing prosper the
+undertaking."
+
+My grandfather was much moved at being so trusted, and doubted in his
+own breast if he was qualified for the duty which his master had thus
+put upon him. Nevertheless he took heart from the Earl's confidence,
+and, without saying anything either to his two companions or to Icener
+Cunningham, he immediately, on parting from his master, left the house,
+leaving his absence to be accounted for to the servants according to his
+lord's pleasure.
+
+Having been several times on errands of his father in Edinburgh before,
+he was not ill-acquainted with the town, and the moon being up, he had
+no difficulty in finding his way to Habby Bridle's, a noted stabler's at
+the foot of Leith Wynd, nigh the mouth of the North Loch, where gallants
+and other travellers of gentle condition commonly put up their horses.
+There he thought it was likely Sir David Hamilton had stabled his steed,
+and he divined that, by going thither, he would learn whether that
+knight had set forward to Fife, or when he was expected so to do; the
+which movement, he always said, was nothing short of an instinct from
+Heaven; for just on entering the stabler's yard, a groom came shouting
+to the hostler to get Sir David Hamilton's horses saddled outright, as
+his master was coming.
+
+Thus, without the exposure of any inquiry, he gained the tidings that he
+wanted, and with what speed he could put into his heels, he went forward
+to the pier of Leith, where he found a bark, with many passengers on
+board, ready to set sail for Kirkcaldy, waiting only for the arrival of
+Sir David, to whom, as the Archbishop's kinsman, the boatmen were fain
+to pretend a great outward respect; but many a bitter ban, my
+grandfather said, they gave him for taigling them so long, while wind
+and tide both served--all which was proof and evidence how much the
+hearts of the common people were then alienated from the papistical
+churchmen.
+
+Sir David having arrived, and his horses being taken aboard, the bark
+set sail, and about daybreak next morning she came to anchor at
+Kirkcaldy. During the voyage, my grandfather, who was of a mild and
+comely aspect, observed that the knight was more affable towards him
+than to the lave of the passengers, the most part of whom were coopers
+going to Dundee to prepare for the summer fishing. Among them was one
+Patrick Girdwood, the deacon of the craft, a most comical character, so
+vogie of his honours and dignities in the town council that he could not
+get the knight told often enough what a load aboon the burden he had in
+keeping a' things douce and in right regulation amang the bailies. But
+Sir David, fashed at his clatter, and to be quit of him, came across the
+vessel and began to talk to my grandfather, although, by his apparel, he
+was no meet companion for one of a knight's degree.
+
+It happened that Sir David was pleased with his conversation, which was
+not to be wondered at, for in his old age, when I knew him, he was a man
+of a most enticing mildness of manner, and withal so discreet in his
+sentences that he could not be heard without begetting respect for his
+observance and judgment. So out of the vanity of that vogie tod of the
+town council was a mean thus made by Providence to further the ends and
+objects of the Reformation in so far as my grandfather was concerned;
+for the knight took a liking to him, and being told, as it was
+expedient to give a reason for his journey to St Andrews, that he was
+going thither to work as a ferrier, Sir David promised him not only his
+own countenance, but to commend him to the Archbishop.
+
+There was at that time in Kirkcaldy one Tobit Balmutto, a horse-setter,
+of whom my grandfather had some knowledge by report. This Tobit being
+much resorted to by the courtiers going to and coming from Falkland, and
+well known to their serving-men, who were wont to speak of him in the
+smiddy at Lithgow as a zealous reformer--chiefly, as the prodigals among
+them used to jeer and say, because the priests and friars in their
+journeyings atween St Andrews and Edinburgh took the use of his beasts
+without paying for them, giving him only their feckless benisons instead
+of white money.
+
+To this man my grandfather resolved to apply for a horse, and such a
+one, if possible, as would be able to carry him as fast as Sir David
+Hamilton's. Accordingly, on getting to the land, he inquired for Tobit
+Balmutto, and several of his striplings and hostlers being on the shore,
+having, on seeing the bark arrive, come down to look out for travellers
+that might want horses, he was conducted by one of them to their
+employer, whom he found an elderly man of the corpulent order, sitting
+in an elbow-chair by the fireside, toasting an oaten bannock on a pair
+of tormentors, with a blue puddock-stool bonnet on his head, and his
+grey hose undrawn up, whereby his hairy legs were bare, showing a power
+and girth such as my grandfather had seen few like before, testifying to
+what had been the deadly strength of their possessor in his younger
+years. He was thought to have been an off-gett of the Boswells of
+Balmutto.
+
+When he had made known his want to Tobit, and that he was in a manner
+obligated to be at St Andrews as soon as Sir David Hamilton, the
+horse-setter withdrew the bannock from before the ribs, and seeing it
+somewhat scowthert and blackent on the one cheek, he took it off the
+tormentors and scraped it with them, and blew away the brown burning
+before he made any response; then he turned round to my grandfather, and
+looking at him with the tail of his eye from aneath his broad bonnet,
+said,--
+
+"Then ye're no in the service of his Grace, my Lord the Archbishop? And
+yet, frien', I think na ye're just a peer to Sir Davie, that you need to
+ettle at coping with his braw mare, Skelp-the-dub, whilk I selt to him
+mysel'; but the de'il a bawbee hae I yet han'let o' the price; howsever,
+that's neither here nor there, a day of reckoning will come at last."
+
+My grandfather assured Tobit Balmutto it was indeed very true he was not
+in the service of the Archbishop, and that he would not have been so
+instant about getting to St Andrews with the knight had he not a dread
+and fear that Sir David was the bearer of something that might be sore
+news to the flock o' Christ, and he was fain to be there as soon as him
+to speak in time of what he jealoused, that any of those in the town who
+stood within the reverence of the Archbishop's aversion, on account of
+their religion, might get an inkling and provide for themselves.
+
+"If that's your errand," said the horse-setter, "ye s'all hae the
+swiftest foot in my aught to help you on, and I redde you no to spare
+the spur, for I'm troubled to think ye may be owre late--Satan, or they
+lie upon him, has been heating his cauldrons yonder for a brewing, and
+the Archbishop's thrang providing the malt. Nae farther gane than
+yesterday, auld worthy Mr Mill of Lunan, being discovered hidden in a
+kiln at Dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by
+twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his Grace, and it's thought it
+will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what
+haste ye dow, and the Lord put mettle in the beast that bears you."
+
+With that Tobit Balmutto ordered the lad who brought my grandfather to
+the house to saddle a horse that he called Spunkie; and in a trice he
+was mounted and on the road after Sir David, whom he overtook
+notwithstanding the spirit of his mare, Skelp-the-dub, before he had
+cleared the town of Pathhead, and they travelled onward at a brisk trot
+together, the knight waxing more and more pleased with his companion, in
+so much that by the time they had reached Cupar, where they stopped to
+corn, he lamented that a young man of his parts should think of
+following the slavery of a ferrier's life, when he might rise to trusts
+and fortune in the house of some of the great men of the time, kindly
+offering to procure for him, on their arrival at St Andrews, the favour
+and patronage of his kinsman, the Archbishop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was the afternoon when my grandfather and Sir David Hamilton came in
+sight of St Andrews, and the day being loun and bright, the sky clear,
+and the sea calm, he told me that when he saw the many lofty spires and
+towers and glittering pinnacles of the town rising before him, he verily
+thought he was approaching the city of Jerusalem, so grand and glorious
+was the apparition which they made in the sunshine, and he approached
+the barricaded gate with a strange movement of awe and wonder rushing
+through the depths of his spirit.
+
+They, however, entered not into the city at that time, but, passing
+along the wall leftward, came to a road which led to the gate of the
+castle where the Archbishop then dwelt; and as they were approaching
+towards it, Sir David pointed out the window where Cardinal Beaton sat
+in the pomp of his scarlet and fine linen to witness the heretic
+Wishart, as the knight called that holy man, burnt for his sins and
+abominations.
+
+My grandfather, on hearing this, drew his bridle in, and falling behind
+Sir David, raised his cap in reverence and in sorrow at the thought of
+passing over the ground that had been so hallowed by martyrdom, but he
+said nothing, for he knew that his thoughts were full of offence to
+those who were wrapt in the errors and delusions of popery like Sir
+David Hamilton; and, moreover, he had thanked the Lord thrice in the
+course of their journey for the favour which it had pleased Him he
+should find in the sight of the kinsman of so great an adversary to the
+truth as was the Archbishop of St Andrews, whose treasons and
+treacheries against the Church of Christ he was then travelling to
+discover and waylay.
+
+On reaching the castle-yett they alighted; my grandfather, springing
+lightly from the saddle, took hold of Sir David's mare by the
+bridle-rings, while the knight went forward, and whispered something
+concerning his Grace to a stalwart, hard-favoured, grey-haired
+man-at-arms, that stood warder of the port, leaning on his sword, the
+blade of whilk could not be shorter than an ell. What answer he got was
+brief, the ancient warrior pointing at the same time with his right hand
+towards a certain part of the city, and giving a Belial smile of
+significance; whereupon Sir David turned round without going into the
+court of the castle, and bidding my grandfather give the man the beasts
+and follow, which he did, they walked together under the town wall
+towards the east till they came to a narrow sallyport in the rampart,
+wherewith the priory and cathedral had of old been fenced about with
+turrets and bastions of great strength against the lawless kerns of the
+Highlands, and especially the ships of the English, who have in all ages
+been of a nature gleg and glad to mulct and molest the sea-harbour towns
+of Scotland.
+
+On coming to the sallyport, Sir David chapped with his whip twice, and
+from within a wicket was opened in the doors, ribbed with iron
+stainchers on the outside, and a man with the sound of corpulency in his
+voice looked through and inquired what they wanted. Seeing, however, who
+it was that had knocked, he forthwith drew the bar and allowed them to
+enter, which was into a pleasant policy adorned with jonquils and
+jelly-flowers, and all manner of blooming and odoriferous plants, most
+voluptuous to the smell and ravishing to behold, the scents and
+fragrancies whereof smote my grandfather for a time, as he said, with
+the very anguish of delight. But, on looking behind to see who had given
+them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed
+soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel there placed was,
+he saw a large, elderly monk, sitting on a bench with a broken pasty
+smoking on a platter beside him, and a Rotterdam greybeard jug standing
+by, no doubt plenished with cordial drink.
+
+Sir David held no parlance with the feeding friar, but going straight up
+the walk to the door of a lodging, to the which this was the parterre
+and garden, he laid his hand on the sneck, and opening it, bade my
+grandfather come in.
+
+They then went along the trance towards an open room, and on entering it
+they met a fair damsel in the garb of a handmaid, to whom the knight
+spoke in familiarity, and kittling her under the chin, made her giggle
+in a wanton manner. By her he was informed that the Archbishop was in
+the inner chamber at dinner with her mistress, upon which he desired my
+grandfather to sit down, while he went ben to his Grace.
+
+The room where my grandfather took his seat was parted from the inner
+chamber, in which the Archbishop and his lemane were at their
+festivities, by an arras partition, so that he could hear all that
+passed within, and the first words his Grace said on his kinsman going
+ben was,--
+
+"Aweel, Davie, and what says that auld doddard Argyle, will he send me
+the apostate to mak a benfire?"
+
+"He has sent your Grace a letter," replied Sir David, "wherein he told
+me he had expounded the reasons and causes of his protecting Douglas,
+hoping your Grace will approve the same."
+
+"Approve heresy and reprobacy!" exclaimed the Archbishop; "but gi'e me
+the letter, and sit ye down, Davie. Mistress Kilspinnie, my dauty, fill
+him a cup of wine, the malvesie, to put smeddam in his marrow; he'll no
+be the waur o't, after his gallanting at Enbro. Stay! what's this? the
+auld man's been at school since him and me hae swappit paper. My word,
+Argyle, thou's got a tongue in thy pen neb! but this was ne'er indited
+by him; the cloven foot of the heretical Carmelite is manifest in every
+line. Honour and conscience truly!--braw words for a Hielant schore,
+that bigs his bield wi' other folks' gear!"
+
+"Be composed, your sweet Grace, and dinna be so fashed," cried a
+silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as I
+shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the Mrs Kilspinnie. "What
+does he say?"
+
+"Say? Why, that Douglas preaches against idolatry, and he remits to my
+conscience forsooth, gif that be heresy--and he preaches against
+adulteries and fornications too--was ever sic varlet terms written in
+ony nobleman's letter afore this apostate's time--and he refers that to
+my conscience likewise."
+
+"A faggot to his tail would be ower gude for him," cried Mrs Kilspinnie.
+
+"He preaches against hypocrisy," said his Grace, "the which he also
+refers to my conscience--conscience again! Hae, Davie, tak thir
+clishmaclavers to Andrew Oliphant. It'll be spunk to his zeal. We maun
+strike our adversaries wi' terror, and if we canna wile them back to the
+fold, we'll e'en set the dogs on them. Kind Mistress Kilspinnie, help me
+frae the stoup o' sherries, for I canna but say that this scalded heart
+I hae gotten frae that auld shavling-gabbit Hielander has raised my
+corruption, and I stand in need, my lambie, o' a' your winsome
+comforting."
+
+At which words Sir David came forth the chamber with the letter in his
+hand; but seeing my grandfather, whom it would seem he had forgotten, he
+went suddenly back and said to his Grace,--
+
+"Please you, my Lord, I hae brought with me a young man of a good
+capacity and a ripe understanding that I would commend to your Grace's
+service. He is here in the outer room waiting your Grace's pleasure."
+
+"Davie Hamilton," replied the Archbishop, "ye sometimes lack discretion.
+What for did ye bring a stranger into this house--knowing, as ye ought
+to do, that I ne'er come hither but when I'm o' a sickly frame, in need
+o' solace and repose? Howsever, since the lad's there, bid him come
+ben."
+
+Upon this, Sir David came out and beckoned my grandfather to go in; and
+when he went forward, he saw none in that inner chamber but his Grace
+and the Mrs Kilspinnie, with whom he was sitting on a bedside before a
+well-garnished table, whereon was divers silver flagons, canisters of
+comfits, and goblets of the crystal of Venetia.
+
+He looked sharp at my grandfather, perusing him from head to foot, who
+put on for the occasion a face of modesty and reverence, but he was none
+daunted, for all his eyes were awake, and he took such a cognition of
+his Grace as he never afterwards forgot. Indeed, I have often heard him
+say that he saw more of the man in the brief space of that interview
+than of others in many intromissions, and he used to depict him to me as
+a hale, black-avised carl, of an o'ersea look, with a long dark beard
+inclining to grey; his abundant hair, flowing down from his cowl, was
+also clouded and streaked with the kithings of the cranreuch of age.
+There was, however, a youthy and luscious twinkling in his eyes, that
+showed how little the passage of three-and-fifty winters had cooled the
+rampant sensuality of his nature. His right leg, which was naked, though
+on the foot was a slipper of Spanish leather, he laid o'er Mistress
+Kilspinnie's knees as he threw himself back against the pillar of the
+bed, the better to observe and converse with my grandfather; and she,
+like another Delilah, began to prattle it with her fingers, casting at
+the same time glances, unseen by her papistical paramour, towards my
+grandfather, who, as I have said, was a comely and well-favoured young
+man.
+
+After some few questions as to his name and parentage, the prelate said
+he would give him his livery, being then anxious, on account of the
+signs of the times, to fortify his household with stout and valiant
+youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his
+hand on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather
+said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious
+hirkos, then wantoning so openly with his adulterous concubine, for no
+better was Mistress Kilspinnie, her husband, a creditable man, being
+then living, and one of the bailies of Crail. Nor is it to be debated
+that the scene was such as ought not to have been seen in a Christian
+land; but in those days the blasphemous progeny of the Roman harlot were
+bold with the audacious sinfulness of their parent, and set little store
+by the fear of God or the contempt of man. It was a sore trial and a
+struggle in the bosom of my grandfather that day to think of making a
+show of homage and service towards the mitred Belial and high priest of
+the abominations wherewith the realm was polluted, and when he rose from
+under his paw he shuddered, and felt as if he had received the foul erls
+of perdition from the Evil One. Many a bitter tear he long after shed in
+secret for the hypocrisy of that hour, the guilt of which was never
+sweetened to his conscience, even by the thought that he maybe thereby
+helped to further the great redemption of his native land in the blessed
+cleansing of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Sir David Hamilton conducted my grandfather back through the garden and
+the sallyport to the castle, where he made him acquainted with his
+Grace's seneschal, by whom he was hospitably entertained when the knight
+had left them together, receiving from him a cup of hippocras and a
+plentiful repast, the like of which, for the savouriness of the viands,
+was seldom seen out of the howfs of the monks.
+
+The seneschal was called by name Leonard Meldrum, and was a most douce
+and composed character, well stricken in years, and though engrained
+with the errors of papistry, as was natural for one bred and cherished
+in the house of the speaking horn of the Beast, for such the high priest
+of St Andrews was well likened to, he was nevertheless a man of a humane
+heart and great tenderness of conscience.
+
+The while my grandfather was sitting with him at the board, he lamented
+that the Church, so he denominated the papal abomination, was so far
+gone with the spirit of punishment and of cruelty as rather to shock
+men's minds into schism and rebellion than to allure them back into
+worship and reverence, and to a repentance of their heresies--a strain
+of discourse which my grandfather so little expected to hear within the
+gates and precincts of the guilty castle of St Andrews that it made him
+for a time distrust the sincerity of the old man, and he was very
+guarded in what he himself answered thereto. Leonard Meldrum was,
+however, honest in his way, and rehearsed many things which had been
+done within his own knowledge against the reformers that, as he said,
+human nature could not abide, nor the just and merciful Heavens well
+pardon.
+
+Thus, from less to more, my grandfather and he fell into frank
+communion, and he gave him such an account of the bloody Cardinal Beaton
+as was most awful to hear, saying that his then present master, with all
+his faults and prodigalities, was a saint of purity compared to that
+rampagious cardinal, the which to hear, my grandfather thinking of what
+he had seen in the lodging of Madam Kilspinnie, was seized with such a
+horror thereat that he could partake no more of the repast before him,
+and he was likewise moved into a great awe and wonder of spirit that the
+Lord should thus, in the very chief sanctuary of papistry in all
+Scotland, be alienating the affections of the servants from their
+master, preparing the way, as it were, for an utter desertion and
+desolation to ensue.
+
+They afterwards talked of the latter end of that great martyr, Mr George
+Wishart, and the seneschal informed him of several things concerning the
+same that were most edifying, though sorrowful to hear.
+
+"He was," said he, "placed under my care, and methinks I shall ever see
+him before me, so meek, so holy, and so goodly was his aspect. He was of
+tall stature, black haired, long bearded, of a graceful carriage,
+elegant, courteous, and ready to teach. In his apparel he was most
+comely, and in his diet of an abstemious temperance. On the morning of
+his execution, when I gave him notice that he was not to be allowed to
+have the sacrament, he smiled with a holiness of resignation that almost
+melted me to weep. I then invited him to partake of my breakfast, which
+he accepted with cheerfulness, saying,--
+
+"'I will do it very willingly, and so much the rather, because I
+perceive you to be a good Christian, and a man fearing God.'
+
+"I then ordered in the breakfast, and he said,--
+
+"'I beseech you, for the love you bear to our Saviour, to be silent a
+little while, till I have made a short exhortation, and blessed this
+bread we are to eat.'
+
+"He then spoke about the space of half an hour of our Saviour's death
+and passion, exhorting me, and those who were present with me, to mutual
+love and holiness of life; and giving thanks, brake the bread,
+distributing a part to those about him; then taking a cup, he bade us
+remember that Christ's blood was shed to wash away our sins, and,
+tasting it himself, he handed it to me, and I likewise partook of it:
+then he concluded with another prayer, at the end of which he said, 'I
+will neither drink nor eat any more in this world,' and he forthwith
+entered into an inner chamber where his bed was, leaving us filled with
+admiration and sorrow, and our eyes flowing with tears."
+
+To this the seneschal added, "I fear, I fear, we are soon to have
+another scene of the same sort, for to-morrow the Bishops of Murray, and
+Brechin, and Caithness, with other dignitaries, are summoned to the
+cathedral to sit in judgment on the aged priest of Lunan, that was
+brought hither from Dysart yestereen, and from the head the newfangled
+heresies are making, there's little doubt that the poor auld man will be
+made an example. Woes me! far better would it be an they would make an
+example of the like of the Earls of Argyle and Glencairn, by whom the
+reprobates are so encouraged."
+
+"And is this Mill," inquired my grandfather with diffidence, for his
+heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the
+necessary hypocrisy which the peril he stood in required--"Is this Mill
+in the castle?"
+
+"Sorry am I to say it," replied the seneschal, "and under my keeping;
+but I darena show him the pity that I would fain do to his grey hairs
+and aged limbs. Some of the monks of the priory are with him just now,
+trying to get him to recant his errors, with the promise of a bein
+provision for the remainder of his days in the abbey of Dunfermline, the
+whilk I hope our blessed Lady will put it into his heart to accept."
+
+"I trust," said my grandfather in the core of his bosom, "that the Lord
+will fortify him to resist the temptation."
+
+This, however, the seneschal heard not, for it was ejaculated inwardly,
+and he subjoined,--
+
+"When the monks go away, I will take you in to see him, for truly he is
+a sight far more moving to compassion than displeasure, whatsoever his
+sins and heresies may be."
+
+In this manner, for the space of more than an hour, did my grandfather
+hold converse and communion with Leonard Meldrum, in whom, he was often
+heard to say, there was more of the leaven of a sanctified nature than
+in the disposition of many zealous and professing Christians.
+
+When the two shavlings that had been afflicting Master Mill with the
+offer of the wages of Satan were departed from the castle, the seneschal
+rose, and bidding my grandfather to come after him, they went out of the
+room, and traversing a narrow dark passage with many windings, came to
+the foot of a turnpike stair which led up into the sea-tower, so called
+because it stood farthermost of all the castle in the sea, and in the
+chamber thereof they found Master Mill alone, sitting at the window,
+with his ancient and shrivelled lean hand resting on the sole and
+supporting his chin, as he looked through the iron stainchers abroad on
+the ocean that was sleeping in a blessed tranquillity around, all
+glowing and golden with the shimmer of the setting sun.
+
+"How fares it with you?" said the seneschal with a kindly accent;
+whereupon the old man, who had not heard them enter, being tranced in
+his own holy meditations, turned round, and my grandfather said he felt
+himself, when he beheld his countenance, so smitten with awe and
+admiration, that he could not for some time advance a step.
+
+"Come in, Master Meldrum, and sit ye down by me!" said the godly man.
+"Draw near unto me, for I am a thought hard of hearing. The Lord has of
+late, by steeking the doors and windows of my earthly tabernacle, been
+admonishing me that the gloaming is come, and the hour of rest cannot be
+far off."
+
+His voice, said my grandfather, was as the sound of a mournful melody,
+but his countenance was brightened with a solemn joyfulness. He was of a
+pale and spiritual complexion; his eyes beamed, as it were, with a
+living light, and often glanced thoughts of heavenly imaginings, even as
+he sat in silence. He was then fourscore and two years old; but his
+appearance was more aged, for his life had been full of suffering and
+poverty; and his venerable hands and skinny arms were heart-melting
+evidences of his ineffectual power to struggle much longer in the
+warfare of this world. In sooth, he was a chosen wheat-ear, ripened and
+ready for the garnels of salvation.
+
+"I have brought, Master Mill," said the seneschal, "a discreet youth to
+see you, not out of a vain curiosity, for he sorrows with an exceeding
+grief that such an aged person should be brought into a state of so
+great jeopardy; but I hope, Master Mill, it will go well with you yet,
+and that ye'll repent and accept the boon that I hae heard was to be
+proffered."
+
+To these words the aged saint made no reply for the space of about a
+minute; at the end of which he raised his hands, and casting his eyes
+heavenward, exclaimed,--
+
+"I thank Thee, O Lord, for the days of sore trial, and want, and hunger,
+and thirst, and destitution which Thou hast been pleased to bestow upon
+me, for by them have I, even now as I stand on the threshold of life,
+been enabled, through Thy merciful heartenings, to set at nought the
+temptations wherewith I have been tempted."
+
+And, turning to the seneschal, he added mildly, "But I am bound to you,
+Master Meldrum, in great obligations, for I know that in the hope you
+have now expressed there is the spirit of much charitableness, albeit
+you discern not the deadly malady that the sin of compliance would bring
+to my poor soul. No, sir, it would na be worth my while now, for world's
+gain, to read a recantation. And, blessed be God, it's no in my power to
+yield, so deeply are the truths of His laws engraven upon the tablet of
+my heart."
+
+They then fell into more general discourse, and while they were
+speaking, a halberdier came into the room with a paper, whereby the
+prisoner was summoned to appear in the cathedral next day by ten
+o'clock, to answer divers matters of heresy and schism laid to his
+charge; and the man having delivered the summons, said to the seneschal
+that he was ordered by Sir Andrew Oliphant to bid him refrain from
+visiting the prisoner, and to retire to his own lodging.
+
+The seneschal to this command said nothing, but rose, and my grandfather
+likewise rose. Fain would he have knelt down to beg the blessing of the
+martyr, but the worthy Master Meldrum signified to him with a look to
+come at once away; and when they were returned back into his chamber
+where the repast had been served, he told him that there was a danger of
+falling under the evil thoughts of Oliphant, were he to be seen
+evidencing anything like respect towards prisoners accused of the sin of
+heresy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The next day was like a cried fair in St. Andrews. All the country from
+ayont Cupar, and many reformed and godly persons even from Dundee and
+Perth, were gathered into the city to hear the trial of Master Walter
+Mill. The streets were filled with horses and men with whips in their
+hands and spurs at their heels, and there was a great going to and fro
+among the multitude; but, saving in its numbers, the congregation of the
+people was in no other complexion either like a fair or a tryst. Every
+visage was darkened with doure thoughts; none spoke cheerfully aloud;
+but there was whispering and muttering, and ever and anon the auld men
+were seen wagging their heads in sorrow, while the young cried often
+"Shame! shame!" and with vehement gestures clave the air with their
+right hands, grasping their whips and staffs with the vigour of
+indignation.
+
+At last the big bell of the cathedral began to jow, at the doleful sound
+of which there was, for the space of two or three minutes, a silence and
+pause in the multitude as if they had been struck with panic and
+consternation, for till then there was a hope among them that the
+persecutors would relent; but the din of the bell was as the signal of
+death and despair, and the people were soon awakened from their
+astonishment by the cry that "the bishops are coming," whereat there
+was a great rush towards the gates of the church, which was presently
+filled, leaving only a passage up the middle aisle.
+
+In the quire a table was spread with a purple velvet cloth, and at the
+upper end, before the high place of the mass, was a stool of state for
+the Archbishop; on each side stood chairs for the Bishops of Murray,
+Brechin and Caithness and his other suffragans, summoned to sit in
+judgment with him.
+
+My grandfather, armed and wearing the Archbishop's livery, was with
+those that guarded the way for the cruel prelates, and by the pressure
+of the throng in convoying them into their place, he was driven within
+the screen of the quire, and saw and heard all that passed.
+
+When they had taken their seats, Master Mill was brought before them
+from the prior's chamber, whither he had been secretly conducted early
+in the morning, to the end that his great age might not be seen of the
+people to work on their compassion. But, notwithstanding the forethought
+of this device, when he came in, his white hair and his saintly look and
+his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. Even the very legate
+of Antichrist, the Archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was
+evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as
+he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran
+through the church.
+
+On being taken to the bottom of the table and placed fornent the
+Archbishop, Master Mill knelt down and prayed for support in a voice so
+firm and clear and eloquent that all present were surprised, for it rung
+to the farthest corner of that great edifice, and smote the hearts of
+his oppressors as with the dread of a menacing oracle.
+
+Sir Andrew Oliphant, who acted as clerk and chancellor on the occasion,
+began to fret as he heard him thus strengthened of the Lord, and cried
+peevishly,--
+
+"Sir Walter Mill, get up and answer, for you keep my lords here too
+long."
+
+He, however, heeded not this command, but continued undisturbed till he
+had finished his devotion, when he rose and said,--
+
+"I am bound to obey God more than man, and I serve a mightier Lord than
+yours. You call me Sir Walter, but I am only Walter. Too long was I one
+of the Pope's knights; but now say what you have to say."
+
+Oliphant was somewhat cowed by this bold reply, and he bowed down, and
+turning over his papers, read a portion of one of them to himself, and
+then raising his head, said,--
+
+"What thinkest thou of priests' marriage?"
+
+The old man looked bravely towards the bishops, and answered with an
+intrepid voice,--
+
+"I esteem marriage a blessed bond, ordained by God, approved by Christ,
+and made free to all sorts of men; but you abhor it, and in the meantime
+take other men's wives and daughters; you vow chastity, and keep it
+not."
+
+My grandfather at these words looked unawares towards the Archbishop,
+thinking of what he had seen in the lodging of Mistress Kilspinnie, and
+their eyes chancing to meet, his Grace turned his head suddenly away as
+if he had been rebuked.
+
+Divers other questions were then put by Oliphant touching the
+sacraments, the idolatry of the mass, and transubstantiation, with other
+points concerning bishops and pilgrimages, and the worshipping of God in
+unconsecrated places, to all which Master Mill answered in so brave a
+manner, contrary to the papists, that even Oliphant himself often looked
+reproved and confounded. At last the choler of that sharp weapon of
+persecution began to rise, and he said to him sternly,--
+
+"If you will not recant I will pronounce sentence against you."
+
+"I know," replied Master Mill, with an apostolic constancy and
+fortitude, "I know that I must die once, and therefore, as Christ said
+to Judas, What thou doest do quickly. You shall know that I will not
+recant the truth, for I am corn and not chaff. I will neither be blown
+away by the wind nor burst with the flail, but will abide both."
+
+At these brave words a sough of admiration sounded through the church,
+but, instead of deterring the prelates from proceeding with their wicked
+purpose, it only served to harden their hearts and to rouse their anger,
+for when they had conferred a few minutes apart, Oliphant was ordered to
+condemn him to the fire, and to deliver him over to the temporal
+magistrates to see execution done.
+
+No sooner was the sentence known, than a cry like a howl of wrath rose
+from all the people, and the provost of the town, who was present with
+the bailies, hastily quitted the church and fled, abhorring the task,
+and fearful it would be put upon him to see it done, he being also
+bailie of the Archbishop's regalities.
+
+When the sentence was pronounced, the session of the court was
+adjourned, and the bishops, as they were guarded back to the castle,
+heard many a malison from the multitude who were ravenous against them.
+
+The aged martyr being led back to the prior's chamber, was, under cloud
+of night, taken to the castle; but my grandfather saw no more of him,
+nor of Master Meldrum, the seneschal; for there was a great fear among
+the bishops' men that the multitude would rise and attempt a rescue; and
+my grandfather, not being inclined to go so far with his disguise as to
+fight against that cause, took occasion, in the dusk of the evening, to
+slip out of the castle, and to hide himself in the town, being resolved,
+after what he had witnessed, no longer to abide, even as a spy, in a
+service which his soul loathed.
+
+All the night long there was a great commotion in the streets, and
+lights in many houses, and a sound of lamentation mingled with rage. The
+noise was as if some dreadful work was going on. There was no shouting,
+nor any sound of men united together, but a deep and hoarse murmur rose
+at times from the people, like the sound of the bandless waves of the
+sea when they are driven by the strong impulses of the tempest. The
+spirit of the times was indeed upon them, and it was manifest to my
+grandfather that there wanted that night but the voice of a captain to
+bid them hurl their wrath and vengeance against the towers and
+strongholds of the oppressors.
+
+At the dawn of day the garrison of the castle came forth, and, on the
+spot where the martyrdom of Mr George Wishart had been accomplished, a
+stake was driven into the ground, and faggots and barrels of tar were
+placed around it, piled up almost as high as a man; in the middle, next
+to the stake, a place was left for the sufferer.
+
+But when all things were prepared, no rope could be had--no one in all
+the town would give or sell a cord to help that sacrifice of iniquity,
+nor would any of the magistrates come forth to see the execution done,
+so it was thought for a time that the hungry cruelty of the persecutors
+would be disappointed of its banquet. One Somerville, however, who was
+officer of the Archbishop's guard, bethought himself, in this extremity,
+of the ropes wherewith his master's pavilion was fastened, and he went
+and took the same; and then his men brought forth the aged martyr, at
+the sight of whom the multitude set up a dreadful imprecation, the roar
+and growling groan of which was as if a thousand furious tigresses had
+been robbed of their young. Many of Somerville's halberdiers looked
+cowed, and their faces were aghast with terror; and some cried,
+compassionately, as they saw the blessed old man brought, with his hands
+tied behind him, to the stake, "Recant, recant!"
+
+The monks and friars of the different monasteries, who were all there
+assembled around, took up the word, and bitterly taunting him, cried
+likewise, "Recant, recant and save thyself!" He, however, replied to
+them with an awful austerity,--
+
+"I marvel at your rage, ye hypocrites, who do so cruelly pursue the
+servants of God. As for me, I am now fourscore and two years old, and by
+course of nature cannot live long; but hundreds shall rise out of my
+ashes who shall scatter you, ye persecutors of God's people."
+
+Sir Andrew Oliphant, who was that day the busiest high priest of the
+horrible sacrifice, at these words pushed him forward into the midst of
+the faggots and fuel around the stake. But, nothing moved by this
+remorseless indignity, the martyr looked for a moment at the pile with a
+countenance full of cheerful resignation, and then requested permission
+to say a few words to the people.
+
+"You have spoken too much," cried Oliphant, "and the bishops are
+exceedingly displeased with what you have said."
+
+But the multitude exclaimed, "Let him be heard! let him speak what he
+pleases! Speak, and heed not Oliphant." At which he looked towards them
+and said,--
+
+"Dear friends, the cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid
+to my charge, though I acknowledge myself a miserable sinner, but only
+for the defence of the truths of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Old
+and New Testaments."
+
+He then began to pray, and while his eyes were shut, two of Somerville's
+men threw a cord with a running loop round his body, and bound him to
+the stake. The fire was then kindled, and at the sight of the smoke the
+multitude uttered a shriek of anguish, and many ran away, unable to bear
+any longer the sight of that woful tragedy. Among others, my grandfather
+also ran, nor halted till he was come to a place under the rocks on the
+south side of the town, where he could see nothing before him but the
+lonely desert of the calm and soundless ocean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Many a time did my grandfather, in his old age, when all things he spoke
+were but remembrances, try to tell what passed in his bosom while he was
+sitting alone, under those cliffy rocks, gazing on the silent and
+innocent sea, thinking of that dreadful work, more hideous than the
+horrors of winds and waves, with which blinded men, in the lusts of
+their idolatry, were then blackening the ethereal face of heaven; but he
+was ever unable to proceed for the struggles of his spirit and the
+gushing of his tears. Verily it was an awful thing to see that
+patriarchal man overcome by the recollections of his youth; and the
+manner in which he spoke of the papistical cruelties was as the pouring
+of the energy of a new life into the very soul, instigating thoughts and
+resolutions of an implacable enmity against those ruthless adversaries
+to the hopes and redemption of the world, insomuch that, while yet a
+child, I was often worked upon by what he said, and felt my young heart
+so kindled with the live coals of his godly enthusiasm, that he himself
+has stopped in the eloquence of his discourse, wondering at my fervour.
+Then he would lay his hand upon my head, and say, the Lord had not
+gifted me with such zeal without having a task in store for my riper
+years. His words of prophecy, as shall hereafter appear, have greatly
+and wonderfully come to pass. But it is meet that for a season I should
+rehearse what ensued to him, for his story is full of solemnities and
+strange accidents.
+
+Having rested some time on the sea-shore, he rose and walked along the
+toilsome shingle, scarcely noting which way he went--his thoughts being
+busy with the martyrdom he had witnessed, flushing one moment with a
+glorious indignation, and fainting the next with despondent reflections
+on his own friendless state. For he looked upon himself as adrift on the
+tides of the world, believing that his patron, the Earl of Glencairn,
+would to a surety condemn his lack of fortitude in not enduring the
+servitude of the Archbishop, after having been in so miraculous a manner
+accepted into it, even as if Providence had made him a special
+instrument to achieve the discoveries which the Lords of the
+Congregation had then so much at heart. And while he was walking along
+in this fluctuating mood, he came suddenly upon a man who was sitting,
+as he had so shortly before been himself, sad and solitary, gazing on
+the sea. The stranger, on hearing him approach, rose hastily, and was
+moving quickly away; but my grandfather called to him to stop and not to
+be afraid, for he would harm no one.
+
+"I thought," said the melancholy man, "that all his Grace's retainers
+were at the execution of the heretic."
+
+There was something in the way in which he uttered the latter clause of
+the sentence that seemed to my grandfather as if he would have made use
+of better and fitter words, and therefore, to encourage him into
+confidence, he replied,--
+
+"I belong not to his Grace."
+
+"How is it, then, that you wear his livery, and that I saw you, with Sir
+David Hamilton, enter the garden of that misguided woman?"
+
+He could proceed no farther, for his heart swelled, and his utterance
+was for a while stifled, he being no other than the misfortunate Bailie
+of Crail, whose light wife had sunk into the depravity of the
+Archbishop's lemane. She had been beguiled away from him and her five
+babies, their children, by the temptations of a Dominican, who, by habit
+and repute, was pandarus to his Grace, and the poor man had come to try
+if it was possible to wile her back.
+
+My grandfather was melted with sorrow to see his great affection for the
+unworthy concubine, calling to mind the scene of her harlotry and wanton
+glances, and he reasoned with him on the great folly of vexing his
+spirit for a woman so far lost to all shame and given over to iniquity.
+But still the good man of Crail would not be persuaded, but used many
+earnest entreaties that my grandfather would assist him to see his wife,
+in order that he might remonstrate with her on the eternal perils in
+which she had placed her precious soul.
+
+My grandfather, though much moved by the importunity of that weak,
+honest man, nevertheless withstood his entreaties, telling him that he
+was minded to depart forthwith from St Andrews, and make the best of his
+way back to Edinburgh, and so could embark in no undertaking whatever.
+
+Discoursing on that subject in this manner, they strayed into the
+fields, and being wrapt up in their conversation, they heeded not which
+way they went, till, turning suddenly round the corner of an orchard,
+they saw the castle full before them, about half a mile off, and a dim
+white vapour mounting at times from the spot, still surrounded by many
+spectators, where the fires of martyrdom had burnt so fiercely.
+Shuddering and filled with dread, my grandfather turned away, and seeing
+several countrymen passing, he inquired if all was over.
+
+"Yes," said they, "and the soldiers are slockening the ashes; but a' the
+waters of the ocean-sea will never quench in Scotland the flame that was
+kindled yonder this day."
+
+The which words they said with a proud look, thinking my grandfather, by
+his arms and gabardine, belonged to the Archbishop's household; but the
+words were as manna to his religious soul, and he gave inward praise and
+thanks that the selfsame tragical means which had been devised to
+terrify the reformers was thus, through the mysterious wisdom of
+Providence, made more emboldening than courageous wine to fortify their
+hearts for the great work that was before them.
+
+Nothing, however, farther passed; but, changing the course of their
+walk, my grandfather and the sorrowful Master Kilspinnie--for so the
+poor man of Crail was called--went back, and, entering the bow at the
+Shoegate, passed on towards a vintner's that dwelt opposite to the
+convent of the Blackfriars; for the day was by this time far advanced,
+and they both felt themselves in need of some refreshment.
+
+While they were sitting together in the vintner's apartment, a stripling
+came several times into the room, and looked hard at my grandfather, and
+then went away without speaking. This was divers times repeated, and at
+last it was so remarkable that even Master Kilspinnie took notice of
+him, observing, that he seemed as if he had something very particular to
+communicate, if an opportunity served, offering at the same time to
+withdraw, to leave the room clear for the youth to tell his errand.
+
+My grandfather's curiosity was, by this strange and new adventure to
+him, so awakened, that he thought what his companion proposed a discreet
+thing; so the honest Bailie of Crail withdrew himself, and, going into
+the street, left my grandfather alone.
+
+No sooner was he gone out of the house than the stripling, who had been
+sorning about the door, again came in, and, coming close up to my
+grandfather's ear, said, with a significance not to be misconstrued,
+that if he would follow him he would take him to free quarters, where he
+would be more kindly entertained.
+
+My grandfather, though naturally of a quiet temperament, was
+nevertheless a bold and brave youth, and there was something in the
+mystery of this message--for such he rightly deemed it--that made him
+fain to see the end thereof. So he called in the vintner's wife and paid
+her the lawin', telling her to say to the friend who had been with him,
+when he came back, that he would soon return.
+
+The vintner's wife was a buxom and jolly dame, and before taking up the
+money, she gave a pawkie look at the stripling, and as my grandfather
+and he were going out at the door, she hit the gilly a bilf on the back,
+saying it was a ne'er-do-weel trade he had ta'en up, and that he wasna
+blate to wile awa' her customers, crying after him, "I redde ye warn
+your madam that gin she sends you here again, I'll maybe let his Grace
+ken that her cauldron needs clouting." However, the graceless gilly but
+laughed at the vintner's wife, winking as he patted the side of his nose
+with his fore-finger, which testified that he held her vows of vengeance
+in very little reverence; and then he went on, my grandfather following.
+
+They walked up the street till they came to the priory yett, when,
+turning down a wynd to the left, he led my grandfather along between two
+dykes, till they were come to a house that stood by itself within a fair
+garden. But instead of going to the door in an honest manner, he bade
+him stop, and going forward he whistled shrilly, and then flung three
+stones against a butt, that was standing at the corner of the house on a
+gauntrees to kep rain water from the spouting image of a stone puddock
+that vomited what was gathered from the roof in the rones, and soon
+after an upper casement was opened, and a damsel looked forth; she
+however said nothing to the stripling, but she made certain signs which
+he understood, and then she drew in her head, shutting the casement
+softly, and he came back to my grandfather, to whom he said it was not
+commodious at that time for him to be received into the house, but if he
+would come back in the dark, at eight o'clock, all things would be ready
+for his reception.
+
+To this suggestion my grandfather made no scruple to assent, but
+promised to be there; and he bargained with the lad to come for him,
+giving him at the same time three placks for a largess. He then returned
+to the vintner's, where he found the Crail man sitting waiting for him;
+and the vintner's wife, when she saw him so soon back, jeered him, and
+would fain have been jocose, which he often after thought a woful
+immorality, considering the dreadful martyrdom of a godly man that had
+been done that day in the town; but at the time he was not so over
+strait-laced as to take offence at what she said; indeed, as he used to
+say, sins were not so heinous in those papistical days as they
+afterwards became, when men lost faith in penance, and found out the
+perils of purchased pardons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+My grandfather having, as I have told, a compassion for the silly
+affection wherewith the honest man of Crail still regarded his wanton
+wife, told him the circumstantials of his adventure with the stripling;
+without, however, letting wot he had discovered that the invitation was
+from her; the which was the case, for the damsel who looked out at the
+window was no other than the giglet he had seen in her lodging when he
+went thither with Sir David Hamilton, and he proposed to the
+disconsolate husband that he should be his friend in the adventure;
+meaning thereby to convince the unhappy man, by the evidence of his own
+eyes and ears, that her concubinage with the Antichrist was a blessed
+riddance to him and his family.
+
+At first Master Kilspinnie had no zest for any such frolic, for so it
+seemed to him, and he began to think my grandfather's horror at the
+martyrdom of the aged saint but a long-fac't hypocrisy; nevertheless he
+was wrought upon to consent; and they sat plotting and contriving in
+what manner they should act their several parts, my grandfather
+pretending great fear and apprehension at the thoughts of himself, a
+stranger, going alone into the traps of a house where there were sic
+forerunners of shame and signs of danger. At last he proposed that they
+should go together and spy about the precincts of the place, and try to
+discover if there was no other entrance or outgate to the house than the
+way by which the stripling conducted him, though well he remembered the
+sallyport, where the fat friar kept watch, eating the pasty.
+
+Accordingly they went forth from the vintner's, and my grandfather, as
+if he knew not the way, led his companion round between the priory and
+the sea, till they came near the aforesaid sallyport, when, mounting
+upon a stone, he affected to discover that the house of the madam stood
+in the garden within, and that the sallyport could be no less than a
+back yett thereto.
+
+While they were speaking concerning the same, my grandfather observed
+the wicket open in the gate, and guessing therefrom that it was one
+spying to forewarn somebody within who wanted to come out unremarked, he
+made a sign to his companion, and they both threw themselves flat on the
+ground, and hirsled down the rocks to conceal themselves. Presently the
+gate was opened, and then out came the fat friar, and looked east and
+west, holding the door in his hand; and anon out came his Grace the
+Antichrist, hirpling with a staff in his hand, for he was lame with that
+monkish malady called the gout. The friar then drew the yett to, and
+walked on towards the castle, with his Grace leaning on his arm. In the
+meantime the poor man of Crail was grinding the teeth of his rage at the
+sight of the cause of his sorrow, and my grandfather had a sore struggle
+to keep him down, and prevent him from running wud and furious at the
+two sacerdotal reprobates, for no lightlier could they be called.
+
+Thus, without any disclosure on my grandfather's part, did Master
+Kilspinnie come to jealouse that the lemane who had trysted him was no
+other than his own faithless wife, and he smote his forehead and wept
+bitterly, to think how she was become so dreadless in sin. But he vowed
+to put her to shame; so it was covenanted between them, that in the
+dusk of the evening the afflicted husband should post himself near to
+where they then stood, and that when my grandfather was admitted by the
+other entrance to the house, he should devise some reason for walking
+forth into the garden, and while there admit Master Kilspinnie.
+
+Accordingly, betimes my grandfather was ready, and the stripling, as had
+been bargained, came for him to the vintner's, and conducted him to the
+house, where, after giving the signals before enumerated, the damsel
+came to the door and gave him admittance, leading him straight to the
+inner chamber before described, where her mistress was sitting in a
+languishing posture, with the table spread for a banquet.
+
+She embraced my grandfather with many fond protestations, and filled him
+a cup of hot malvesie, while her handmaid brought in divers savoury
+dishes; but he, though a valiant young man, was not at his ease, and he
+thought of the poor husband and the five babies that the adultress had
+left for the foul love of the papist high-priest, and it was a chaste
+spell and a restraining grace. Still he partook a little of the rich
+repast which had been prepared, and feigned so long a false pleasance,
+that he almost became pleased in reality. The dame, however, was herself
+at times fearful, and seemed to listen if there was any knocking at the
+door, telling my grandfather that his Grace was to be back after he had
+supped at the castle. "I thought," said she, "to have had you here when
+he was at the burning of the heretic, but my gilly could not find you
+among the troopers till it was owre late; for when he brought you my
+Lord had come to solace himself after the execution. But I was so
+nettled to be so baulked, that I acted myself into an anger till I got
+him away, not, however, without a threat of being troubled with him
+again at night."
+
+Scarcely had madam said this, when my grandfather started up and feigned
+to be in great terror, begging her to let him hide himself in the garden
+till his Grace was come and gone. To this, with all her blandishments,
+the guilty woman made many obstacles, but he was fortified of the Lord
+with the thoughts of her injured children, and would not be entreated,
+but insisted on scogging himself in the garden till the Archbishop was
+sent away, the hour of his coming being then near at hand. Seeing him
+thus peremptory, Madam Kilspinnie was obligated to conform; so he was
+permitted to go into the garden, and no sooner was he there than he went
+to the sallyport and admitted her husband; and well it was that he had
+been so steadfast in his purpose, for scarcely were they moved from the
+yett into a honeysuckle bower hard by when they heard it again open, and
+in came his Grace with his corpulent pandarus, who took his seat on the
+bench before spoken of, to watch, while his master went into the house.
+
+The good Bailie of Crail breathed thickly, and he took my grandfather by
+the hand, his whole frame trembling with a passion of grief and rage. In
+the lapse of some four or five minutes, the giglet damsel came out of
+the house, and by the glimpse of a light from a window as she passed
+they saw she had a tankard of smoking drink in her hand, with which she
+went to the friar; and my grandfather and his companion, taking
+advantage of this, slipped out of their hiding-place and stole softly
+into the house and reached the outer chamber that was parted from
+madam's banquet bower by the arras partition. There they stopped to
+listen, and heard her complaining in a most dolorous manner of great
+heart-sickness, ever and anon begging the deluded prelate Hamilton to
+taste the feast she had prepared for him, in the hope of being able to
+share it with him and the caresses of his sweet love, to which his Grace
+as often replied, with great condolence and sympathy, how very grieved
+he was to find her in that sad and sore estate, with many other fond
+cajoleries, most odious to my grandfather to hear from a man so far
+advanced in years, and who, by reason of the reverence of his office,
+ought to have had his tongue schooled to terms of piety and temperance.
+
+The poor husband meanwhile said nothing, but my grandfather heard his
+heart panting audibly, and three or four times he was obligated to brush
+away his hand, for, having no arms himself, the bailie clutched at the
+hilt of his sword and would have drawn it from the scabbard.
+
+The Antichrist, seeing his lemane in such great malady as she so well
+feigned, he at last, to her very earnest supplication, consented to
+leave her that night, and kissed her as he came away; but her husband
+broke in upon them with the rage of a hungry lion, and seizing his
+Grace by the cuff of the neck, swung him away from her with such
+vehemence that he fell into the corner of the room like a sack of duds.
+As for madam, she uttered a wild cry, and threw herself back on the
+couch where she was sitting and seemed as if she had swooned, having no
+other device so ready to avoid the upbraidings and just reproaches of
+her spouse. But she was soon roused from that fraudulent dwam by my
+grandfather, who, seizing a flagon of wine, dashed it upon her face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Mrs Kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attempted
+to run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and my
+grandfather was empowered, by a signal grant of great presence of mind
+to think that the noise might cause alarm, whereupon he sprang instanter
+to the door that led into the garden just as the damsel was coming up,
+and the fat friar hobbling as fast as he could behind her; and he had
+but time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quiet
+in the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. She, on
+hearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closed
+and bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which he
+had been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, he
+returned to the scene of commotion.
+
+In the meantime the prelatic dragon that was so ravished from the woman
+had hastily risen upon his legs, and, red with a dreadful wrath, raged
+as if he would have devoured her husband. In sooth, to do his Grace
+justice, he lacked not the spirit of a courageous gentleman, and he
+could not, my grandfather often said, have borne himself more proudly
+and valiantly had he been a belted knight, bred in camps and fields of
+war, so that a discreet retreat and evasion of the house was the best
+course they could take. But Master Kilspinnie fain would have continued
+his biting taunts to the mistress, who was enacting a most tragical
+extravagance of affliction and terror. My grandfather, however, suddenly
+cut him short, crying, "Come, come, no more of this; an alarm is given,
+and we must save ourselves." With that he seized him firmly by the arm,
+and in a manner harled him out of the house and into the lane between
+the dykes, along which they ran with nimble heels. On reaching the
+Showgate they slackened their speed, still, however, walking as fast as
+they could till they came near the port, when they again drew in the
+bridle of their haste, going through among the guards that were
+loitering around the door of the wardroom, and passed out into the
+fields as if they had been indifferent persons.
+
+On escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along the
+road, who, by their discourse, were returning home to Cupar, and they
+walked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where my
+grandfather, giving Master Kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one that
+went to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road to
+Dysart and Crail.
+
+"This will ne'er do," said Master Kilspinnie, "they will pursue us this
+gait."
+
+Upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped and
+conferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experience
+and foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was all
+his days protected. For it was in a manner revealed to him that he
+should throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in the
+castle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that they
+should turn back and cross the Cupar road, and go along the other, which
+led to the Dundee waterside ferry. This he told to his fearful
+companion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heard
+anybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himself
+among the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear they
+were not two persons in company together.
+
+But they had not long crossed the Cupar road and travelled the one
+leading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of horsemen
+coming after them, at which the honest man of Crail darted aside and lay
+flat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began to
+lilt as blithely as he could, "The Bonny Lass of Livingston," and the
+spring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words he
+then sang was an auld, ranting, godless and graceless ditty of the
+grooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and the
+closer that the horsemen came he was strengthened to sing the louder and
+the clearer.
+
+"Saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of the
+pursuers, pulling up.
+
+"What like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner.
+
+"Ane of them was o' his Grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other,
+curse tak me gin I ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provost
+of a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly."
+
+To this my grandfather answered briskly, "Nae sic twa ha'e past me, but
+as I was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa sturdy loons,
+ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, and
+I hae a thought that they took the road to Crail or Dysart."
+
+"That was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast,
+and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfather
+good-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance was
+there wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night.
+
+As soon as the horsemen had gone by, Bailie Kilspinnie came from his
+hiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-lime
+was on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside,
+where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundee
+and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of
+foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain
+with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay
+him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as
+the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat
+for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error
+till they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town,
+letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morning
+by the Perth boat to Dundee, with which Master Kilspinnie was well
+acquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as a
+plaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twice
+a week, and that the morrow was one of the days. All this they were
+enabled to do with such fortitude and decorum that no one aboard the
+Perth boat could have divined that they were not honest men in great
+trouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat.
+
+But nothing showed more that Providence had a hand in all this than what
+ensued, for all the passengers in the boat had been at St Andrews to
+hear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehement
+not only in their condemnation of the mitred Antichrist, but grieved
+with a sincere sorrow that none of the nobles of Scotland would stand
+forth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race of
+oppressors more grievous than the Southrons that trode on the neck of
+their fathers in the hero-stirring times of the Wallace wight and King
+Robert the Bruce. Truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation in
+the company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour to
+avenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were daily
+growing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made the
+shores ring with the olden song of--
+
+   "O for my ain king, quo' gude Wallace,
+     The rightfu' king of fair Scotlan';
+   Between me and my sovereign dear
+     I think I see some ill seed sawn."
+
+It was the grey of the morning before they reached Perth, and as soon as
+they were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to the
+house of one Sawners Ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he had
+dealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them with
+breakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that had
+fallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of Scoone
+taking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, against
+all that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. And he counselled
+them not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on to
+Edinburgh by the Queensferry, but to hasten up the country to Crieff and
+thence take the road to Stirling. In this there was much prudence, but
+Bailie Kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children,
+whom he had left at his home in Crail, fearing that the talons of
+Antichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he was
+given up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that Baal, for so
+he nicknamed the prelatic Hamilton, would impute to him the
+unpardonable sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned to
+bring him to the stake.
+
+But Sawners Ruthven comforted him with the assurance that his Grace
+would not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how Mistress
+Kilspinnie then lived at St Andrews as his concubine. Nevertheless, the
+poor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my grandfather travelled
+towards Crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth in
+its grief that the right arm of the Lord might soon be manifested
+against the Roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruption
+naught in the nostrils of Heaven.
+
+Thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revenge
+mixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchable
+a manner against the Beast and its worshippers, for in the history of
+the honest man of Crail there was a great similitude to other foul and
+worse things which the Roman idolaters seemed to regard among their
+pestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dread
+of any earthly retribution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+My grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but
+instead of going to Stirling they crossed the river at Alloa, and so
+passed by the water-side way to Edinburgh, where, on entering the
+West-port, they separated. The bailie, who was a fearful man and in
+constant dread and terror of being burned as a heretic for having broke
+in upon the dalliance of his incontinent wife and the carnal-minded
+primate of St Andrews, went to a cousin of his own, a dealer in serge
+and temming in the Lawnmarket, with whom he concealed himself for some
+weeks, but my grandfather proceeded straight towards the lodging of the
+Earl of Glencairn to recount to his lordship the whole passages of what
+he had been concerned in, from the night that he departed from his
+presence.
+
+It was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely
+tarried on their journey that they might enter Edinburgh at dusk. The
+shops of the traders were shut, for in those days there was such a
+resort of sorners and lawless men among the trains of the nobles and
+gentry that it was not safe for honest merchants to keep their shops
+open after nightfall. Nevertheless the streets were not darkened, for
+there were then many begging-boxes, with images of the saints, and
+cruisies burning afore them, in divers parts of the High Street and
+corners of the wynds, insomuch that it was easy, as I have heard my
+grandfather tell, to see and know anyone passing in the light thereof.
+And, indeed, what befel himself was proof of it, for as he was coming
+through St Giles' Kirkyard, which is now the Parliament Close, and
+through which at that time there was a style and path for passengers, a
+young man, whom he had observed following him, came close up just as he
+reached a begging image of the Virgin Mary with its lamp that stood on a
+pillar at the south-east corner of the cathedral, and touching him on
+the left shoulder at that spot made him look round in such a manner that
+the light of the Virgin's lamp fell full on his face.
+
+"Dinna be frighted," said the stranger, "I ken you, and I'm in Lord
+Glencairn's service; but follow me and say nothing."
+
+My grandfather was not a little startled by this salutation; he,
+however, made no observe, but replied, "Go on, then."
+
+So the stranger went forward, and, after various turnings and windings,
+led him down into the Cowgate and up a close on the south side thereof,
+and then to a dark timber stair that was so frail and creaking and
+narrow that his guide bade him haul himself up with the help of a rope
+that hung down dangling for that purpose.
+
+When they had raised themselves to the stairhead, the stranger opened a
+door and they went together into a small and lonesome chamber, in the
+chimla-nook of which an old iron cruisie was burning with a winking and
+wizard light.
+
+"I hae brought you here," said his conductor, "for secrecy, for my Lord
+disna want that ye should be seen about his lodging. I'm ane of three
+that hae been lang seeking you, and, as a token that ye're no deceived,
+I was bade to tell you that before parting from my lord he gi'ed you two
+pieces of gold out of his coffer in the chamber where he supped."
+
+My grandfather thought this very like a proof that he had been so
+informed by the Earl himself, but happening to remark that he sat with
+his back to the light and kept his face hidden in the shadow of the
+darkness, Providence put it into his head to jealouse that he might
+nevertheless be a spy, one perhaps that had been trusted in like manner
+as he had himself been trusted, and who had afterwards sold himself to
+the perdition of the adversaries' cause; he was, accordingly, on his
+guard, but replied with seeming frankness that it was very true he had
+received two pieces of gold from the Earl at his departure.
+
+"Then," said the young man, "by that token ye may know that I am in the
+private service of the Earl, who, for reasons best known to himsel',
+hath willed that you should tell me, that I may report the same secretly
+to him, what espionage you have made."
+
+My grandfather was perplexed by this speech, but distrust having crept
+into his thoughts, instead of replying with a full recital of all his
+adventures, he briefly said that he had indeed effected nothing, for his
+soul was sickened by the woful martyrdom of the godly Master Mill to so
+great a disease that he could not endure to abide in St Andrews, and
+therefore he had come back.
+
+"But you have been long on the way--how is that?--it is now many days
+since the burning," replied the stranger.
+
+"You say truly," was my grandfather's answer, "for I came round by
+Perth, but I tarried at no place longer than was needful to repair and
+refresh nature."
+
+"Perth was a wide bout gait to take frae St Andrews to come to
+Edinburgh. I marvel how ye went so far astray," said the young man,
+curiously.
+
+"In sooth it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the
+godly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that I could do the
+Earl no manner of service, I wist not well what course to take, so after
+meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty of purpose I e'en
+resolved to come hither."
+
+Little more passed; the young man rose and said to my grandfather he
+feared the Earl would be so little content with him that he had better
+not go near him but seek some other master. And when they had descended
+the stair and were come into the street he advised him to go to the
+house of a certain Widow Rippet, that let dry lodgings in the
+Grass-market, and roost there for that night. The which my grandfather
+in a manner signified he would do, and so they parted.
+
+The stranger at first walked soberly away, but he had not gone many
+paces when he suddenly turned into a close leading up to the
+High-street, and my grandfather heard the pattering of his feet running
+as swiftly as possible, which confirmed to him what he suspected; and
+so, instead of going towards the Widow Rippet's house he turned back and
+went straight on to St Mary's Wynd, where the Earl's lodging was, and
+knocking at the yett was speedily admitted and conducted instanter to my
+Lord's presence, whom he found alone reading many papers which lay on a
+table before him.
+
+"Gilhaize," said the Earl, "how is this? why have you come back? and
+wherefore is it that I have heard no tidings from you?"
+
+Whereupon my grandfather recounted to him all the circumstantials which
+I have rehearsed, from the hour of his departure from Edinburgh up till
+the very time when he then stood in his master's presence. The Earl made
+no inroad on his narrative while he was telling it, but his countenance
+often changed and he was much moved at different passages--sometimes
+with sorrow and sometimes with anger; and he laughed vehemently at the
+mishap which had befallen the grand adversary of the Congregation and
+his concubine. The adventure, however, with the unknown varlet in the
+street appeared to make his Lordship very thoughtful, and no less than
+thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those
+barren answers which I have already recited; to all which he received
+the most solemn asseverations that no more was said. His Lordship then
+sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows
+bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp thought. At last he said,--
+
+"Gilhaize, you have done better in this than I ought to have expected of
+one so young and unpractised. The favour you won with Sir David Hamilton
+was no more than I thought your looks and manners would beget. But you
+are not only well-favoured but well-fortuned; and had you not found
+yourself worthily bound to your duty I doubt not you might have
+prospered in the Archbishop's household. The affair with Madam
+Kilspinnie was a thing I reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved
+yourself not only a very Joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years
+that your merits deserve more commendation than I can afford to give,
+for I have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and
+discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that
+Judas Iscariot, Winterton, for so I doubt not is the traitor who waylaid
+you. He was once in my service and is now in the Queen Regent's. In
+sending off my men on errands similar to yours, I was wont to give them
+two pieces of gold, and this the false loon has gathered to be a custom
+from others as well as by his own knowledge, and he has made it the key
+to open the breasts of my servants. To know this, however, is a great
+discovery. But, Gilhaize, not to waste words, you have your master's
+confidence. Go, therefore, I pray you, with all speed to the Widow
+Rippet's and do as Winterton bade you and as chance may require. In the
+morning come again hither, for I have this night many weighty affairs,
+and you have shown yourself possessed of a discerning spirit, that may,
+in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good
+Scotchmen."
+
+In saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the
+shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was
+sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So
+my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the
+Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five
+discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to
+sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his
+heart was grieved with pain to see Winterton come in, and behind him the
+two simple lads of Lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it
+appeared, the varlet had seduced from the Earl of Glencairn's service
+and inveigled into the Earl of Seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same
+wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my
+grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two Lithgow
+lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he
+too should make himself like them. He feigned, however, great weariness,
+and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so
+young a man as he saw in Winterton. So, after partaking with them of
+some spiced ale which Winterton brought from the Salutation tavern,
+opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep,
+and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. But when they were gone,
+and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but
+only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure
+concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes,
+and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the
+world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and
+become lewd and godless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid
+half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+At the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose,
+and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's
+lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their
+master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while
+they were speaking, the Earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber,
+called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early,
+and being informed thereof, he went into his master, and afterwards came
+again and desired my grandfather to walk up, and conducted him to his
+Lordship, whom he found on his couch, but not undressed, and who said to
+him on his entering, when the page had retired,--
+
+"I am glad, Gilhaize, that you have come thus early, for I want a trusty
+man to go forthwith into the west country. What I wish you to do cannot
+be written, but you will take this ring;" and he took one from the
+little finger of his right hand, on the gem of which his cipher was
+graven, and gave it to my grandfather. "On showing it to Lord Boyd, whom
+you will find at the Dean Castle, near Kilmarnock, he will thereby know
+that you are specially trusted of me. The message whereof you are the
+bearer is to this effect,--That the Lords of the Congregation have, by
+their friends in many places, received strong exhortations to step
+forward and oppose the headlong fury of the churchmen; and that they
+have in consequence deemed it necessary to lose no time in ascertaining
+what the strength of the Reformed may be, and to procure declarations
+for mutual defence from all who are joined in professing the true
+religion of Christ. Should he see meet to employ you in this matter, you
+will obey his orders and instructions, whatsoever they may be."
+
+The Earl then put his hand aneath his pillow and drew out a small
+leathern purse, which he gave to my grandfather, who, in the doing of
+this, observed that he had several other similar purses ready under his
+head. In taking it, my grandfather was proceeding to tell him what he
+had observed at the Widow Rippet's, but his Lordship interrupted him,
+saying,--
+
+"Such things are of no issue now, and your present duty is in a higher
+road; therefore make haste, and God be with you."
+
+With these words, his Lordship turned himself on his couch, and composed
+himself to sleep, which my grandfather, after looking on for about a
+minute or so, observing, came away; and having borrowed a frock and a
+trot-cozey for the journey from one of the grooms of the hall, he went
+straight to Kenneth Shelty's, a noted horse-setter in those days, who
+lived at the West-port, and bargained with him for the hire of a beast
+to Glasgow, though Glasgow was not then the nearest road to Kilmarnock;
+but he thought it prudent to go that way, in case any of the papistical
+emissaries should track his course.
+
+There was, however, a little oversight in this, which did not come to
+mind till he was some miles on the road, and that was the obligation it
+put him under of passing through Lithgow, where he was so well known,
+and where all his kith and kin lived--there being then no immediate
+route from Edinburgh to Glasgow but by Lithgow. And he debated with
+himself for a space of time whether he ought to proceed, or turn back
+and go the other way, and his mind was sorely troubled with doubts and
+difficulties. At last he considered that it was never deemed wise or
+fortunate to turn back in any undertaking, and besides, having for the
+service of the Saviour left his father's house and renounced his
+parents, like a bird that taketh wing and knoweth the nest where it was
+bred no more, he knit up his ravelled thoughts into resolution, and
+clapping spurs to his horse, rode bravely on.
+
+But when he beheld the towers of the palace, and the steeples of his
+native town, rising before him, many remembrances came rushing to his
+heart, and all the vexations he had suffered there were lost in the
+sunny recollections of the morning of life, when everyone was kind, and
+the eyes of his parents looked on him with the brightness of delight, in
+so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted
+with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his
+fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to
+swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier
+fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his
+nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the
+town without stopping. Scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when
+his horse stumbled and lost a shoe, by which he was not only constrained
+to stop, but to take him to his father's smiddy, which was in sight when
+the mischance happened.
+
+On going to the door, he found, as was commonly the case, a number of
+grooms and flunkies of the courtiers, with certain friars, holding
+vehement discourse concerning the tidings of the time, the burden of
+which was the burning of the aged Master Mill, a thing that even the
+monks durst not, for humanity, venture very strenuously to defend. His
+father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it
+was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the
+sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with
+the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. He replied,
+however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste
+and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before
+his father came.
+
+But, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and
+mother came rushing in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and
+wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the Evil
+One, and beseeching him to stop and repent. His father, however, said
+little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he
+was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from
+a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do
+well for himself and he would do well for his parents. The which
+fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud
+lament and reproaches of his mother; and he replied that he had entered
+into the service of a nobleman, and was then riding on his master's
+business to Glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father
+inquire. His mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings,
+declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and,
+giving vent to her passion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a
+devil. The very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to
+soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more
+wild, so that all present compassionated my grandfather, who sat silent
+and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready.
+
+But greatly afflicted as he was by this trial, it was nothing to what
+ensued, when, after having mounted, and shaken his father by the hand,
+he galloped away to the West-port. There, on the outside, he was met by
+two women and an old man, parents of the lads whom he had taken with him
+to Edinburgh. Having heard he was at his father's smiddy, instead of
+going thither, they had come to that place, in order that they might
+speak with him more apart, and free from molestation, concerning their
+sons.
+
+One of the women was a poor widow, and she had no other child, nor the
+hope of any other bread-winner for her old age. She, however, said
+nothing, but stood with the corner of her apron at her eyes, sobbing
+very afflictedly, while her friends, on seeing my grandfather coming out
+of the port, stepped forward, and the old man caught the horse by the
+bridle, and said gravely,--
+
+"Ye maun stop and satisfy three sorrowful parents! What hae ye done with
+your twa thoughtless companions?"
+
+My grandfather's heart was as if it would have perished in his bosom;
+for the company he had seen the lads with, and the talk they had held,
+and above all their recklessness of principle, came upon him like a
+withering flash of fire. He, however, replied soberly, that he had seen
+them both the night before, and that they were well in health and jocund
+in spirit.
+
+The mother that was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this,
+and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did
+hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever
+been all his days a brisk and a valiant bairn.
+
+But the helpless widow was not content, and she came forward drying her
+tears, saying, "And what is my poor fatherless do-na-gude about? I'm
+fearfu, fearfu to be particular; for, though he was aye kind-hearted to
+me, he was easily wised, and I doubt, I doubt he'll prove a blasting or
+a blessing, according to the hands he fa's among."
+
+"I hope and pray," said my grandfather, "that he'll be protected from
+scaith, and live to be a comfort to all his friends." And, so saying, he
+disengaged his bridle with a gentle violence from the old man's hold,
+telling them he could not afford to stop, being timed to reach Glasgow
+that night. So he pricked the horse with his rowals, and shot away; but
+his heart, all the remainder of his day's journey, was as if it had been
+pierced with many barbed arrows, and the sad voice of the poor anxious
+widow rung in his ears like the sound of some doleful knell.
+
+Saving this affair at Lithgow, nothing befell him till he came to the
+gates of Glasgow; by which time it was dark, and the ward and watch set,
+and they questioned him very sharply before giving him admission. For
+the Queen Regent was then sojourning in the castle, and her fears and
+cares were greatly quickened at that time, by rumours from all parts of
+the kingdom concerning the murder, as it was called, of Master Mill. On
+this account the French guards, which she had with her, were instructed
+to be jealous of all untimeous travellers, and they being joined with a
+ward of burghers, but using only their own tongue, caused no small
+molestation to every Scotsman that sought admission after the sun was
+set: for the burghers, not being well versed in military practices, were
+of themselves very propugnacious in their authority, making more ado
+than even the Frenchmen. It happened, however, that there was among
+those valiant traders and craftsmen of Glasgow one Thomas Sword, the
+deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at
+the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out
+of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was
+son to Michael Gilhaize, the Lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in,
+saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when
+young men, in the King's armoury at Stirling; and he told him where he
+lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper,
+for he was glad to see him for his father's sake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+At this time an ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St
+Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had
+been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the
+same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted
+and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or
+their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack
+or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy
+burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of
+their city than did Deacon Sword. So it came to pass, as he was sitting
+at supper with my grandfather, that he enlarged and expatiated on the
+inordinate pretensions of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and took
+occasion to diverge from the prelate's political ambition to speak of
+the enormities of his ecclesiastical government, and particularly of
+that heinous and never-to-be-forgotten act, the burning of an aged man
+of fourscore and two years, whose very heresies, as the deacon
+mercifully said, ought rather to have been imputed to dotage than
+charged as offences.
+
+My grandfather was well pleased to observe such vigour of principle and
+bravery of character in one having such sway and weight in so great a
+community as to be the chief captain of the crafts who were banded with
+the hammermen, namely, the cartwrights, the saddlers, the masons, the
+coopers, the mariners, and all whose work required the use of
+edge-tools, the hardiest and buirdliest of the trades, and he allowed
+himself to run in with the deacon's humour, but without letting wot
+either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing
+however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be
+growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the Archbishop of
+St Andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the
+horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his
+displeasure.
+
+Deacon Sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which,
+with his public enmity to the challenger of his own Archbishop, made him
+take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to God,
+shaking my grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps
+were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not
+wanting five hundred men in Glasgow who would start forward with weapons
+in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of
+the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of
+the law against all offenders as of old. And, giving scope to his
+ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in Glasgow that
+men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the
+churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable
+against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question.
+
+Thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the
+Queen Regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one
+another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the
+Congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of
+the citizens of Glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that
+period troubled the minds and fears of all men.
+
+My grandfather was joyfully heartened by what he heard, and before
+coming away from the deacon who, with the hospitality common to his
+townsmen, would fain have had him to prolong their sederunt over the
+gardevine, he said that if Glasgow were as true and valiant as it was
+thought, there could be no doubt that her declaration for the Lords of
+the Congregation would work out a great redress of public wrongs. For,
+from all he could learn and understand, those high and pious noblemen
+had nothing more at heart than to procure for the people the free
+exercise of their right to worship God according to their conscience and
+the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments.
+
+But though over the liquor-cup the deacon had spoken so dreadless and
+like a manly citizen, my grandfather resolved with himself to depart
+betimes for Kilmarnock, in case of any change in his temper.
+Accordingly, he requested the hostler of the hostel where he had taken
+his bed, to which his day's hard journey early inclined him, to have his
+horse in readiness before break of day. But this hostel, which was
+called the Cross of Rhodes, happened to be situated at the Water-port,
+and besides being a tavern and inn, was likewise the great ferryhouse of
+the Clyde when the tide was up, or the ford rendered unsafe by the
+torrents of the speats and inland rains--the which caused it to be much
+frequented by the skippers and mariners of the barks that traded to
+France and Genoa with the Renfrew salmon, and by all sorts of travellers
+at all times even to the small hours of the morning. In short it was a
+boisterous house, the company resorting thereto of a sort little in
+unison with the religious frame of my grandfather. As soon, therefore,
+as he came from the deacon's, he went to bed without taking off his
+clothes, in order that he might be fit for the road as he intended; and
+his bed being in the public room, with sliding doors, he drew them upon
+him, hoping to shut out some of the din and to win a little repose. But
+scarcely had he laid his head on the pillow when he heard the voice of
+one entering the room, and listening eagerly, he discovered that it was
+no other than the traitor Winterton's, the which so amazed him with
+apprehension that he shook as he lay, like the aspen leaf on the tree.
+
+Winterton called like a braggart for supper and hot wine, boasting he
+had ridden that day from Edinburgh, and that he must be up and across
+his horse by daylight in the morning, as he had need to be in Kilmarnock
+by noon. In this, which vanity made him tell in bravado, my grandfather
+could not but discern a kind Providence admonishing himself, for he had
+no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit of him, and thankful he was that
+he had given no inkling to anyone in the house as to whence he had come
+and where he was going. But had this thought not at once entered his
+head, he would soon have had cause to think it, for while Winterton was
+eating his supper he began to converse with their host, and to inquire
+what travellers had crossed the river. Twice or thrice, in as it were an
+off-hand manner, he spoke of one whom he called a cousin, but, in
+describing his garb, he left no doubt in my grandfather's bosom that it
+was regarding him he seemed at once both so negligent and so anxious.
+Most providential therefore it was that my grandfather had altered his
+dress before leaving Edinburgh, for the marks which Winterton gave of
+him were chiefly drawn from his ordinary garb, and by them their host in
+consequence said he had seen no such person.
+
+When Winterton had finished his repast, and was getting his second
+stoup of wine heated, he asked where he was to sleep, to the which
+question the host replied that he feared he would, like others, be
+obligated to make a bench by the fireside his couch, all the beds in the
+house being already bespoke or occupied. "Every one of them is double,"
+said the man, "save only one, the which is paid for by a young man that
+goes off at break of day and who is already asleep."
+
+At this Winterton swore a dreadful oath that he would not sleep by the
+fire after riding fifty miles while there was half a bed in the house,
+and commanded the host to go and tell the young man that he must half
+blankets with him.
+
+My grandfather knew that this could only refer to him; so, when their
+host came and opened the sliding doors of the bed, he feigned himself to
+be very fast asleep at the back of the bed, and only groaned in
+drowsiness when he was touched.
+
+"O, let him alane," cried Winterton, "I ken what it is to be tired; so,
+as there's room enough at the stock, when I have drank my posset I'll
+e'en creep in beside him."
+
+My grandfather, weary as he was, lay panting with apprehension, not
+doubting that he should be speedily discovered; but when Winterton had
+finished his drink and came swaggering and jocose to be his bedfellow,
+he kept himself with his face to the wall, and snored like one who was
+in haste to sleep more than enough, insomuch that Winterton, when he lay
+down, gave him a deg with his elbow and swore at him to be quiet. His
+own fatigue, however, soon mastered the disturbance which my grandfather
+made, and he began himself to echo the noise in defenceless sincerity.
+
+On hearing him thus fettered by sleep, my grandfather began to consider
+with himself what he ought to do, being both afraid and perplexed he
+knew not wherefore; and he was prompted by a power that he durst not and
+could not reason with to rise and escape from the jeopardy wherein he
+then was. But how could this be done, for the house was still open, and
+travellers and customers were continually going and coming. Truly his
+situation was one of great tribulation, and escape therefrom a thing
+seemingly past hope and the unaided wisdom of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+After lying about the period of an hour in great perturbation, he began
+to grow more collected, and the din and resort of strangers in the house
+also subsided, by which he was enabled, with help from on high, to
+gather his scattered thoughts and to bind them up into the sheaves of
+purpose and resolution. Accordingly, when all was still, and several
+young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being
+occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended
+upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings,
+he rose softly from the side of Winterton, and stepping over him,
+slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he
+went to the stable to take out his horse. It was not his intent to have
+done this, but to have gone up into the streets of the city and walked
+the walls thereof till he thought his adversary was gone, but seeing the
+moon so fair and clear he determined to take his horse and forthwith
+proceed on his journey, for the river was low and fordable, and trintled
+its waters with a silvery sheen in the stillness of the beautiful light.
+
+Scarcely, however, had he pulled the latch of the stable door--even as
+he was just entering in--when he heard Winterton coming from the house
+rousing the hostler, whom he profanely rated for allowing him to
+oversleep himself. For, wakening just as his bedfellow rose, he thought
+the morning was come and that his orders had been neglected.
+
+In this extremity my grandfather saw no chance of evasion. If he went
+out into the moonshine he would to a surety be discovered, and in the
+stable he would to a certainty be caught. But what could he do and the
+danger so pressing? He had hardly a choice; however, he went into the
+stable, shut the door, and running up to the horses that were farthest
+ben, mounted into the hack, and hid himself among the hay.
+
+In that concealment he was scarcely well down when Winterton, with an
+hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning
+the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle,
+the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from morning,
+and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. To the which
+there was speedy evidence, for on going towards Winterton's horse the
+hostler saw my grandfather's in its stall and told him so.
+
+At that moment a glimpse of the lantern fell on the horse's legs, and
+its feet being white, "Oho!" cried Winterton, "let us look here--Kenneth
+Shelty's Lightfoot--the very beast; and hae I been in the same hole wi'
+the tod and no kent it. The deil's black collie worry my soul, but this
+is a soople trick. I did nae think the sleekit sinner had art enough to
+play't. Nae doubt he's gane to hide himsel in the town till I'm awa, for
+he has heard what I said yestreen. But I'll be up sides wi' him. The
+de'il a foot will I gang this morning till he comes back for his horse."
+And with these words he turned out of the stable with the hostler and
+went back to the house.
+
+No sooner were they well gone than my grandfather came from his
+hiding-place, and twisting a wisp of straw round his horse's feet, that
+they might not dirl or make a din on the stones, he led it cannily out
+and down to the river's brink, and, there mounting, took the ford, and
+was soon free on the Gorbals side. Riding up the gait at a brisk trot,
+he passed on for a short time along the road that he had been told led
+to Kilmarnock, but fearing he would be followed, he turned off at the
+first wynd he came to on the left, and a blessed thing it was that he
+did so, for it led to the Reformation-leavened town of Paisley, where he
+arrived an hour before daylight. Winterton, little jealousing what had
+happened, went again to bed, as my grandfather afterwards learnt, and
+had fallen asleep. In the morning when he awoke and was told that both
+man and horse were flown, he flayed the hostler's back and legs in more
+than a score of places, believing he had connived at my grandfather's
+secret flight.
+
+My grandfather had never before been in the town of Paisley, but he had
+often heard from Abercorn's serving-men that were wont to sorn about his
+father's smiddy, of a house of jovial entertainment by the water-side,
+about a stone-cast from the abbey-yett, the hostess whereof was a
+certain canty dame called Maggy Napier, then in great repute with the
+shavelings of the abbey. Thither he directed his course, the abbey
+towers serving him for her sign, and the moonlight and running river
+were guides to her door, at the which he was not blate in chapping. She
+was, however, long of giving entrance, for it happened that some nights
+before the magistrates of the town had been at a carousal with the abbot
+and chapter, the papistical denomination for the seven heads and ten
+horns of a monastery, and when they had come away and were going home,
+one of them, Bailie Pollock, a gaucy widower, was instigated by the
+devil and the wine he had drunk to stravaig towards Maggy Napier's--a
+most unseemly thing for a bailie to do--especially a bailie of Paisley,
+but it was then the days of popish sinfulness. And when Bailie Pollock
+went thither the house was full of riotous swankies, who, being the waur
+of drink themselves, had but little reverence for a magistrate in the
+same state, so they handled him to such a degree that he was obliged to
+keep his bed and put collops to his eyes for three days. The consequence
+of which was that the house fell under the displeasure of the Town
+Council, and Maggie was admonished to keep it more orderly and
+doucely--though the fault came neither from her nor her customers, as
+she told my grandfather, for detaining him so long, it being requisite
+that she should see he was in a condition of sobriety before letting him
+in. But, when admitted, he was in no spirit to enjoy her jocosity
+concerning Bailie Pollock's spree, so he told her that he had come far
+and had far to go, and that having heard sore tidings of a friend, he
+was fain to go to bed and try if he could compose himself with an hour
+or two of sleep.
+
+Maggie accordingly refrained from her jocularity, and began to soothe
+and comfort him, for she was naturally of a winsome way, and prepared a
+bed for him with her best sheets, the which, she said, were gi'en her in
+gratus gift frae the Lord Abbot, so that he undressed himself and
+enjoyed a pleasant interregnum of anxiety for more than five hours; and
+when he awoke and was up, he found a breakfast worthy of the abbot
+himself ready, and his hostess was most courtly and kind, praising the
+dainties, and pressing him to eat. Nor when he proposed to reckon with
+her for the lawin would she touch the money, but made him promise, when
+he came back, he would bide another night with her, hoping he would then
+be in better spirits, for she was wae to see so braw a gallant sae
+casten down, doless and dowie.
+
+When they had settled their contest, and my grandfather had come out to
+mount his beast, which a stripling was holding ready for him at a
+louping-on-stane near the abbey-yett, as he was going thither, a young
+friar, who was taking a morning stroll along the pleasant banks of the
+Cart, approached towards him, and, after looking hard at him for some
+time, called him by name and took him by both the hands, which he
+pressed with a brotherly affection.
+
+This friar was of Lithgow parentage and called Dominick Callender, and
+when he and my grandfather were playing-bairns, they had spent many a
+merry day of their suspicion-less young years together. As he grew up,
+being a lad of shrewd parts, and of a very staid and orderly deportment,
+the monks set their snares for him, and before he could well think for
+himself he was wiled into their traps, and becoming a novice, in due
+season professed himself a monk. But it was some time before my
+grandfather knew him again, for the ruddy of youth had fled his cheek,
+and he was pale and of a studious countenance; and when the first
+sparklings of his pleasure at the sight of his old play-marrow had gone
+off, his eyes saddened into thoughtfulness, and he appeared like one
+weighed down with care and heavy inward dule.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+After Dominick Callender and my grandfather had conversed some time,
+with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the
+gentle friar began to bewail his sad estate in being a professed monk,
+and so mournfully to deplore the rashness with which inexperienced youth
+often takes upon itself a yoke it can never lay down, that the
+compassion of his friend was sorrowfully awakened, for he saw he was
+living a life of bitterness and grief. He heard him, however, without
+making any reply or saying anything concerning his own lot of hazard and
+adventure; for, considering Dominick to be leagued with the papistical
+orders, he did not think him safe to be trusted, notwithstanding the
+unchanged freshness of the loving-kindness which he still seemed to bear
+in his heart; nor even, had he not felt this jealousy, would he have
+thought himself free to speak of his errand, far less to have given to
+any stranger aught that might have been an inkling of his noble master's
+zealous, but secret, stirrings for the weal of Scotland and the
+enfranchisement of the worshippers of the true God.
+
+When my grandfather had arrived at his horse, and prepared to mount,
+Dominick Callender said to him if he would ride slowly for a little way
+he would walk by his side, adding, "For maybe I'll ne'er see you
+again--I'm a-weary of this way of life, and the signs of the times bode
+no good to the church. I hae a thought to go into some foreign land
+where I may taste the air of a freeman, and I feel myself comforted
+before I quit our auld, hard-favoured but warm-hearted Scotland, in
+meeting wi' ane that reminds me how I had once sunny mornings and summer
+days."
+
+This was said so much in the sincerity of a confiding spirit that my
+grandfather could not refrain from observing, in answer, that he feared
+his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to
+acknowledge that it was so.
+
+"I am speaking to you, Gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld
+langsyne, and I dinna scruple to confess to one that I hae often thought
+of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my
+conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that I am
+now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the Reformed at
+Geneva. And maybe I'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no
+man can deny that the people of Scotland are not inwardly the warm
+adversaries of the church. That last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice
+of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the
+humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of
+the church, and there are few in Paisley whom the burning of auld Mill
+has not kindled with the spirit of resistance."
+
+The latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my
+grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more
+particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he
+gathered that the martyrdom of Master Mill had indeed caused great
+astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not
+only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more
+worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense
+of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them,
+and that they were all in all for themselves.
+
+But as they were proceeding through the town and along the road,
+conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns,
+Dominick Callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren,
+and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by
+his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest
+pleasures of man. And before they separated, it came out that he had
+been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a
+young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in Paisley,
+and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the
+Egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping
+from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to
+innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his
+brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to
+that fair blossom, the gracious and holy embalmment of her virtues would
+have proved an incorruptible protection.
+
+"But," he exclaimed, with a sorrowful voice, "that which is her glory
+and my admiration and praise is converted by the bondage of my unnatural
+vows into a curse to us both. The felicity that we might have enjoyed
+together in wedded life is forbidden to us as a great crime. But the
+laws of God are above the canons of the church, the voice of Nature is
+louder than the fulminations of the Vatican, and I have resolved to obey
+the one and give ear to the other despite the horrors that await on
+apostacy. Can you, Gilhaize, in aught assist my resolution?"
+
+There was so much vehemence and the passion of grief in these
+ejaculations, that my grandfather wist not well what to say. He told
+him, however, not to be rash in what he did, nor to disclose his intents
+save only to those in whom he could confide, for the times were perilous
+to everyone that slackened in reverence to the papacy, particularly to
+such as had pastured within the chosen folds of the church.
+
+"Bide," said he, "till you see what issue is ordained to come from this
+dreadful deed which so shaketh all the land, making the abbey towers
+topple and tremble to their oldest and deepest foundations. Truth is
+awakened and gone forth conquering and to conquer. It cannot be that
+ancient iniquities will be much longer endured, the arm of Wrath is
+raised against them, the sword of Revenge is drawn forth from its
+scabbard by Justice, and Nature has burst asunder the cords of the Roman
+harlot and stands in her freedom, like Samson, when the Spirit of the
+Lord was mightily poured upon him, as he awoke from the lap of Delilah."
+
+The gentle friar, as my grandfather often told, stood for some time
+astounded at this speech, and then he said,--
+
+"I dreamt not, Gilhaize, that beneath a countenance so calm and comely,
+the zealous fires of a warrior's bravery could have been kindled to so
+vehement a heat. But I will vex you with no questions. Heaven is on your
+side, and may its redeeming promptings never allow its ministers to rest
+till the fetters are broken and the slaves are set free."
+
+With these words he stepped forward to shake my grandfather by the hand
+and to bid him farewell, but just as he came to the stirrup he halted
+and said,--
+
+"It is not for nothing that the remembrance of you has been preserved so
+much brighter and dearer to me than that of all my kin. There was aye
+something about you in our heedless days that often made me wonder, I
+could not tell wherefore, and now, when I behold you in the prime of
+manhood, it fills me with admiration and awe and makes me do homage to
+you as a master."
+
+Much more he added to the same effect, which the modesty of my
+grandfather would not allow him to repeat; but when they had parted, and
+my grandfather had ridden forward some two or three miles, he recalled
+to mind what had passed between them, and he used to say that this
+discourse with his early friend first opened to him a view of the
+grievous captivity which Nature suffered in the monasteries and
+convents, notwithstanding the loose lives imputed to their inmates; and
+he saw that the Reformation would be hailed by many that languished in
+the bondage of their vows as a great and glorious deliverance. But still
+he was wont to say, even with such as these, it was overly mingled with
+temporal concernments, and that they longed for it less on account of
+its immortal issues than for its sensual emancipations.
+
+And as he was proceeding on his way in this frame of mind, and thinking
+on all that he had seen and learnt from the day in which he bade adieu
+to his father's house, he came to a place where the road forked off in
+two different airts, and not knowing which to take, he stopped his horse
+and waited till a man drew nigh whom he observed coming towards him. By
+this man he was told that the road leading leftward led to Kilmarnock
+and Ayr, and the other on the right to Kilwinning; so, without saying
+anything, he turned his horse's head into the latter, the which he was
+moved to do by sundry causes and reasons. First, he had remarked that
+the chances in his journey had, in a very singular manner, led him to
+gain much of that sort of knowledge which the Lords of the Congregation
+thirsted for; and second, he had no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit
+of him to Kilmarnock, for some purpose of frustration or circumvention,
+the which, though he was not able to divine, he could not but consider
+important, if it was, as he thought, the prime motive of that varlet's
+journey.
+
+But he was chiefly disposed to prefer the Kilwinning road, though it was
+several miles more of bout-gait, on account of the rich abbacy in that
+town, hoping he might glean and gather some account how the clergy there
+stood affected, the meeting with Dominick Callender having afforded him
+a vista of friends and auxiliaries in the enemy's camp little thought
+of. Besides all this, he reflected, that as it was of consequence he
+should reach the Lord Boyd in secrecy, he would be more likely to do so
+by stopping at Kilwinning and feeing someone there to guide him to the
+Dean Castle by moonlight. I have heard him say, however, the speakable
+motives of his deviation from the straight road were at the time far
+less effectual in moving him thereto than a something which he could not
+tell, that with an invisible hand took his horse, as it were, by the
+bridle-rings and constrained him to go into the Kilwinning track. In the
+whole of this journey there was indeed a very extraordinary
+manifestation of a special providence, not only in the protection
+vouchsafed towards himself, but in the remarkable accidents and
+occurrences by which he was enabled to enrich himself with the knowledge
+so precious at that time to those who were chosen to work the great work
+of the Gospel in Scotland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+As my grandfather came in sight of Kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with
+its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of Cunningham
+between it and the sea, it seemed to him as if a huge leviathan had come
+up from the depths of the ocean and was devouring the green inland,
+having already consumed all the herbage of the wide waste that lay so
+bare and yellow for many a mile, desert, and lonely in the silent
+sunshine, and he ejaculated to himself that the frugal soil of poor
+Scotland could ne'er have been designed to pasture such enormities.
+
+As he rode on, his path descended from the heights into pleasant tracks
+along banks feathered with the fragrant plumage of the birch and hazel,
+and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the Garnock
+waters, as they swirled among the pebbles by the roadside, the
+pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the
+ignorance of the world to raise such costly monuments of the
+long-suffering patience of Heaven, while they showed how much the divine
+nature of the infinite God and the humility of His eternal Son had been
+forgotten in this land among professing Christians.
+
+When he came nigh the town he inquired for an hostel, and a stripling,
+the miller's son, who was throwing stones at a flock of geese belonging
+to the abbey, then taking their pleasures uninvited in his father's
+mill-dam, guided him to the house of Theophilus Lugton, the chief
+vintner, horse-setter and stabler in the town, where, on alighting, he
+was very kindly received; for the gudewife was of a stirring, household
+nature, and Theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a
+publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in
+his trade but from a disinterested good-will. He was, indeed, as my
+grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great
+respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the
+abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of Irvine, the most
+regular of his customers. For they being then in the darkness of
+papistry, were as much given to the idolatry of holidays and masses as,
+thanks be and praise! they are now to the hunting out of sound gospel
+preachers and sacramental occasions. Many a stoup of burnt wine and
+spiced ale they were wont at Pace and Yule and other papistal high times
+to partake of together in the house of Theophilus Lugton, happy and well
+content when their possets were flavoured with the ghostly conversation
+of some gawsie monk well versed in the mysteries of requiems and
+purgatory.
+
+Having parted with his horse to be taken to the stable by Theophilus
+himself, my grandfather walked into the house, and Dame Lugton set for
+him an elbow-chair by the chimla lug, and while she was preparing
+something for a repast they fell into conversation, in the course of
+which she informed him that a messenger had come to the abbey that
+forenoon from Edinburgh, and a rumour had been bruited about soon after
+his arrival that there was great cause to dread a rising among the
+heretics, for, being ingrained with papistry, she so spoke of the
+Reformers.
+
+This news troubled my grandfather not a little, and the more he inquired
+concerning the tidings the more reason he got to be alarmed and to
+suspect that the bearer was Winterton, who being still in the town, and
+then at the abbey--his horse was in Theophilus Lugton's stable--he could
+not but think that in coming to Kilwinning instead of going right on to
+Kilmarnock he had run into the lion's mouth. But, seeing it was so, and
+could not be helped, he put his trust in the Lord and resolved to swerve
+in no point from the straight line which he had laid down for himself.
+
+While he was eating of Dame Lugton's fare with the relishing sauce of a
+keen appetite, in a manner that no one who saw him could have supposed
+he was almost sick with a surfeit of anxieties, one James Coom, a smith,
+came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale, and he, seeing a traveller, said,--
+
+"Thir's sair news! The drouth of cauld iron will be slockened in men's
+blood ere we hear the end o't."
+
+"'Deed," replied my grandfather, "it's very alarming; Lucky, here, has
+just been telling me that there's likely to be a straemash among the
+Reformers. Surely they'll ne'er daur to rebel."
+
+"If a' tales be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the
+froth from the cap in which Dame Lugton handed him the ale, and taking a
+right good-willy waught.
+
+"But what's said?" inquired my grandfather, when the smith had fetched
+his breath.
+
+"Naebody can weel tell," was his response; "a' that's come this length
+is but the sough afore the storm. Within twa hours there has been a
+great riding hither and yon, and a lad straight frae Embro' has come to
+bid my Lord Abbot repair to the court; and three chiels hae been at me
+frae Eglinton Castle to get their beast shod for a journey. My Lord
+there is hyte and fykie; there's a gale in his tail, said they, light
+where it may. Now, atween oursels, my Lord has na the heart of a true
+bairn to that aged and worthy grannie of the papistry, our leddy the
+Virgin Mary--here's her health, poor auld deaf and dumb creature--she
+has na, I doubt, the pith to warsle wi' the blast she ance in a day
+had."
+
+"Haud that heretical tongue o' thine, Jamie Coom," exclaimed Dame
+Lugton. "It's enough to gaur a body's hair stand on end to hear o' your
+familiarities wi' the Holy Virgin. I won'er my Lord Abbot has na
+langsyne tethert thy tongue to the kirk door wi' a red-het nail for sic
+blasphemy. But fools are privileged, and so's seen o' thee."
+
+"And wha made me familiar wi' her, Dame Lugton, tell me that?" replied
+James; "was na it my Lord himself at last Marymas, when he sent for me
+to make a hoop to mend her leg that sklintered aff as they were dressing
+her for the show. Eh! little did I think that I was ever to hae the
+honour and glory of ca'ing a nail intil the timber hip o' the Virgin
+Mary! Ah, Lucky, ye would na hae tholed the dirl o' the dints o' my
+hammer as she did. But she's a saint, and ye'll ne'er deny that ye're a
+sinner."
+
+To this Dame Lugton was unable to reply, and the smith, cunningly
+winking, dippet his head up to the lugs in the ale-cap.
+
+"But," said my grandfather, "no to speak wi' disrespeck of things
+considered wi' reverence, it does na seem to me that there is ony cause
+to think the Reformers hae yet rebelled."
+
+"I am sure," replied the smith, "if they hae na they ought, or the de'il
+a spunk's amang them. Isna a' the monks frae John o' Groat's to the
+Border getting ready their spits and rackses, frying-pans and branders
+to cook them like capons and doos for Horney's supper? I never hear my
+ain bellows snoring at a gaud o' iron in the fire but I think o' fat
+Father Lickladle, the abbey's head kitchener, roasting me o'er the low
+like a laverock in his collop-tangs; for, as Dame Lugton there weel
+kens, I'm ane o' the Reformed. Heh! but it's a braw thing this
+Reformation. It used to cost me as muckle siller for the sin o' getting
+fu', no aboon three or four times in the year, as would hae kept ony
+honest man blithe and ree frae New'erday to Hogmanæ; but our worthy
+hostess has found to her profit that I'm now ane of her best customers.
+What say ye, Lucky?"
+
+"Truly," said Dame Lugton, laughing, "thou's no an ill swatch o' the
+Reformers; and naebody need be surprised at the growth o' heresy wha
+thinks o' the dreadfu' cost the professors o't used to be at for
+pardons. But maybe they'll soon find that the de'il's as hard a taxer as
+e'er the kirk was; for ever since thou has refraint frae paying penance,
+thy weekly calks ahint the door ha'e been on the increase, Jamie, and no
+ae plack has thou mair to spare. So muckle gude thy reforming has done
+thee."
+
+"Bide awee, Lucky," cried the smith, setting down the ale-cap which he
+had just emptied; "bide awee, and ye'll see a change. Surely it was to
+be expecket, considering the spark in my hass, that the first use I
+would mak' o' the freedom o' the Reformation would be to quench it,
+which I never was allowed to do afore; and whenever that's done, ye'll
+see me a geizen't keg o' sobriety, tak the word o' a drouthy smith
+for't."
+
+At this jink o' their controversy who should come into the house,
+ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling
+rowels o' his spurs, but Winterton, without observing my grandfather,
+who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair
+at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered Dame Lugton to spice him a
+drink of her best brewing, he began to joke and jibe with the
+blacksmith, the which allowing my grandfather time to compose his wits,
+which were in a degree startled. He saw that he could not but be
+discovered, so he thought it was best to bring himself out. Accordingly,
+in as quiet a manner as he was able to put on, he said to Winterton,--
+
+"I hae a notion that we twa ha'e forgathered no lang sincesyne."
+
+At the sound of these words Winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped
+on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and
+then a shout, crying,--
+
+"Ha, ha! tod lowrie! hae I yirded you at last?" But instanter he
+recollected himsel', and giving my grandfather a significant look, as if
+he wished him no to be particular, he said, "I heard o' you, Gilhaize,
+on the road, and I was fain to hae come up wi' you, that we might hae
+travelled thegither. Howsever, I lost scent at Glasgow." And then he
+continued to haver with him, in his loose and profligate manner, anent
+the Glasgow damsels, till the ale was ready, when he pressed my
+grandfather to taste, never letting wot how they had slept together in
+the same bed; and my grandfather, on his part, was no less circumspect,
+for he discerned that Winterton intended to come over him, and he was
+resolved to be on his guard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When Winterton had finished his drink, which he did hastily, he proposed
+to my grandfather that they should take a stroll through the town; and
+my grandfather being eager to throw stour in his eyes, was readily
+consenting thereto.
+
+"Weel," said the knave, when he had warily led him into the abbey
+kirk-yard, "I didna think ye would hae gane back to my Lord; but it's a'
+very weel, since he has looked o'er what's past, and gi'en you a new
+dark."
+
+"He's very indulgent," replied my grandfather, "and I would be looth to
+wrang so kind a master;" and he looked at Winterton. The varlet,
+however, never winced, but rejoined lightly,--
+
+"But I wish you had come back to Widow Rippet's, for ye would hae spar't
+me a hard ride. Scarcely had ye ta'en the road when my Lord mindit that
+he had neglekit to gie you the sign, by the which ye were to make
+yoursel and message kent to his friends, and I was sent after to tell
+you."
+
+"I'm glad o' that," replied my grandfather; "what is't?" Winterton was a
+thought molested by this thrust of a question, and for the space of
+about a minute said nothing, till he had considered with himself, when
+he rejoined,--
+
+"Three lads were sent off about the same time wi' you, and the Earl was
+nae quite sure, he said, whilk of you a' he had forgotten to gie the
+token whereby ye would be known as his men. But the sign for the Earl of
+Eglinton, to whom I guess ye hae been sent, by coming to Kilwinning, is
+no the same as for the Lord Boyd, to whom I thought ye had been
+missioned; for I hae been at the Dean Castle, and finding you not there,
+followed you hither."
+
+"I'll be plain wi' you," said my grandfather to this draughty speech.
+"I'm bound to the Lord Boyd; but coming through Paisley, when I reached
+the place where the twa roads branched, I took the ane that brought me
+here, instead of the gate to Kilmarnock; so, as soon as my beast has
+eaten his corn, I mean to double back to the Dean Castle."
+
+"How, in the name of the saints and souls, did ye think, in going frae
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, o' taking the road to Paisley?"
+
+"'Deed, an' ye were acquaint," said my grandfather, "wi' how little I
+knew o' the country, ye would nae speir that question; but since we hae
+fallen in thegither, and are baith, ye ken, in my Lord Glencairn's
+service, I hope you'll no objek to ride back wi' me to the Lord Boyd's."
+
+"Then it's no you that was sent to the Earl of Eglinton?" exclaimed
+Winterton, pretending more surprise than he felt; "and all my journey
+has been for naething. Howsever, I'll go back wi' you to Kilmarnock, and
+the sooner we gang the better."
+
+Little farther discourse then passed, for they returned to the hostel,
+and ordering out their horses, were soon on the road; and as they
+trotted along, Winterton was overly outspoken against the papisticals,
+calling them all kinds of ill names, and no sparing the Queen Regent.
+But my grandfather kept a calm tongue, and made no reflections.
+
+"Howsever," said Winterton, pulling up his bridle and walking his horse
+as they were skirting the moor of Irvine, leaving the town about a mile
+off on the right, "you and me, Gilhaize, that are but servants, need nae
+fash our heads wi' sic things. The wyte o' wars lie at the doors of
+kings, and the soldiers are free o' the sin o' them. But how will ye get
+into the presence and confidence of the Lord Boyd?"
+
+"I thought," replied my grandfather, pawkily, "that ye had gotten our
+master's token; and I maun trust to you."
+
+"Oh," cried Winterton, "I got but the ane for the lad sent to Eglinton
+Castle."
+
+"And ha'e ye been there?" said my grandfather.
+
+Winterton didna let wot that he heard this, but, stooping over on the
+off-side of his horse, pretended he was righting something about his
+stirrup-leather. My grandfather was, however, resolved to prob him to
+the quick; so, when he was again sitting upright, he repeated the
+question, if he had been to Eglinton Castle.
+
+"O, ay," cried the false loon; "I was there, but the bird was flown."
+
+"And how got he the ear of the Earl," said my grandfather, "not having
+the sign?"
+
+"In for a penny in for a pound," was Winterton's motto, and ae lie with
+him was father to a race. "Luckily for him," replied he, "some of the
+serving-men kent him as being in Glencairn's service, so they took him
+to their master."
+
+My grandfather had no doubt that there was some truth in this, though he
+was sure Winterton knew little about it; for it agreed with what James
+Coom, the smith, had said about the lads from Eglinton that had been at
+his smiddy to get the horses shod, and remembering the leathern purses
+under the Earl his master's pillow, he was persuaded that there had been
+a messenger sent to the head of the Montgomeries, and likewise to other
+lords, friends of the Congregation; but he saw that Winterton went by
+guess, and lied at random. Still, though not affecting to notice it, nor
+expressing any distrust, he could not help saying to him, that he had
+come a long way, and after all it looked like a gowk's errand.
+
+The remark, however, only served to give Winterton inward satisfaction,
+and he replied with a laugh, that it made little odds to him where he
+was sent, and that he'd as lief ride in Ayrshire as sorn about the
+causey of Enbrough.
+
+In this sort of talk and conference they rode on together, the o'ercome
+every now and then of Winterton's discourse being concerning the proof
+my grandfather carried with him, whereby the Lord Boyd would know he was
+one of Glencairn's men. But, notwithstanding all his wiles and devices
+to howk the secret out of him, his drift being so clearly discerned, my
+grandfather was enabled to play with him till they were arrived at
+Kilmarnock, where Winterton proposed to stop till he had delivered his
+message to the Lord Boyd, at the Dean Castle.
+
+"That surely cannot be," replied my grandfather; "for ye ken, as there
+has been some mistak about the sign whereby I am to make myself known,
+ye'll ha'e to come wi' me to expound, in case of need. In trooth, now
+that we hae forgatherit, and as I ha'e but this ae message to a' the
+shire of Ayr, I would fain ha'e your company till I see the upshot."
+
+Winterton could not very easily make a refusal to this, but he hesitated
+and swithered, till my grandfather urged him again;--when, seeing no
+help for it, and his companion, as he thought, entertaining no suspicion
+of him, he put on a bold face and went forward.
+
+When they had come to the Dean Castle, which stands in a pleasant green
+park about a mile aboon the town-head of Kilmarnock, on entering the
+gate, my grandfather hastily alighted, and giving his horse a sharp
+prick of his spur as he lap off, the beast ran capering out of his hand,
+round the court of the castle.
+
+With the well-feigned voice of great anxiety, my grandfather cried to
+the servants to shut the gate and keep it in; and Winterton alighting,
+ran to catch it, giving his own horse to a stripling to hold. At the
+same moment, however, my grandfather sprung upon him, and seizing him by
+the throat, cried out for help to master a spy.
+
+Winterton was so confounded that he gasped and looked round like a man
+demented, and my grandfather ordered him to be taken by the serving-men
+to their master, before whom, when they were all come, he recounted the
+story of his adventures with the prisoner, telling his Lordship what his
+master, the Earl of Glencairn, suspected of him. To which, when
+Winterton was asked what he had to say, he replied bravely, that it was
+all true, and he was none ashamed to be so catched, when it was done by
+so clever a fellow.
+
+He was then ordered by the Lord Boyd to be immured in the dungeon-room,
+the which may be seen to this day; and though his captivity was
+afterwards somewhat relaxed, he was kept a prisoner in the castle till
+after the death of the Queen Dowager, and the breaking-up of her
+two-faced councils. This exploit won my grandfather great favour, and he
+scarcely needed to show the signet-ring when he told his message from
+the Lords of the Congregation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+By such devices and missions, as my grandfather was engaged in for the
+Earl Glencairn with the Lord Boyd, a thorough understanding was
+concerted among the Reformed throughout the kingdom; and encouraged by
+their great strength and numbers, which far exceeded what was expected,
+the Lords of the Congregation set themselves roundly to work, and the
+protestant preachers openly published their doctrines.
+
+Soon after my grandfather had returned from the shire of Ayr, there was
+a weighty consultation held at the Earl his patron's lodging in
+Edinburgh, whereat, among others present, was that pious youth,
+afterwards the good Regent Murray. He was, by office and appointment,
+then the head and lord of the priory of St Andrews; but his soul
+cleaving to the Reformation and the Gospel, he laid down the use of that
+title, and about this time began to be called the Lord James Stuart.
+
+The Lords of the Congregation, feeling themselves strong in the goodness
+of their cause and the number of their adherents, resolved at this
+council, that they should proceed firmly but considerately to work, and
+seek redress as became true lieges, by representation and supplication.
+Accordingly a paper was drawn up, wherein they set forth how, for
+conscience sake, the Reformed had been long afflicted with banishment,
+confiscation of goods, and death in its cruellest forms. That continual
+fears darkened their lives till, being no longer able to endure such
+calamities, they were compelled to beg a remedy against the oppressions
+and tyranny of the Estate Ecclesiastical, which had usurped an unlimited
+domination over the minds of men,--the faggot and the sword being the
+weapons which the prelates employed to enforce their mandates,--plain
+truths that were thus openly stated in order to show that the suppliants
+were sincere; and they concluded with a demand, that the original purity
+of the Christian religion should be restored, and the government so
+improved as to afford them security in their persons, opinions, and
+property.
+
+Sir James Calder of Sandilands was the person chosen to present this
+memorial to the Queen Regent; and never, said my grandfather, was an
+agent more fitly chosen to uphold the dignity of his trust, or to
+preserve the respect which, as good subjects, the Reformed desired to
+maintain and manifest towards the authority regal. He was a man far
+advanced in life; but there was none of the infirmities of age under the
+venerable exterior with which time had clothed his appearance. Of great
+honour and a pure life, he was reverenced by all parties, and had
+acquired both renown and affection, through his services to the realm
+and his manifold virtues.
+
+On a day appointed by the Queen Regent, the Lords and leaders of the
+Congregation attended Sandilands, each with a stately retinue, to
+Holyrood House; my grandfather having leave from the Earl, his master,
+to wait on his person on that occasion.
+
+It was a solemn day to the worshippers of the true God, who came in
+great multitudes to the town, many from distant parts, to be present,
+and to hear the issue of a conference that was to give liberty to the
+consciences of all devout Scotchmen. From the house in the Lawnmarket,
+where the Lords assembled, down to the very yetts of the palace, the
+sight was as if the street had been paved with faces, and windows over
+windows, roofs and lum-heads, were clustered with women and children.
+All temporal cares and businesses were that day suspended: in the
+accents and voices of men there was an awful sobriety, few speaking, and
+what was said, sounded as if every one was affected with the sense of
+some high and everlasting interest at stake.
+
+When the Lords went down into the street, there was, for a brief
+interval, a stir and a murmur in the multitude, which opened to the
+right and left as when the waves of the Red Sea were opened, and through
+the midst thereof prepared a miraculous road for the children of Israel.
+A deep silence succeeded, and Sandilands, with his hoary head uncovered,
+bearing in his hand the supplication and remonstrance, walked forward;
+and the Lords went after also all bareheaded, and every one with them
+followed in like manner as reverentially as their masters. The people,
+as they passed along, slowly and devoutly, took off their caps and
+bonnets, and bowed their heads as when the ark of the covenant of the
+Lord was of old brought back from the Philistines; and many wept, and
+others prayed aloud, and there was wonder, and awe, and dread, mingled
+with thoughts of unspeakable confidence and glory.
+
+When Sandilands and those with him were conducted into the presence of
+the Queen Dowager, she was standing under a canopy of state, surrounded
+by many of the nobles and prelates, and by her maidens of honour. My
+grandfather had not seen her before, and having often heard her
+suspected of double-dealing, and of a superstitious zeal and affection
+for the papal abominations and cruelties, he had pictured to himself a
+lean and haggard woman, with a pale and fierce countenance, and was
+therefore greatly amazed when he beheld a lady of a most sweet and
+gracious aspect, with mild dark eyes beaming with a chaste dignity, and
+a high and fair forehead, bright and unwrinkled with any care, and lips
+formed to speak soft and gentle sentences. In her apparel she was less
+gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. Her dress
+and mantle were of the richest purple Genoese unadorned with embroidery,
+and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of
+princely pearls. A small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to
+her waist from a loup in the vale of her bosom.
+
+Sandilands advanced several paces before the Lords by whom he was
+attended, and falling on his knees, read with a loud and firm voice the
+memorial of the Reformed; and when he had done so and was risen, the
+Queen received a paper that was given to her by her secretary, who stood
+behind her right shoulder, and also read an answer which had been
+prepared, and in which she was made to deliver many comfortable
+assurances, that at the time were received as a great boon with much
+thankfulness by all the Reformed, who had too soon reason to prove the
+insincerity of those courtly flatteries. For no steps were afterwards
+taken to give those indulgences by law that were promised; but the
+papists stirring themselves with great activity, and foreign matters and
+concerns coming in aid of their stratagems, long before a year passed
+the mind of the Queen and government was fomented into hostility against
+the protestants. She called into her favour and councils the Archbishop
+of St Andrews, with whom she had been at variance; and the devout said,
+when they heard thereof, that when our Saviour was condemned, on the
+same day Herod and Pilate were made friends, applying the text to this
+reconcilation; and boding therefrom woe to the true church. Moved by the
+hatred which his Grace bore to the Reformers, the Queen cited the
+protestant preachers to appear at Stirling to answer to the charges
+which might there be preferred against them.
+
+My grandfather, when this perfidy came to a head, was at
+Finlayston-house, in the shire of Renfrew, with the Earl, his master,
+who, when he heard of such a breach of faith, smote the table, as he was
+then sitting at dinner, with his right hand, and said, "Since the false
+woman has done this, there is nothing for us but the banner and the
+blade;" and starting from his seat he forthwith ordered horses, and,
+attended by my grandfather and ten armed servants, rode to Glasgow,
+where Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudon, then sheriff of Ayr, and other
+worthies of the time, were assembled on business before the Lords of
+Justiciary; and it was instanter agreed, that they should forthwith
+proceed to Stirling where the court was, and remonstrate with the Queen.
+So, leaving all temporal concerns, Sir Hugh took horse, and they arrived
+at Stirling about the time her Highness supped, and going straight to
+the castle, they stood in the ante-chamber to speak, if possible, with
+her as she passed.
+
+On entering the room to pass to her table she saw them, and looked
+somewhat surprised and displeased; but without saying anything
+particular she desired the Earl to follow her, and Sir Hugh, unbidden,
+went also into the banquet-room. It was seldom that she used state in
+her household, and on this occasion, it being a popish fast, her table
+was frugally spread, and only herself sat at the board.
+
+"Well, Glencairn," said she, "what has brought you hither from the west
+at this time? Is the realm to be forever tossed like the sea by this
+tempest of heresies? The royal authority is not always to be insulted
+with impunity, and in spite of all their friends the protestant
+preachers shall be banished from Scotland, aye, though their doctrines
+were as sound as St Paul's."
+
+The Earl, as my grandfather heard him afterwards relate, replied, "Your
+Majesty gave your royal promise that the Reformed should be protected,
+and they have done nothing since to cause the forfeiture of so gracious
+a boon: I implore your Majesty to call that sacred pledge to mind."
+
+"You lack reason, my Lord," she cried, sharply; "it becomes not subjects
+to burden their princes with promises which it may be inconvenient to
+keep."
+
+"If these, madam, are your sentiments," replied the Earl, proudly, "the
+Congregation can no longer acknowledge your authority, and must renounce
+their allegiance to your government."
+
+She had, at the moment, lifted the salt-cellar to sprinkle her
+salad,--but she was so astonished at the boldness of this speech, that
+she dropped it from her hand, and the salt was spilt on the floor,--an
+evil omen which all present noted.
+
+"My Lord Glencairn," said she, thoughtfully, "I would execute my great
+duties honestly, but your preachers trouble the waters, and I know not
+where the ford lies that I may safest ride. Go ye away and try to keep
+your friends quiet, and I will consider calmly what is best to be done
+for the weal of all."
+
+At these words the Earl and Sir Hugh Campbell bowed, and, retiring, went
+to the lodging of the Earl of Monteith, where they were minded to pass
+the night, but when they had consulted with that nobleman, my
+grandfather was ordered to provide himself with a fresh horse from
+Monteith's stable, and to set out for Edinburgh with letters for the
+Lord James Stuart.
+
+"Gilhaize," said his master, as he delivered them, "I foresee we must
+buckle on our armour; but the cause of the Truth does not require that
+the first blow should come from our side. By this time John Knox, who
+has been long expected, may be hourly looked for; and as no man stands
+higher in the aversion of the papists than that brave, honest man, we
+shall know by the reception he meets with what we ought to do."
+
+So my grandfather, putting the letters in his bosom, retired from the
+presence of the Earl, and by break of day reached the West-port and went
+straight on to the Lord James Stuart's lodging in the Canongate. But,
+though the household were astir, it was some time before he got
+admittance, for their master was a young man of great method in all
+things, and his chaplain was at the time reading the first prayers of
+the morning, during which the doors were shut, and no one, however
+urgent his business, could gain admission into that house while the
+inmates were doing their homage to the King of kings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+As my grandfather, in the grey of the morning, was waiting in the
+Canongate till the worship was over in the house of the Lord James
+Stuart, he frequently rode up and down the street as far the
+Luckenbooths and the Abbey's sanctuary siver, and his mind was at times
+smitten with the remorse of pity when he saw, as the dawn advanced, the
+numbers of poor labouring men that came up out of the closes and
+gathered round the trone, abiding there to see who would come to hire
+them for the day. But his compassion was soon changed into a frame of
+thankfulness at the boundless variety of mercies which are dealt out to
+the children of Adam, for he remarked, that, for the most part, these
+poor men, whose sustenance was as precarious as that of the wild birds
+of the air, were cheerful and jocund, many of them singing and whistling
+as blithely as the lark, that carries the sweet incense of her melodious
+songs in the censer of a sinless breast to the golden gates of the
+morning.
+
+Hitherto he had never noted, or much considered, the complicated cares
+and trials wherewith the lot of man in every station is chequered and
+environed; and when he heard those bondmen of hard labour, jocund after
+sound slumbers and light suppers, laughing contemptuously as they beheld
+the humiliating sight, which divers gallants and youngsters, courtiers
+of the court, degraded with debauch, made of themselves as they stumbled
+homeward, he thought there was surely more bliss in the cup that was
+earned by the constancy of health and a willing mind, than in all the
+possets and malvesia that the hoards of ages could procure. So he
+composed his spirit, and inwardly made a vow to the Lord, that as soon
+as the mighty work of the redemption of the Gospel from the perdition of
+papistry was accomplished, he would retire into the lea of some pleasant
+green holm, and take, for the purpose of his life, the attainment of
+that happy simplicity which seeks but the supply of the few wants with
+which man comes so rich from the hands of his Maker, that all changes in
+his natural condition of tilling the ground and herding the flocks only
+serve to make him poorer by increasing.
+
+While he was thus ruminating in the street, he observed two strangers
+coming up the Canongate. One of them had the appearance of a servant,
+but he was of a staider and more thoughtful aspect than belongs to men
+of that degree, only he bore on his shoulder a willease, and had in his
+hand a small package wrapt in a woollen cover and buckled with a
+leathern strap. The other was the master; and my grandfather halted his
+horse to look at him as he passed, for he was evidently no common man
+nor mean personage, though in stature he was jimp the ordinary size. He
+was bent more with infirmities than the load of his years. His hair and
+long flowing beard were very grey and venerable, like those of the
+ancient patriarchs who enjoyed immediate communion with God. But though
+his appearance was thus aged, and though his complexion and countenance
+betokened a frail tenement, yet the brightness of youth shone in his
+eyes, and they were lighted up by a spirit over which time had no power.
+
+In his steps and gait he was a little hasty and unsteady, and twice or
+thrice he was obliged to pause in the steep of the street to draw his
+breath; but even in this there was an affecting and great earnestness, a
+working of a living soul within, as if it panted to enter on the
+performance of some great and solemn hest.
+
+He seemed to be eager and zealous like the apostle Peter in his temper,
+and as dauntless as the mighty and courageous Paul. Many in the street
+stopped, and looked after him with reverence and marvelling, as he
+proceeded with quick and desultory steps, followed by his sedate
+attendant. Nor was it surprising, for he was, indeed, one of those who,
+in their lives, are vast and wonderful,--special creations that are sent
+down from heaven, with authority attested by the glowing impress of the
+signet of God on their hearts, to avenge the wrongs done to His truths
+and laws in the blasphemies of the earth.--It was John Knox!
+
+When he had passed, my grandfather rode back to the yett of the Lord
+James Stuart's lodgings, which by this time was opened, and instanter,
+on mentioning to the porter from whom he had come, was admitted to his
+master.
+
+That great worthy was at the time sitting alone in a back chamber, which
+looked towards Salisbury Crags, and before him, but on the opposite side
+of the table, among divers letters and papers of business, lay a large
+Bible, with brass clasps thereon, in which, it would seem, some one had
+been expounding to him a portion of the Scriptures.
+
+When my grandfather presented to him the letter from the Earl of
+Glencairn, he took it from him without much regarding him, and broke
+open the seal, and began to peruse it to himself in that calm and
+methodical manner for which he was so famed and remarkable. Before,
+however, he had read above the half thereof, he gave as it were a sudden
+hitch, and turning round, looked my grandfather sharply in the face, and
+said,--
+
+"Are you Gilhaize?"
+
+But before any answer could be made, he waved his hand graciously,
+pointing to a chair, and desired him to sit down, resuming at the same
+time the perusal of the letter; and when he had finished it, he folded
+it up for a moment; but, as if recollecting himself, he soon runkled it
+up in his hand and put it into the fire.
+
+"Your Lord informs me," said he, "that he has all confidence, not only
+in your honesty, Gilhaize, but in your discernment; and says, that in
+respect to the high question anent Christ's cause, you may be trusted to
+the uttermost. Truly, for so young a man, this is an exceeding renown.
+His letter has told me what passed last night with the Queen's Highness.
+I am grieved to hear it. She means well; but her feminine fears make her
+hearken to counsels that may cause the very evils whereof she is so
+afraid. But the sincerity of her favour to the Reformed will soon be
+tried, for last night John Knox arrived, and I was with him; and, strong
+in the assurances of his faith, he intends to lead on to the battle.
+This morning he was minded to depart for Fife.--'Our Captain, Christ
+Jesus,' said he, 'and Satan, his adversary, are now at open defiance;
+their banners are displayed, and the trumpet is blown on both sides for
+assembling their armies.' As soon as it is known that he is within the
+kingdom, we shall learn what we may expect, and that presently too; for
+this very day the clergy meet in the monastery of the Greyfriars, and
+doubtless they will be advertised of his coming. You had as well try if
+you can gain admittance among the other auditors, to hear their
+deliberations; afterwards come again to me, and report what takes place;
+by that time I shall be advised whether to send you back to Glencairn or
+elsewhere."
+
+My grandfather, after this and some farther discourse, retired to the
+hall, and took breakfast with the household, where he was much edified
+with the douce deportment of all present, so unlike that of the lewd and
+graceless varlets who rioted in the houses of the other nobles. Verily,
+he used to say, the evidences of a reforming spirit were brightly seen
+there; and, to rule every one into a chaste sobriety of conversation, a
+pious clerk sate at the head of the board, and said grace before and
+after the meal, making it manifest how much all things about the Lord
+James Stuart were done in order.
+
+Having taken breakfast, and reposed himself some time, for his long ride
+had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the
+Greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing
+himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for
+admission, he got in with the crowd when the doors were opened.
+
+The matter that morning to be considered concerned the means to be
+taken, within the local jurisdictions of those there met, to enforce the
+process of the summons which had been issued against the reformed
+preachers to appear at Stirling.
+
+But while they were busily conversing and contriving how best to aid and
+further that iniquitous aggression of perfidious tyranny, there came in
+one of the brethren of the monastery, with a frightened look, and cried
+aloud, that John Knox was come, and had been all night in the town. At
+the news the spectators, as if moved by one spirit, gave a triumphant
+shout,--the clergy were thunderstruck,--some started from their seats,
+unconscious of what they did,--others threw themselves back where they
+sat,--and all appeared as if a judgment had been pronounced upon them.
+In the same moment the church began to skail,--the session was
+adjourned,--and the people ran in all directions. The cry rose
+everywhere, "John Knox is come!" All the town came rushing into the
+streets,--the old and the young, the lordly and the lowly, were seen
+mingling and marvelling together,--all tasks of duty, and servitude, and
+pleasure, were forsaken,--the sick-beds of the dying were deserted,--the
+priests abandoned their altars and masses, and stood pale and trembling
+at the doors of their churches,--mothers set down their infants on the
+floors, and ran to inquire what had come to pass,--funerals were
+suspended, and the impious and the guilty stood aghast, as if some
+dreadful apocalypse had been made;--travellers, with the bridles in
+their hands, lingering in profane discourse with their hosts, suddenly
+mounted, and speeded into the country with the tidings. At every cottage
+door and wayside bield, the inmates stood in clusters, silent and
+wondering, as horseman came following horseman, crying, "John Knox is
+come!" Barks that had departed, when they heard the news, bore up to
+tell others that they saw afar at sea. The shepherds were called in from
+the hills;--the warders on the castle, when, at the sound of many
+quickened feet approaching, they challenged the comers, were answered,
+"John Knox is come!" Studious men were roused from the spells of their
+books;--nuns, at their windows, looked out fearful and inquiring,--and
+priests and friars were seen standing by themselves, shunned like
+lepers. The whole land was stirred as with the inspiration of some new
+element, and the hearts of the persecutors were withered.
+
+"No tongue," often said my grandfather, "could tell the sense of that
+great event through all the bounds of Scotland, and the papistical
+dominators shrunk as if they had suffered in their powers and
+principalities, an awful and irremediable overthrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+When my grandfather left the Greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the
+Lord James Stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken
+place, which he much marvelled at, having scarcely tarried by the way in
+going thither.
+
+"Now, Gilhaize," said my Lord, "the tidings fly like wildfire, and the
+Queen Regent, by the spirit that has descended into the hearts of the
+people, will be constrained to act one way or another. John Knox, as you
+perhaps know, stands under the ban of outlawry for conscience sake. In a
+little while we shall see whether he is still to be persecuted. If left
+free, the braird of the Lord, that begins to rise so green over all the
+land, will grow in peace to a plentiful harvest. But if he is to be
+hunted down, there will come such a cloud and storm as never raged
+before in Scotland. I speak to you thus freely, that you may report my
+frank sentiments to thir noble friends and trusty gentlemen, and say to
+them that I am girded for the field, if need be."
+
+He then put a list of several well-known friends of the Reformation
+ayont the frith into my grandfather's hands, adding, "I need not say
+that it is not fitting now to trust to paper, and therefore much will
+depend on yourself. The confidence that my friend the Earl, your master,
+has in you, makes me deal thus openly with you; and I may add, that if
+there is deceit in you, Gilhaize, I will never again believe the
+physiognomy of man--so go your ways; see all these, wheresoever they may
+be,--and take this purse for your charges."
+
+My grandfather accepted the paper and the purse; and reading over the
+paper, imprinted the names in it on his memory, and then said--
+
+"My Lord, I need not risk the possession of this paper; but it may be
+necessary to give me some token by which the lords and lairds therein
+mentioned may have assurance that I come from you."
+
+For some time the Lord James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with
+the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then he
+observed,--
+
+"Your request is very needful;" and taking the paper, he mentioned
+divers things of each of the persons named in it, which he told my
+grandfather had passed between him and them severally, when none other
+was present. "By remembering them of these things," said he, "they will
+know that you are in verity sent from me."
+
+Being thus instructed, my grandfather left the Lord James, and
+proceeding forthwith to the pier of Leith, embarked in the Burntisland
+ferry-boat--and considering with himself, that the farthest way of those
+whom he was missioned to see ought to be the first informed, as the
+nearer had other ways and means of communion, he resolved to go forward
+to such of them as dwelt in Angus and Merns; by which resolution he
+reached Dundee shortly after the arrival there of the champion of the
+Reformation, John Knox.
+
+This resolution proved most wise and fortunate, for, on landing in that
+town, he found a great concourse of the Reformed from the two shires
+assembled there, and among them many of those to whom he was specially
+sent. They had come to go with their ministers before the Queen Regent's
+counsel at Stirling, determined to avow their adherence to the doctrines
+of which those pious men were accused. And it being foreseen that, as
+they went forward others would join, my grandfather thought he could do
+no better in his mission than mingle with them, the more especially as
+John Knox was also to be of that great company.
+
+On the day following, they accordingly all set forward towards
+Perth,--and they were a glorious army, mighty with the strength of their
+great ally the Lord of the hosts of heaven. No trumpet sounded in their
+march, nor was the courageous drum heard among them,--nor the shouts of
+earthly soldiery,--nor the neigh of the war-horse,--nor the voice of any
+captain. But they sang hymns of triumph, and psalms of the great things
+that Jehovah had of old done for his people; and though no banner was
+seen there, nor sword on the thighs of men of might, nor spears in the
+grasp of warriors, nor crested helmet, nor aught of the panoply of
+battle, yet the eye of faith beheld more than all these, for the hills
+and heights of Scotland were to its dazzled vision covered that day with
+the mustered armies of the dreadful God: the angels of his wrath in
+their burning chariots; the archangels of his omnipotence, calm in their
+armour of storms and flaming fires, and the Rider on the white horse,
+were all there.
+
+As the people with their ministers advanced, their course was like a
+river, which continually groweth in strength and spreadeth its waters as
+it rolls onward to the sea. On all sides came streams of new adherents
+to their holy cause, in so much that when they arrived at Perth it was
+thought best to halt there, lest the approach of so great a multitude,
+though without weapons, should alarm the Queen Regent's government.
+Accordingly they made a pause, and Erskine of Dun, one of the Lord James
+Stuart's friends, taking my grandfather with him, and only two other
+servants, rode forward to Stirling to represent to her Highness the
+faith and the firmness of the people.
+
+When they arrived, they found the town in consternation. Busy were the
+bailies, marshalling such of the burgesses as could be persuaded to take
+up arms, but all who joined them were feckless aged men, dealers and
+traffickers in commodities for the courtiers. Proud was the provost that
+day, and a type of the cause for which he was gathering his papistical
+remnants. At the sight of Dun and his three followers riding up the
+street to the castle, he was fain to draw out his sword and make a
+salutation; but it stuck sae dourly in that he was obligated to gar ane
+of the town-officers hold the scabbard, while he pulled with such might
+and main at the hilt, that the blade suddenly broke off, and back he
+stumbled, and up flew his heels, so that even my grandfather was
+constrained, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, to join in
+the shout of laughter that rose thereat from all present. But provosts
+and bailies, not being men of war, should not expose themselves to such
+adversities.
+
+Nor was the fyke of impotent preparation within the walls of the castle
+better. The Queen had been in a manner lanerly with her ladies when the
+sough of the coming multitude reached her. The French guards had not
+come from Glasgow, and there was none of the warlike nobles of the
+papistical sect at that time at Stirling. She had therefore reason both
+for dread and panic, when the news arrived that all Angus and Merns had
+rebelled, for so it was at first reported.
+
+On the arrival of Dun, he was on the instant admitted to her presence;
+for she was at the time in the tapestried chamber, surrounded by her
+priests and ladies, and many officers, all consulting her according to
+their fears. The sight, said my grandfather, for he also went into the
+presence, was a proof to him that the cause of the papacy was in the
+dead-thraws, the judgments of all present being so evidently in a state
+of discomfiture and desertion.
+
+Dun going forward with the wonted reverences, the Queen said to him
+abruptly,--
+
+"Well, Erskine, what is this?"
+
+Whereupon he represented to her, in a sedate manner, that the Reformed
+ministers were not treated as they had been encouraged to hope;
+nevertheless, to show their submission to those in temporal authority
+over them, they were coming, in obedience to the citation, to stand
+trial.
+
+"But their retinue--when have delinquents come to trial so attended?"
+she exclaimed eagerly.
+
+"The people, please your Highness," said Dun, with a steadfastness of
+manner that struck every one with respect for him, "the people hold the
+same opinions and believe the same doctrines as their preachers, and
+they feel that the offence, if it be offence, of which the ministers are
+accused, lies equally against them, and therefore they have resolved to
+make their case a common cause."
+
+"And do they mean to daunt us from doing justice against seditious
+schismatics?" cried her Highness somewhat in anger.
+
+"They mean," replied Dun, "to let your Highness see whether it be
+possible to bring so many to judgment. Their sentiment, with one voice,
+is, Cursed be they that seek the effusion of blood, or war, or
+dissension. Let us possess the evangile, and none within Scotland shall
+be more obedient subjects. In sooth, madam, they hold themselves as
+guilty of the crime charged as their ministers are, and they will suffer
+with them."
+
+"Suffer! Call you rebellion suffering?" exclaimed the Queen.
+
+"They have not yet rebelled," said Dun, calmly; "they come to
+remonstrate with your Highness first; for, as Christians, they are loth
+to draw the sword. They have no arms with them, to the end that no one
+may dare to accuse them of any treason."
+
+"It is a perilous thing when subjects," said the Queen, much troubled,
+"declare themselves so openly against the authority of their rulers."
+
+"It is a bold thing for rulers," replied Dun, "to meddle with the
+consciences of their subjects."
+
+"How!" exclaimed the Queen, startled and indignant.
+
+"I will deal yet more plainly with your Highness," said he, firmly.
+"This pretended offence of which the Reformed are accused is not against
+the royal authority. They are good and true subjects, and, by their walk
+and conversation, bear testimony to the excellence and purity of those
+doctrines for which they are resolved to sacrifice their lives rather
+than submit to any earthly dictation. Their controversies pertain to
+things of Christ's kingdom,--it is a spiritual warfare. But the papists,
+conscious of their weakness in the argument, would fain see your
+Highness abandon that impartial justice which you were called of Heaven
+to administer in your great office, and to act factiously on their
+side, as if the cause of the Gospel could be determined by the arm of
+flesh."
+
+"What has brought you here?" exclaimed the Queen, bursting into tears.
+
+"To claim the fulfilment of your royal promises," said Dun, making a
+lowly reverence that by its humility took away all arrogance from the
+boldness of the demand.
+
+"I will," said she. "I am ever willing to be just, but this rising has
+shaken me with apprehensions; therefore, I pray you, Erskine, write to
+your brethren; bid them disperse; and tell them from me, that their
+ministers shall neither be tried nor molested."
+
+At these words, she took the arm of one of her ladies and hastily
+retired. Dun also withdrew, and the same hour sent my grandfather back
+to Perth with letters to the Congregation to the effect of her request
+and assurance.
+
+That same evening the multitude broke up and returned to their
+respective homes, rejoicing with an exceeding great joy at so blessed a
+termination of their weaponless Christian war. Dun, however, distrusting
+the influence of some of those who were of the Queen's council, and who
+had arrived at the castle soon after my grandfather's departure, did not
+return, as he had intended, next morning to Perth, but resolved to wait
+over the day of trial; or, at least, until the ministers were absolved
+from attendance on the summons, either by proclamation or other forms of
+law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+John Knox, among all the ministers who remained at Perth after the
+Congregation of the Reformed had dispersed, was the only one, my
+grandfather has been heard to say, that expressed no joy nor exultation
+at the assurances of the Queen Regent. "We shall see, we shall see," was
+all he said to those among them who gloried in the victory; adding, "But
+if there is truth in the Word of God, it is not in the nature of the
+Beast to do otherwise than evil," and his words of discernment and of
+wisdom were soon verified.
+
+Erskine of Dun, while he remained at Stirling, had his eyes and ears
+open; and in their porches he placed for sentinels, Distrust and
+Suspicion. He knew the fluctuating nature of woman; how every succeeding
+wave of feeling washes away the deepest traces that are traced on the
+quicksands of her unstable humours; and the danger having passed, he
+jealoused that the Queen Regent would forget her terrors, and give
+herself up to the headlong councils of the adversaries, whom, from her
+known adherence to the Romish ritual, he justly feared she was inclined
+to favour. Nor was he left long in doubt.
+
+On the evening before the day which had been appointed for the trial, no
+proclamation or other token was promulged to appease the anxiety of the
+cited preachers. He, therefore, thought it needful to be prepared for
+the worst; so, accordingly, he ordered his two serving-men to have his
+horses in readiness forth the town in the morning, and there to abide
+his orders.
+
+Without giving any other about him the slightest inkling of what he had
+conceited, he went up betimes to the castle, having learnt that the
+Queen Regent was that day to hold a council. And being a man held in
+great veneration by all parties, and well known to the household of the
+court, he obtained access to the ante-chamber after the council was met;
+and standing there, he was soon surprised by her Highness coming out,
+leaning on the arm of the Lord Wintoun, and seemingly much disturbed. On
+seeing him she was startled, and paused for a moment, but soon
+collecting all her pride, she dropped the Lord Wintoun's arm, and walked
+straight through the apartment without noticing any one, and holding
+herself aloft with an air of resolute dignity.
+
+Dun augured no good from this; but following till the Lord Wintoun had
+attended her to the end of the long painted gallery, where she stopped
+at the door that opened to her private apartments, he there awaited that
+nobleman's return, and inquired of him if the process against the
+protestant ministers had been rescinded.
+
+"No," said Wintoun, peevishly; "the summons have been called over, and
+they have not appeared, either in person or by agents."
+
+"Say you so, my Lord?" cried Dun; "and what is the result?"
+
+"Outlawry, for non-appearance, is pronounced against them," replied
+Wintoun, haughtily, and went straight back into the council-chamber.
+
+Dun thought it unnecessary to inquire farther; so, without making more
+ado, he instanter left the castle, and, going down the town, went to the
+spot where his horses stood ready, and, mounting, rode off with the
+tidings to Perth, grieving sorely at the gross perfidy and sad deceit
+which the Queen Regent had been so practised on, by the heads of the
+papist faction, to commit.
+
+It happened on the same day, that John Knox, who remained at Perth, a
+wakeful warder on a post of peril, was moved by the Spirit of God to
+preach a sermon, in which he exposed the idolatry of the mass and the
+depravity of image-worship. My grandfather was present, and he often
+said that preaching was an era and epoch worthy to be held in
+everlasting remembrance. It took place in the Greyfriars church. There
+was an understanding among the people that it was to be there; but many
+fearing the monks might attempt to prevent it, a vast concourse, chiefly
+men, assembled at the ordinary mass hour, and remained in the church
+till the Reformer came, so that, had the friars tried to keep him out,
+they could not have shut the doors.
+
+A lane was made through the midst of the crowd to admit the preacher to
+the pulpit; and when he was seen advancing, aged and feeble, and leaning
+on his staff, many were moved with compassion, and doubted if it could
+be the wonderful man of whom every tongue spoke. But when he had
+ascended and began, he seemed to undergo a great transfiguration. His
+abject mien and his sickly visage became majestic and glorious. His eyes
+lightened; his countenance shone as with the radiance of a spirit that
+blazed within; and his voice dirled to the heart like vehement thunder.
+
+Sometimes he spoke to the understandings of those who heard him, of that
+insane doctrine which represented the mission of the Redeemer to consist
+of believing, in despite of sight, and smell, and touch, and taste, that
+wafers and wine were actually the flesh and blood of a man that was
+crucified, with nails driven through his feet and hands, many hundred
+years ago. Then, rising into the contemplation of the divinity of the
+Saviour, he trampled under the feet of his eloquence a belief so
+contrary to the instincts and senses with which Infinite Wisdom has
+gifted his creatures; and bursting into ecstasy at the thought of this
+idolatrous invention, he called on the people to look at the images and
+the effigies in the building around them, and believe, if they could,
+that such things, the handy-works of carpenters and masons, were endowed
+with miraculous energies far above the faculties of man. Kindling into a
+still higher mood, he preached to those very images, and demanded of
+them, and those they represented, to show any proof that they were
+entitled to reverence. "God forgive my idolatry!" he exclaimed. "I
+forget myself--these things are but stocks and stones."
+
+Not one of all who heard him that day ever gave ear again to papistry.
+
+When he had made an end, and retired from the church, many still
+lingered, discoursing of his marvellous lecture, and among others, my
+grandfather.
+
+An imprudent priest belonging to the convent, little aware of the great
+conversion which had been wrought, began to prepare for the celebration
+of the mass, and a callan who was standing near, encouraged by the
+contempt which some of those around expressed at this folly, jibed the
+priest, and he drove him away. The boy, however, returned, and levelling
+a stone at a crucifix on the altar, shattered it to pieces. In an
+instant, as if caught by a whirlwind, the whole papistical trumpery was
+torn down and dashed into fragments. The cry of "Down with the idols!"
+became universal: hundreds on hundreds came rushing to the spot. The
+magistrates and the ministers came flying to beseech order and to soothe
+the multitude; but a Divine ire was upon the people, who heard no voice
+but only the cry of "Down with the idols!" and their answer was, "Burn,
+burn, and destroy!"
+
+The monasteries of the Black and the Grey Friars were sacked and
+rendered desolate, and the gorgeous edifice of the Carthusian monks
+levelled to the ground.
+
+So dreadful a tumult had never before been heard of within the realm.
+Many of the best of the Reformed deplored the handle it would give to
+the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with
+consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal
+outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and
+complete. Sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious
+overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the
+threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of
+leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light,
+and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. To
+no one did the event give pleasure but to John Knox. "The work," said
+he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the
+nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away."
+
+The thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which
+this intemperance would cause to the Queen Regent; and my grandfather,
+seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return
+the same evening by the Queensferry to the Lord James Stuart at
+Edinburgh. For the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of
+reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous
+offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to
+defend themselves.
+
+Thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the Queen was the
+people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted
+quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their
+respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird
+themselves for battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations
+which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the
+wrath of the people against the images of the Romish idolatry; and
+therefore I shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what
+farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who,
+when he returned to Edinburgh, found the Lord James Stuart on the point
+of proceeding to the Queen Regent at Stirling, and he went with him
+thither.
+
+On arriving at the castle, they found the French soldiery all collected
+in the town, and her Highness, like another fiery Bellona, vowing to
+avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of Perth;
+and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of substance she
+could think of, to come with their vassals, that she might be enabled to
+chastise such sacrilegious rebellion.
+
+The Lord James Stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by
+his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward
+at a moment's warning, both in the West, and in Fife, Angus and Merns,
+entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge
+and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment.
+But she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of
+Providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked
+policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. So that the
+Lord James, seeing she was transported beyond reason, sent my
+grandfather and other secret emissaries to warn the Lords and leaders of
+the Congregation, and to tell them that her Highness was minded to
+surprise Perth as soon as she had gathered a sufficient array.
+
+The conduct of that great worthy was in this full of wisdom, and
+foresight, and policy. By staying with the Queen he incurred the
+suspicion of the Reformed, to whom he was a devoted friend; but he
+gained a knowledge of the intents of their enemies, by which he was
+enabled to turn aside the edge of vengeance when it was meant to be most
+deadly. Accordingly, reckless of the opinions of men, he went forward
+with the Queen's army towards Perth; but before they had crossed the
+Water of Earn, word was brought to her Highness that the Earl of
+Glencairn, at the head of two thousand five hundred of the Reformed, was
+advancing from the shire of Ayr.
+
+Such were the fruits of my grandfather's mission to the Lord Boyd, and
+he heard likewise that the bold and free lairds of Angus and Merns, with
+all their followers, had formed themselves in battle-array to defend the
+town. Still, however, her Highness was resolute to go on; for she was
+instigated by her feminine anger, even as much as by the wicked councils
+of the papist lords by whom she was surrounded.
+
+But when she reached the heights that overlooked the sweet valley of the
+Tay, whose green and gentle bosom was then sparkling with the glances of
+warlike steel, her heart was softened, and she called to her the Lord
+James Stuart and the young Earl of Argyle--the old Lord, his father, had
+died some time prior,--and sent them to the army of the Congregation,
+that peace might still be preserved. They accordingly went into the
+town, and sending notice to the leaders of the Reformed to appoint two
+of their party to confer with them, John Knox and the Master Willocks
+were nominated. My grandfather, who attended the Lord James on this
+occasion, was directed by him to receive the two deputies at the door
+and to conduct them in; and when they came he was much troubled to
+observe the state of their minds; for Master Willocks was austere in his
+looks as if resolved on quarrel, and the Reformer was agitated and
+angry, muttering to himself as he ascended the stairs, making his staff
+often dirl on the steps. No sooner were they shown into the presence of
+the two lords, even before the door was shut, than John Knox began to
+upbraid the Lord James for having broken the covenant and forsaken the
+Congregation.
+
+Much to that effect, my grandfather afterwards learnt, passed; but the
+Lord James pacified him with the assurance that his heart and spirit
+were still true to the cause, and that he had come with Argyle to
+prevent, if possible, the shedding of blood; he likewise declared both
+for himself and the Earl, who had hitherto always abided by the Queen,
+that if she refused to listen to reasonable terms, or should break any
+treaty entered into, they would openly take part against her.
+
+Upon these assurances a treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed
+that both armies should retire peaceably to their respective
+habitations; that the town should be made accessible to the Queen
+Regent; that no molestation should be given to those who were then in
+arms for the Congregation, and no persecutions undertaken against the
+Reformed,--with other covenants calculated to soothe the Congregation
+and allay men's fears. But no sooner was this treaty ratified, the army
+of the Congregation dispersed, and her Highness in possession of the
+town, than it was manifest no vows nor obligations were binding towards
+the heretics, as the Reformed were called. The Queen's French guards,
+even when attending her into the town, fired into the house of a known
+zealous protestant and killed his son; the inhabitants were plundered
+and insulted with impunity, and the magistrates were dismissed to make
+way for men devoted to papistry.
+
+The Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stuart, filled with wrath and
+indignation at such open perfidy, went straight into her Highness'
+presence without asking audience, and reproached her with deceit and
+craftiness; and having so vented their minds, instanter quitted the
+court and the town, and, attended by my grandfather and a few other
+servants, departed for Fife, to which John Knox had also retired after
+the dispersion of the Congregation at Perth. The Lord James, in virtue
+of being Prior of St Andrews, went thither attended by the Earl, and
+sent my grandfather to Crail, where the Reformer was then preaching, to
+invite him to meet them and others of the Congregation with all
+convenient expedition.
+
+My grandfather never having been before in Crail, and not knowing how
+the people there might stand affected, instead of inquiring for John
+Knox, bethought himself of his acquaintance with Bailie Kilspinnie, and
+so speired his way to his dwelling, little hoping, from the fearful
+nature of that honest man, he would find him within. But, contrary to
+his expectation, he was not only there, but he welcomed my grandfather
+as an old and very cordial friend, leading him into his house and making
+much of him, telling him, with a voice of cheerfulness, that the day of
+reckoning had at last overtaken the lascivious idolaters.
+
+Then he caused to be brought in before my grandfather the five pretty
+babies that his wife had abandoned for her papistical paramour, the
+eldest of whom was but turned of nine years. The thoughts of their
+mother's shame overcame their father at that moment, and the tears
+coming into his eyes he sobbed aloud as he looked at them, and wept
+bitterly, while they flocked around, and wreathed him, as it were, with
+their caresses and innocent blandishments. So tender a scene melted my
+grandfather's spirit into sadness; and he could not remain master of
+himself, when the eldest, a mild and meek little maiden, said to him, as
+if to excuse her father's sorrow, "A foul friar made my mother an
+ill-doer, and took her away ae night when she was just done wi'
+harkening our prayers."
+
+At this juncture, a blooming and modest-eyed damsel came into the room;
+but, seeing a stranger, she drew back and was going away, when the
+bailie, drying his eyes, said,--
+
+"Come ben, Elspa; this is the young man that ye hae heard me sae commend
+for his kind friendship to me, in that dotage-dauner that I made in my
+distraction to St Andrews. This," he added, turning to my grandfather,
+"is Elspa Ruet, the sister of that misfortunate woman;--to my helpless
+bairns she does their mother's duty."
+
+Elspa made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and,
+turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she
+leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that
+reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's
+shame.
+
+From that hour her image had a dear place in my grandfather's bosom, and
+after the settlement of the Reformation throughout the realm, he courted
+her, and she became his wife, and in process of time my grandmother. But
+of her manifold excellencies I shall have occasion to speak more at
+large hereafter, for she was no ordinary woman, but a saint throughout
+life, returning in a good old age to her Maker, almost as blameless as
+she came from His pure hands; and nothing became her more in all her
+piety, than the part she acted towards her guilty sister.
+
+Having taken away the children, she then brought in divers refreshments,
+and a flagon of posset; but she remained not with the bailie and my
+grandfather while they partook thereof; so that they were left free to
+converse as they listed, and my grandfather was glad to find, as I have
+already said, that the poor man had triumphed over his fond grief, and
+was reconciled to his misfortunes as well as any father could well be,
+with so many deserted babies, and three of them daughters.
+
+He likewise learnt, with no less solace and satisfaction, that the
+Reformed were strong in Crail, and that the magistrates and beinest
+burgesses had been present on the day before at the preaching of John
+Knox, and had afterwards suffered the people to demolish the images and
+all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so
+that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship
+of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan
+pageantry of masses and altars.
+
+After the repast was finished, the bailie conducted my grandfather to
+the house where John Knox then lodged, to whom he communicated his
+message from the Lord James Stuart.
+
+"Tell your master," was the reply of the Reformer, "that I will be with
+him, God willing; and God is willing, for this invitation, and the state
+of men's minds, maketh His will manifest. Yea, I was minded myself to go
+thither; for that same city of St Andrews is the Zion of Scotland. Of
+old, the glad tidings of salvation were first heard there,--there,
+amidst the damps and the darkness of ages, the ancient Culdees, men
+whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life,
+supplied the oil of the lamp of the living God for a period of four
+hundred years, independent of pope, prelate, or any human supremacy.
+There it was that a spark of their blessed embers was, in our own day,
+first blown into a flame,--and there, please God, where I, His unworthy
+instrument, was condemned as a criminal for His truth's sake, shall I,
+in His strength, be the herald of His triumph and great victory."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When my grandfather had returned to the bailie's house after delivering
+his message to the Reformer, he spent an evening of douce but pleasant
+pastime with him and the modest Elspa Ruet, whose conversation was far
+above her degree, and seasoned with the sweet savour of holiness. But
+ever and anon, though all parties strove to eschew the subject, they
+began to speak of her erring sister, the bailie compassionating her
+continuance in sin as a man and a Christian should, but showing no wish
+nor will to mind her any more as kith or kin to him or his; a temper
+that my grandfather was well content to observe he had attained. Not so
+was that of Elspa; but her words were few and well chosen, and they made
+a deep impression on my grandfather; for she seemed fain to hide what
+was passing in her heart.
+
+Twice or thrice she spoke of the ties of nature, intimating that they
+were as a bond and obligation laid on by THE MAKER, whereby kindred were
+bound to stand by one another in weal or in woe, lest those who sinned
+should be utterly abandoned by all the world. The which tender and
+Christian sentiment, though it was melodious to my grandfather's spirit,
+pierced it with a keen pain; for he thought of the manner in which he
+had left his own parents, even though it was for the blessed sake of
+religion, and his bosom was at the moment filled with sorrow. But, when
+he said how much he regretted and was yet unrepentant of that step,
+Elspa cheered him with a consolation past utterance, by reminding him,
+that he had neither left them to want nor to sin; that, by quitting the
+shelter of their wing, he had but obeyed the promptings of nature, and
+that if, at any time hereafter, father or mother stood in need of his
+aid or exhortation, he could still do his duty.
+
+Without well considering what he said, the bailie observed on this, that
+he was surprised to hear her say so, and yet allow her sister to remain
+so long unreproved in her offences.
+
+Elspa Ruet to this made no immediate reply,--she was indeed unable; and
+my grandfather sympathised with her, for the sting had plainly
+penetrated to the very marrow of her soul. At last, however, she said,--
+
+"Your reproach is just, I hae been to blame baith to Heaven and man--but
+the thing has na been unthought, only I kent na how to gang about the
+task; and yet what gars me say sae but a woman's weakness, for the
+road's no sae lang to St Andrews, and surely iniquity does not there so
+abound, that no ane would help me to the donsie woman's bower."
+
+My grandfather, on hearing this, answered, that if she was indeed minded
+to try to rescue her sister, he was ready and willing to do all with her
+and for her that she could desire; but, bearing in mind the light
+woman's open shame, he added, "I'm fearful it's yet owre soon to hope
+for her amendment: she'll hae to fin the evil upshot of her ungodly
+courses, I doubt, before she'll be wrought into a frame of sincere
+penitence."
+
+"Nevertheless," replied Elspa Ruet, "I will try; it's my duty, and my
+sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." At which words she
+burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "Alas, alas! that she
+should have so fallen!--I loved her--oh! naebody can tell how
+dearly--even as I loved myself. When I first saw my ain face in a
+looking-glass I thought it was her, and kissed it for the likeness, in
+pity that it didna look sae fair as it was wont to be. But it's the
+Lord's pleasure, and in permitting her to sink so low HE has no doubt
+some lesson to teach."
+
+Thus, from less to more, as they continued conversing, it was agreed
+that Elspa Ruet should ride on a pad ahint my grandfather next morning
+to St Andrews, in order to try if the thing could be to move her sister
+to the humiliation of contrition for her loose life. And some small
+preparations being needful, Elspa departed and left the bailie and my
+grandfather together.
+
+"But," said my grandfather to him, after she had been some time away,
+"is't your design to take the unfortunate woman back among your innocent
+lassie bairns?"
+
+"No," replied the bailie; "that's no a thing to be now thought of;
+please Providence, she'll ne'er again darken my door; I'll no, however,
+allow her to want. Her mother, poor auld afflicted woman, that has ne'er
+refraint from greeting since her flight, she'll tak her in; but atween
+her and me there's a divorce for ever."
+
+By daylight my grandfather had his horse at the door; and Elspa having
+borrowed the provost's lady's pad overnight, it was buckled on, and they
+were soon after on the road.
+
+It was a sunny morning in June, and all things were bright, and blithe,
+and blooming. The spirits of youth, joy and enjoyment were spread about
+on the earth. The butterflies, like floating lilies, sailed from blossom
+to blossom, and the gowans, the bright and beautiful eyes of the summer,
+shone with gladness, as Nature walked on bank and brae, in maiden pride,
+spreading and showing her new flowery mantle to the sun. The very airs
+that stirred the glittering trees were soft and genial as the breath of
+life; and the leaves of the aspine seemed to lap the sunshine like the
+tongues of young and happy creatures that delight in their food.
+
+As my grandfather and Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of
+the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so
+graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that
+their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with
+success. But when they came in sight of the papal towers and gorgeous
+edifices of St Andrews, which then raised their proud heads, like Babel,
+so audaciously to the heavens, they both became silent.
+
+My grandfather's thoughts ran on what might ensue if the Archbishop were
+to subject him to his dominion, and he resolved, as early as possible,
+to make known his arrival to the Lord James Stuart, who, in virtue of
+being head of the priory, was then resident there, and to claim his
+protection. Accordingly he determined to ride with Elspa Ruet to the
+house of the vintner in the Shoegate, of which I have already spoken,
+and to leave her under the care of Lucky Kilfauns, as the hostess was
+called, until he had done so. But fears and sorrows were busy with the
+fancy of his fair companion; and it was to her a bitter thing, as she
+afterwards told him, to think that the purpose of her errand was to
+entreat a beloved sister to leave a life of shame and sin, and sadly
+doubting if she would succeed.
+
+Being thus occupied with their respective cogitations, they entered the
+city in silence, and reached the vintner's door without having exchanged
+a word for several miles. There Elspa alighted, and being commended to
+the care of Lucky Kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was
+a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait
+to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the
+porter, and was admitted to the Lord Prior, as the Lord James was there
+papistically called.
+
+Having told his Lordship that he had delivered his message to John Knox,
+and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related
+partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews,
+and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with
+him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection,
+for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his
+devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed,
+and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa
+had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and
+intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising
+with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she
+had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's
+side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and
+never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the
+condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
+But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for
+so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,
+after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa
+should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there
+for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on
+the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former
+guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at
+the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while
+Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa
+Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the
+priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.
+
+When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met
+with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's
+men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked
+after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much
+he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the
+seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire
+for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,
+he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein
+there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.
+
+After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the
+stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to
+search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my
+grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a
+groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he
+would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's,
+where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour
+or two.
+
+The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar
+towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to
+conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with
+all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'
+grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, they
+worked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her or
+my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon
+came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to
+keep the tryst.
+
+That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin
+might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky
+Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to
+prepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a milder
+mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the
+concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and
+blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many
+other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman
+deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her
+unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to St
+Andrews only to lay her head in the coffin.
+
+The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky
+Kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it
+was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till
+the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered
+along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds
+and imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderly
+shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid
+together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between
+two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with
+very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the
+causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at
+them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what
+they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends
+and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened
+much sadness of heart.
+
+The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,
+meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to
+a greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at one
+door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.
+One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often
+addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as
+awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been
+a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then
+somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she
+eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among
+the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and
+multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my
+grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's
+daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married
+some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.
+
+As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin
+mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young
+master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning
+on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders
+pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,
+scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was
+obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of
+no comfort.
+
+All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my
+grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not
+like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty
+were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's
+armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,
+and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and
+on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town,
+and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that
+they expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet to
+preach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so;
+for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit,
+had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer,
+made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.
+But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public
+nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour
+appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he
+found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself,
+weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought
+of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind
+endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+As the time of appointment drew near, Elspa Ruet was enabled to call in
+her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the
+blessing of the tranquil mind was shed upon her. Her tears were dried
+up, and her countenance shone with a serene benignity. When she was an
+aged, withered woman, my grandfather has been heard to say that he never
+remembered her appearance without marvelling at the special effusion of
+holiness and beauty which beamed and brightened upon her in that trying
+hour, nor without thinking that he still beheld the glory of its
+twilight glowing through the dark and faded clouds of her old age.
+
+They had not sat long when a tapping was heard at the widow's door, and
+my grandfather, starting up, retired into a distant corner of the room,
+behind a big napery press, and sat down in the obscurity of its shadow.
+Elspa remained in her seat beside the table, on which a candle was
+burning, and, as it stood behind the door, she could not be seen by any
+coming in till they had passed into the middle of the floor.
+
+In little more than the course of a minute, the voice of her sister was
+heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. The door was then
+opened, and Marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. Elspa started
+from her seat. The guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but
+in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in
+her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore sobs, for
+some time on her bosom, which was wantonly unkerchiefed.
+
+After a short space of time, with confusion of face, and frowns of
+mortification, and glances of rage, the abandoned Marion disengaged
+herself from her sister's fond and sorrowful embraces, and, retreating
+to a chair, sat down, and seemed to muster all the evil passions of the
+guilty breast,--fierce anger, sharp hatred, and gnawing contempt; and a
+bad boldness of look that betokened a worse spirit than them all.
+
+"It was na to see the like of you I cam' here," said she, with a
+scornful toss of her head.
+
+"I ken that, Marion," replied Elspa, mournfully.
+
+"And what business then hae ye to come to snool me?"
+
+Elspa for a little while made no answer to this, but, drying her eyes,
+she went to her seat composedly, and then said,--
+
+"'Cause ye're my sister, and brought shame and disgrace on a' your
+family. O, Marion, I'm wae to say this! but ye're owre brave in your
+sin."
+
+"Do ye think I'll e'er gae back to that havering, daunering cuif o' a
+creature, the Crail bailie?"
+
+"He's a man o' mair worth and conduct, Marion," replied her sister,
+firmly, "than to put that in your power--even, woman, if ye were
+penitent, and besought him for charity."
+
+"Weel, weel, no to clishmaclaver about him. How's a' wi' the bairns?"
+
+"Are ye no frighted, Marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how
+ye left them, and what for ye did sae?"
+
+"Am na I their mither, have na I a right to speer?"
+
+"No," said Elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they
+lost their mother."
+
+"Ye need na be sae snell wi' your taunts," exclaimed Marion, evidently
+endeavouring to preserve the arrogance she had assumed; "ye need na be
+sae snell; I'm far better off, and happier than e'er I was in James
+Kilspinnie's aught."
+
+"That's no possible," said her sister. "It would be an unco thing of
+Heaven to let wickedness be happier than honesty."
+
+"But, Marion, dinna deceive yoursel, ye hae nae sure footing on the
+steading where ye stan'. The Bishop will nae mair, than your guidman,
+thole your loose life to him. If he kent ye were here, I doubt he would
+let you bide, and what would become of you then?"
+
+"He's no sic a fool as to be angry that I am wi' my sister."
+
+"That may be," replied Elspa: "I'm thinking, however, if in my place
+here he saw but that young man," and she pointed to my grandfather,
+whom her sister had not till then observed, "he would have some cause to
+consider."
+
+Marion attempted to laugh scornfully, but her heart gurged within her,
+and instead of laughter, her voice broke out into wild and horrid yells,
+and falling back in her chair, she grew stiff and ghastly to behold, in
+so much that both Elspa and my grandfather were terrified, and had to
+work with her for some time before they were able to recover her; nor
+indeed did she come rightly to herself till she got relief by tears; but
+they were tears of rage, and not shed for any remorse on account of her
+foul fault. Indeed, no sooner was she come to herself, than she began to
+rail at her sister and my grandfather, calling them by all the terms of
+scorn that her tongue could vent. At last she said,--
+
+"But nae doubt ye're twa Reformers."
+
+"Ay," replied Elspa, "in a sense we are sae, for we would fain help to
+reform you."
+
+But after a long, faithful, and undaunted endeavour on the part of
+Elspa, in this manner, to reach the sore of her sinful conscience, she
+saw that all her ettling was of no avail, and her heart sank, and she
+began to weep, saying, "O, Marion, Marion, ye were my dear sister ance;
+but frae this night, if ye leave me to gang again to your sins, I hope
+the Lord will erase the love I bear you utterly out of my heart, and
+leave me but the remembrance of what ye were when we were twa wee
+playing lassies, clapping our young hands, and singing for joy in the
+bonny spring mornings that will never, never come again."
+
+The guilty Marion was touched with her sorrow, and for a moment seemed
+to relent and melt, replying in a softened accent,--
+
+"But tell me, Eppie, for ye hae na telt me yet, how did ye leave my
+weans?"
+
+"Would you like to see them?" said Elspa, eagerly.
+
+"I would na like to gang to Crail," replied her sister, thoughtfully;
+"but if--" and she hesitated.
+
+"Surely, Marion," exclaimed Elspa, with indignation, "ye're no sae lost
+to all shame as to wish your innocent dochters to see you in the midst
+of your iniquities?"
+
+Marion reddened, and sat abashed and rebuked for a short time in
+silence, and then reverting to her children, she said, somewhat
+humbly,--
+
+"But tell me how they are--poor things!"
+
+"They are as weel as can be hoped for," replied Elspa, moved by her
+altered manner; "but they'll lang miss the loss of their mother's care.
+O, Marion, how could ye quit them! The beasts that perish are kinder to
+their young, for they nourish and protect them till they can do for
+themselves; but your wee May can neither yet gang nor speak. She's your
+very picture, Marion, as like you as--God forbid that she ever be like
+you!"
+
+The wretched mother was unable to resist the energy of her sister's
+appeal, and, bursting into tears, wept bitterly for some time.
+
+Elspa, compassionating her contrition, rose, and, taking her kindly by
+the hand, said, "Come, Marion, we'll gang hame--let us leave this guilty
+city--let us tarry no longer within its walls--the curse of Heaven is
+darkening over it, and the storm of the hatred of its corruption is
+beginning to lighten:--let us flee from the wrath that is to come."
+
+"I'll no gang back to Crail--I dare na gang there--everyone would haud
+out their fingers at me--I canna gang to Crail--Eppie, dinna bid
+me--I'll mak away wi' mysel' before I'll gang to Crail."
+
+"Dinna say that," replied her sister: "O, Marion, if ye felt within the
+humiliation of a true penitent, ye would na speak that way, but would
+come and hide your face in your poor mother's bosom; often, often,
+Marion, did she warn you no to be ta'en up wi' the pride an' bravery of
+a fine outside."
+
+"Ye may gang hame yoursel'," exclaimed the impenitent woman, starting
+from her seat; "I'll no gang wi' you to be looket down on by every one.
+If I should hae had a misfortune, nane's the sufferer but mysel'; and
+what would I hae to live on wi' my mother? She's pinched enough for her
+ain support. No; since I hae't in my power, I'll tak my pleasure o't.
+Onybody can repent when they like, and it's no convenient yet for me.
+Since I hae slippit the tether, I may as well tak a canter o'er the
+knowes. I won'er how I could be sae silly as to sit sae lang willy-waing
+wi' you about that blethering bodie, James Kilspinnie. He could talk o'
+naething but the town-council, the cost o' plaiding, and the price o'
+woo'. No, Eppie, I'll no gang wi' you, but I'll be glad if ye'll gang
+o'er the gait and tak your bed wi' me. I hae a braw bower--and, let me
+tell you, this is no a house of the best repute."
+
+"Is yours ony better?" replied Elspa, fervently. "No, Marion; sooner
+would I enter the gates of death, than darken your guilty door. Shame
+upon you, shame!--But the sweet Heavens, in their gracious hour of
+mercy, will remember the hope that led me here, and some day work out a
+blessed change. The prayers of an afflicted parent, and the cries of
+your desolate babies, will assuredly bring down upon you the purifying
+fires of self-condemnation. Though a wicked pride at this time withholds
+you from submitting to the humiliation which is the just penalty of your
+offences, still the day is not far off when you will come begging for a
+morsel of bread to those that weep for your fall, and implore you to
+eschew the evil of your way."
+
+To these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the
+miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her
+sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger.
+My grandfather then conveyed the mournful Elspa back to the house of
+Lucky Kilfauns, and returned to the priory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The next day, Elspa Ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was
+minded to have gone home to Crail, but the news that John Knox was to
+preach on the morrow at St Andrews had spread far and wide; no man could
+tell by what wonderful reverberation the tidings had awakened the whole
+land. From all quarters droves of the Reformed and the pious came
+pressing to the gates of the city, like sheep to the fold and doves to
+the windows. The Archbishop and the priests and friars were smitten with
+dread and consternation; the doom of their fortunes was evident in the
+distraction of their minds--but the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James
+Stuart, at the priory, remained calm and collected.
+
+Foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the
+wrath of the Queen Regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and
+my grandfather was ordered to hold himself in readiness for a journey.
+Thus was he prevented from going to Crail with Elspa Ruet, who, with a
+heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that
+brought the Reformer to the town. For John Knox, though under the ban of
+outlawry, was so encouraged with inward assurances from on High, that he
+came openly to the gate, and passed up the crown of the causey on to the
+priory, in the presence of the Archbishop's guards, of all the people,
+and of the astonished and dismayed priesthood.
+
+As soon as the Antichrist heard of his arrival, he gave orders for all
+his armed retainers, to the number of more than a hundred men-at-arms,
+to assemble in the cloisters of the monastery of the Blackfriars; for he
+was a man of a soldierly spirit, and though a loose and immoral
+churchman, would have made a valiant warrior; and going thither himself,
+he thence sent word to the Lord James Stuart at the priory, that if John
+Knox dared to preach in the cathedral, as was threatened, he would order
+his guard to fire on him in the pulpit.
+
+My grandfather, with others of the retinue of the two noblemen, had
+accompanied the Archbishop's messenger into the Prior's chamber, where
+they were sitting with John Knox when this bold challenge to the
+champion of Christ's cause was delivered; and it was plain that both
+Argyle and the Lord James were daunted by it, for they well knew the
+fearlessness and the fierceness of their consecrated adversary.
+
+After the messenger had retired, and the Lord James, in a particular
+manner, had tacitly signified to my grandfather to remain in the room,
+and had taken a slip of paper, he began to write thereon, while Argyle
+said to the Reformer,--
+
+"Master Knox, this is what we could na but expect; and though it may
+seem like a misdooting of our cause now to desist, I'm in a swither if
+ye should mak the attempt to preach."
+
+The Reformer made no answer; and the Lord James, laying down his pen,
+also said, "My thoughts run wi' Argyle's,--considering the weakness of
+our train and the Archbishop's preparations, with his own regardless
+character,--I do think we should for a while rest in our intent. The
+Queen Regent has come to Falkland wi' her French force, and we are in
+no condition to oppose their entrance into the town; besides, your
+appearance in the pulpit may lead to the sacrifice of your own most
+precious life, and the lives of many others who will no doubt stand
+forth in your defence. Whether, therefore, you ought, in such a
+predicament, to think of preaching, is a thing to be well considered."
+
+"In the strength of the Lord," exclaimed John Knox, with the voice of an
+apostle, "I will preach. God is my witness that I never preached in
+contempt of any man, nor would I willingly injure any creature; but I
+cannot delay my call to-morrow if I am not hindered by violence. As for
+the fear of danger that may come to me, let no man be solicitous; for my
+life is in the custody of HIM whose glory I seek, and threats will not
+deter me from my duty when Heaven so offereth the occasion. I desire
+neither the hand nor the weapon of man to defend me; I only crave
+audience, which, if it be denied to me here at this time, I must seek
+where I may have it."
+
+The manner and confidence with which this was spoken silenced and
+rebuked the two temporal noblemen, and they offered no more
+remonstrance, but submitted as servants, to pave the way for this intent
+of his courageous piety. Accordingly, after remaining a short time, as
+if in expectation to hear what the Earl of Argyle might further have to
+say, the Lord James Stuart took up his pen again, and when he had
+completed his writing, he gave the paper to my grandfather (it was a
+list of some ten or twelve names) saying, "Make haste, Gilhaize, and let
+these, our friends in Angus, know the state of peril in which we stand.
+Tell them what has chanced; how the gauntlet is thrown; and that our
+champion has taken it up, and is prepared for the onset."
+
+My grandfather forthwith departed on his errand, and spared not the spur
+till he had delivered his message to every one whose names were written
+in the paper; and their souls were kindled and the spirit of the Lord
+quickened in their hearts.
+
+The roads sparkled with the feet of summoning horsemen, and the towns
+rung with the sound of warlike preparations.
+
+On the third day, towards the afternoon, my grandfather embarked at
+Dundee on his return, and was landed at the Fife water-side. There were
+many in the boat with him; and it was remarked by some among them, that,
+for several days, no one had been observed to smile, and that all men
+seemed in the expectation of some great event.
+
+The weather being loun and very sultry, he travelled slowly with those
+who were bound for St Andrews, conversing with them on the troubles of
+the time, and the clouds that were gathering and darkening over poor
+Scotland; but every one spoke from the faith of his own bosom, that the
+terrors of the storm would not be of long duration--so confident were
+those unlettered men of the goodness of Christ's cause in that epoch of
+tribulation.
+
+While they were thus communing together, they came in sight of the city,
+with its coronal of golden spires, and Babylonian pride of idolatrous
+towers, and they halted for a moment to contemplate the gorgeous
+insolence with which Antichrist had there built up and invested the
+blood-stained throne of his blasphemous usurpation.
+
+"The walls of Jericho," said one of the travellers, "fell at the sound
+but of ram's horns, and shall yon Babel withstand the preaching of John
+Knox?"
+
+Scarcely had he said the words, when the glory of its magnificence was
+wrapt with a shroud of dust; a dreadful peal of thunder came rolling
+soon after, though not a spark of vapour was seen in all the ether of
+the blue sky; and the rumble of a dreadful destruction was then heard.
+My grandfather clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped on towards the
+town. The clouds rose thicker and filled the whole air. Shouts and
+cries, as he drew near, were mingled with the crash of falling edifices.
+The earth trembled, and his horse stood still, regardless of the rowels,
+as if it had seen the angel of the Lord standing in his way. On all
+sides monks and nuns came flying from the town, wringing their hands as
+if the horrors of the last judgment had surprised them in their sins.
+The guards of the Archbishop were scattered among them like chaff in the
+swirl of the wind: then his Grace came himself on Sir David Hamilton's
+fleet mare, with Sir David and divers of his household fast following.
+The wrath of heaven was behind them, and they rattled past my
+grandfather like the distempered phantoms that hurry through the dreams
+of dying men.
+
+My grandfather's horse at last obeyed the spur, and he rode on and into
+the city, the gates of which were deserted. There he beheld on all sides
+that the Lord had indeed put the besom of destruction into the hands of
+the Reformers; and that not one of all the buildings which had been
+polluted by the papistry--no, not one--had escaped the erasing
+fierceness of its ruinous sweep. The presence of the magistrates lent
+the grace of authority to the zeal of the people, and all things were
+done in order. The idols were torn down from the altars, and
+deliberately broken by the children with hammers into pieces. There was
+no speaking; all was done in silence; the noise of the falling churches,
+the rending of the shrines, and the breaking of the images were the only
+sounds heard. But for all that, the zeal of not a few was, even in the
+midst of their dread solemnity, alloyed with covetousness. My
+grandfather himself saw one of the town-council slip the bald head, in
+silver, of one of the twelve apostles into his pouch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+The triumph of the truth at St Andrews was followed by the victorious
+establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the Reformation in
+Scotland. The precautions taken by the deep forecasting mind of the Lord
+James Stuart, through the instrumentality of my grandfather and others,
+were of inexpressible benefit to the righteous cause. It was foreseen
+that the Queen Regent, who had come to Falkland, would be prompt to
+avenge the discomfiture of her sect, the papists; but the zealous
+friends of the Gospel, seconding the resolution of the Lords of the
+Congregation, enabled them to set all her power at defiance.
+
+With an attendance of few more than a hundred horse, and about as many
+foot, the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James set out from St Andrews to
+frustrate, as far as the means they had concerted might, the wrathful
+measures which they well knew her Highness would take. But this small
+force was by the next morning increased to full three thousand fighting
+men; and so ardently did the spirit of enmity and resistance against the
+papacy spread, that the Queen Regent, when she came with her French
+troops and her Scottish levies, under the command of the Duke of
+Chatelherault, to Cupar, found that she durst not encounter in battle
+the growing strength of the Congregation, so she consented to a truce,
+and, as usual in her dissimulating policy, promised many things which
+she never intended to perform. But the protestants, by this time knowing
+that the papists never meant to keep their pactions with them,
+discovering the policy of her Highness, silently moved onward. They
+proceeded to Perth, and having expelled the garrison, took the town, and
+fired the abbey of Scone. But as my grandfather was not with them in
+those raids, being sent on the night of the great demolition at St
+Andrews to apprise the Earl of Glencairn, his patron, of the extremities
+to which matters had come there, it belongs not to the scope of my story
+to tell what ensued, farther than that from Perth the Congregation
+proceeded to Stirling, where they demolished the monasteries;--then they
+went to Lithgow, and herret the nests of the locusts there; and
+proceeding bravely on, purging the realm as they went forward, they
+arrived at Edinburgh, and constrained the Queen Regent, who was before
+them with her forces there, to pack up her ends and her awls, and make
+what speed she could with them to Dunbar. But foul as the capital then
+was, and covered with the leprosy of idolatry, they were not long in
+possession till they so medicated her with the searching medicaments of
+the Reformation, that she was soon scrapit of all the scurf and kell of
+her abominations. There was not an idol or an image within her bounds
+that, in less than three days, was not beheaded like a traitor and
+trundled to the dogs, even with vehemence, as a thing that could be
+sensible of contempt. But as all these things are set forth at large in
+the chronicles of the kingdom, let suffice it to say that my grandfather
+continued for nearly two years after this time a trusted emissary among
+the Lords of the Congregation in their many arduous labours and perilous
+correspondencies, till the Earl of Glencairn was appointed to see
+idolatry banished and extirpated from the West Country; in which
+expedition his Lordship, being minded to reward my grandfather's
+services in the cause of the Reformation, invited him to be of his
+force; to which my grandfather, not jealousing the secularities of his
+patron's intents, joyfully agreed, hoping to see the corner-stone placed
+on the great edifice of the Reformation, which all good and pious men
+began then to think near completion.
+
+Having joined the Earl's force at Glasgow, my grandfather went forward
+with it to Paisley. Before reaching that town, however, they were met by
+a numerous multitude of the people, half way between it and the castle
+of Cruikstone, and at their head my grandfather was blithened to see his
+old friend, the gentle monk Dominick Callender, in a soldier's garb, and
+with a ruddy and emboldened countenance, and by his side, with a sword
+manfully girded on his thigh, the worthy Bailie Pollock, whose nocturnal
+revels at the abbey had brought such dule to the winsome Maggy Napier.
+
+For some reason, which my grandfather never well understood, there was
+more lenity shown to the abbey here than usual; but the monks were
+rooted out, the images given over to destruction, and the old bones and
+miraculous crucifixes were either burnt or interred. Less damage,
+however, was done to the buildings than many expected, partly through
+the exhortations of the magistrates, who were desirous to preserve so
+noble a building for a protestant church, but chiefly out of some
+paction or covenant secretly entered into anent the distribution of the
+domains and property, wherein the house of Hamilton was concerned, the
+Duke of Chatelherault, the head thereof, notwithstanding the papistical
+nature of his blood and kin, having some time before gone over to the
+cause of the Congregation.
+
+The work of the Reformation being thus abridged at Paisley, the Earl of
+Glencairn went forward to Kilwinning, where he was less scrupulous; for
+having himself obtained a grant of the lands of the abbacy, he was fain
+to make a clean hand o't, though at the time my grandfather knew not of
+this.
+
+As soon as the army reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to
+the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were
+chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come
+on. Dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to
+the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine
+linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery
+of the mass after him as he fled away in fear.
+
+This resolute act was the signal for the general demolition, and it
+began on all sides; my grandfather giving a leap, caught hold of a fine
+effigy of the Virgin Mary by the leg to pull it down; but it proved to
+be the one which James Coom the smith had mended, for the leg came off,
+and my grandfather fell backwards, and was for a moment stunned by his
+fall. A band of the monks, who were standing trembling spectators, made
+an attempt, at seeing this, to raise a shout of a miracle; but my
+grandfather, in the same moment recovering himself, seized the Virgin's
+timber leg, and flung it with violence at them, and it happened to
+strike one of the fattest of the flock with such a bir, that it was said
+the life was driven out of him. This, however, was not the case; for,
+although the monk was sorely hurt, he lived many a day after, and was
+obligated, in his auld years, when he was feckless, to be carried from
+door to door on a hand-barrow begging his bread. The wives, I have heard
+tell, were kindly to him, for he was a jocose carl; but the weans little
+respected his grey hairs, and used to jeer him as auld Father
+Paternoster, for even to the last he adhered to his beads. It was
+thought, however, by a certain pious protestant gentlewoman of Irvine,
+that before his death he got a cast of grace; for one day, when he had
+been carried over to beg in that town, she gave him a luggie of kail
+ower het, which he stirred with the end of the ebony crucifix at his
+girdle, thereby showing, as she said, a symptom that it held a lower
+place in his spiritual affections than if he had been as sincere in his
+errors as he let wot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he
+was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the
+demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. But in the evening, when
+he took up his quarters in the house of Theophilus Lugton with Dominick
+Callender, who had brought on a party of the Paisley Reformers, he was
+so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over
+next day with the force that the Earl missioned to herry the Carmelyte
+convent at Irvine. Dominick Callender had, however, among other things,
+learnt, in the abbey at Paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and
+how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed Dame
+Lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the
+anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather
+was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man.
+
+In speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be
+lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed,
+no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient
+traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to
+the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion--and many were of the same
+mind--that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an
+art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpassed
+by the learning of the colleges. But it is not meet that I should detain
+the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which
+has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws,
+manners and conduct since the extirpation of the Roman idolatry, is,
+from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can
+scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, I have
+thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they
+proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of
+notation in the brief spaces which they happen herein to occupy. But
+now, returning from this digression, I will take up again the thread and
+clue of my story.
+
+The Earl of Glencairn, after the abbey of Kilwinning was sacked, went
+and slept at Eglinton Castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed
+with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a
+gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. And
+his Lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the
+morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a
+special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither
+accordingly, taking with him Dominick Callender and twelve godly lads
+from Paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from
+Glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper.
+
+When my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he
+was admitted to the Earl his patron, his Lordship said to him, more as a
+friend than a master,--
+
+"I am in the hope, Gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and
+perilous errands on which, to the weal of Scotland and the true church,
+you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in
+my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in
+peace the reward you have earned so well, that I am better pleased in
+bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. But there is yet one task
+which I must put upon you. Hard by to this castle, less than a mile
+eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of
+mind under the protection of the Lord Eglinton's family, and he, having
+got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they
+should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in Irvine
+called the Kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. To do this
+kindly I have bethought myself of you, for I know not in all my force
+any one so well qualified. Have you provided yourself with the twenty
+douce men that I ordered you to bring hither?"
+
+My grandfather told his Lordship that he had done as he was ordered.
+"Then," resumed the Earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the
+superior, and one of Eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you
+have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me."
+
+So my grandfather did as he was directed by the Earl, and marched
+eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble
+and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times,
+when all the other buildings were erased, was called the Stane Castle,
+and is known by that name even unto this day. It stood within a high
+wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the
+porch.
+
+Compassionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their
+sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a
+cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and
+going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman
+answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior,
+gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little chamber, on the one
+side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent
+matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon
+made her appearance within.
+
+He told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the
+purpose of his visit, and showed her the Earl's mandate; to all which,
+for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at
+last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the
+number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. Then ensued a dreadful
+tempest of all feminine passions and griefs, intermingled with
+supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their
+saints were abolished in Scotland, and they received no aid.
+
+Though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be
+recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears
+and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he
+was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures
+into the bad world; but it was his duty;--so, after soothing them as
+well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go
+would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be
+resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as
+that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became
+calm and prepared for the removal.
+
+My grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in
+the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein.
+One was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had
+a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. One aged
+sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water
+which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them
+thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather
+reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold
+hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of Irvine.
+
+There was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little
+moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow
+by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took
+of anything. Of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have
+nothing to care for; and when they were ready, and came forth to the
+gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their
+peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. No
+sooner, however, had she passed the yett, than, on seeing the armed
+company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill
+cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. Every one ran to her
+assistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, Dominick
+Callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was
+enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. She was indeed no other than
+the young maiden of Paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the
+heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and
+when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place
+between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and
+the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. But Magdalene Sauchie, for
+so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put
+down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her
+vows; and during the walk to Irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant
+upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, Dominick
+settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards
+earned both gold and reputation.
+
+But to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in
+this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the
+Kirkgate, where the Countess of Eglinton had provided a house for them,
+began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life
+was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the
+temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this
+mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the Tolbooth stair,
+and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands
+on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "Fear not, my
+chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, I have an
+assurance at this moment from the Virgin Mary herself, that the calamity
+of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the Kirkgate of Irvine, but
+that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein,
+shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men."
+Which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they
+dried their tears, and chanted their Ave Maria, joyfully proceeding
+towards their appointed habitation. It stood, as I have been told, on
+the same spot where King James the Sixth's school was afterwards
+erected, and endowed out of the spoils of Carmelytes' monastery, which,
+on the same day, was, by another division of the Earl of Glencairn's
+power, sacked and burnt to the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+When my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those
+sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the
+afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn at Eglinton Castle to report what he
+had done; and his Lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended
+his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the Earl and
+Countess of Eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions
+wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his
+piety. And the Lady Eglinton, who was a household character, striving,
+with great frugality, to augment the substance of her Lord, by keeping
+her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their
+broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the
+castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to
+the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and
+degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would
+give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the
+meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the
+superior of the nuns. Then the Earl of Glencairn said,--
+
+"Gilhaize, madam, is now his own master, and may choose a bride when it
+pleases himself; for I have covenanted with my friend, your Lord, to let
+him have the mailing of Quharist, in excambio for certain of the lands
+of late pertaining to the abbacy of Kilwinning, the which lie more
+within the vicinage of this castle; and, Gilhaize, here is my warrant to
+take possession."
+
+With which words the Earl rose and presented him with a charter for the
+lands, signed by Eglinton and himself, and he shook him heartily by the
+hand, saying, that few in all the kingdom had better earned the guerdon
+of their service than he had done.
+
+Thus it was that our family came to be settled in the shire of Ayr; for
+after my grandfather had taken possession of his fee, and mindful of the
+vow he had made in the street of Edinburgh on that blessed morning when
+John Knox, the champion of the true church, arrived from Geneva, he went
+into the east country to espouse Elspa Ruet, if he found her thereunto
+inclined, which happily he soon did. For their spirits were in unison;
+and from the time they first met, they had felt toward one another as if
+they had been acquaint in loving-kindness before, which made him
+sometimes say, that it was to him a proof and testimony that the souls
+of mankind have, perhaps, a living knowledge of each other before they
+are born into this world.
+
+At their marriage, it was agreed that they should take with them into
+the west Agnes Kilspinnie, one of the misfortunate bailie's daughters.
+As for her mother, from the day of the overthrow and destruction of the
+papistry at St Andrews, she had never been heard of; all the tidings her
+sister could gather concerning her were, that the same night she had
+been conveyed away by some of the Archbishop's servants, but whither no
+one could tell. So they came with Agnes Kilspinnie to Edinburgh; and,
+for a ploy to their sober wedding, they resolved to abide there till the
+coming of Queen Mary from France, that they might partake of the shows
+and pastimes then preparing for her reception. They, however, during the
+season of their sojourn, feasted far better than on royal fare, in the
+gospel banquet of John Knox's sermons, of which they enjoyed the
+inexpressible beatitude three several Sabbath-days before the Queen
+arrived.
+
+Of the joyous preparations to greet Queen Mary withal neither my
+grandfather nor grandmother were ever wont to discourse much at large,
+for they were holy-minded persons, little esteeming the pageantries of
+this world. But my aunt, for Agnes Kilspinnie being in progress of time
+married to my father's fourth brother, became sib to me in that degree,
+was wont to descant and enlarge on the theme with much wonderment and
+loquacity, describing the marvellous fabrics that were to have been hung
+with tapestry to hold the ladies, and the fountains that were to have
+spouted wine, which nobody was to be allowed to taste, the same being
+only for an ostentation, in order that the fact thereof might be
+recorded in the chronicles for after-times. And great things have I
+likewise heard her tell of the paraphernalia which the magistrates and
+town-council were getting ready. No sleep, in a sense, she used to say,
+did Maccalzean of Cliftonhall, who was then provost, get for more than a
+fortnight. From night to morning the sagacious bailies sat in council,
+exercising their sagacity to contrive devices to pleasure the Queen, and
+to help the custom of their own and their neighbours' shops. Busy and
+proud men they were, and no smaller were the worshipful deacons of the
+crafts. It was just a surprise and consternation to everybody, to think
+how their weak backs could bear such a burden of cares. No time had they
+for their wonted jocosity. To those who would fain have speered the
+news, they shook their heads in a Solomon-like manner, and hastened by.
+And such a battle and tribulation as they had with their vassals, the
+magistrates of Leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted
+that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the Sovereign on
+the shore. This pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the
+provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with
+them, together with the help of their learned assessors, continued
+deliberating anent the same for hours together. It was a dreadful
+business that for the town of Edinburgh. And the opinions of the judges
+of the land, and the lords of the council, were taken, and many a device
+tried to overcome the upsetting, as it was called, of the Leith
+magistrates; but all was of no avail. And it was thought there would
+have been a fight between the bailies of Leith and the bailies of
+Edinburgh, and that blood would have been shed before this weighty
+question, so important to the dearest interests of the commonweal of
+Scotland, could be determined. But, in the midst of their contention,
+and before their preparations were half finished, the Queen arrived in
+Leith Roads; and the news came upon them like the cry to the foolish
+virgins of the bridegroom in the street. Then they were seen flying to
+their respective places of abode to dress themselves in their coats of
+black velvet, their doublets of crimson satin, and their hose of the
+same colour which they had prepared for the occasion. Anon they met in
+the council-chamber--what confusion reigned there! Then how they flew
+down the street! Provost Maccalzean, with the silver keys in his hand,
+and the eldest bailie with the crimson-velvet cod, whereon they were to
+be delivered to her Majesty, following as fast as any member of a city
+corporation could be reasonably expected to do. But how the provost
+fell, and how the bailies and town-council tumbled over him, and how the
+crowd shouted at the sight, are things whereof to understand the
+greatness it is needful that the courteous reader should have heard my
+aunty Agnes herself rehearse the extraordinary particularities.
+
+Meanwhile the Queen left her galley in a small boat, and the bailies of
+Leith had scarcely time to reach the pier before she was on shore. Alas!
+it was an ill-omened landing. Few were spectators, and none cheered the
+solitary lady, who, as she looked around and heard no loyal greeting,
+nor beheld any show of hospitable welcome, seemed to feel as if the
+spirit of the land was sullen at her approach, and grudged at her return
+to the dark abodes of her fierce ancestors. In all the way from Leith to
+Holyrood she never spoke, but the tear was in her eye and the sigh in
+her bosom; and though her people gathered when it was known she had
+landed, and began at last to shout, it was owre late to prevent the
+mournful forebodings, which taught her to expect but disappointments and
+sorrows from subjects so torn with their own factions, as to lack even
+the courtesies due to their sovereign, a stranger, and the fairest lady
+of all her time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Soon after Queen Mary's return from France, my grandfather, with his
+wife and Agnes Kilspinnie, came from Edinburgh and took up their
+residence on his own free mailing of Quharist, where the Lady Eglinton
+was as good as her word in presenting to them divers articles of fine
+napery, and sundry things of plenishing both for ornament and use; and
+there he would have spent his days in blameless tranquillity, serving
+the Lord, but for the new storm that began to gather over the church,
+whereof it is needful that I should now proceed to tell some of the
+circumstantials.
+
+No sooner had that thoughtless Princess, if indeed one could be so
+called, who, though reckless of all consequences, was yet double beyond
+the imagination of man; no sooner, I say, had she found herself at home,
+than, with all the craft and blandishments of her winning airs and
+peerless beauty, she did set herself to seduce the Lords of the
+Congregation from the sternness wherewith they had thrown down, and were
+determined to resist, the restoration of the Roman idolatry; and with
+some of them she succeeded so far, that the popish priests were
+hearkened, and, knowing her avowed partiality for their sect, the Beast
+began to shoot out its horns again, and they dared to perform the
+abomination of the mass in different quarters of the kingdom.
+
+It is, no doubt, true, that the Queen's council, by proclamation,
+feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words
+of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in
+the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of Ayr and in Galloway,
+who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction,
+the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and nourish in its
+pestiferous branches.
+
+When my grandfather heard of these things, his spirit was exceedingly
+moved, and he got no rest in the night, with the warsling of troubled
+thoughts and pious fears. Some new call, he foresaw, would soon be made
+on the protestants, to stand forth again in the gap that the Queen's
+arts had sapped in the bulwarks of their religious liberty, and he
+resolved to be ready against the hour of danger. So, taking his wife and
+Agnes Kilspinnie with him, he went in the spring to Edinburgh, and hired
+a lodging for them; and on the same night he presented himself at the
+lodging of the Lord James Stuart, who had some time before been created
+Earl of Murray; but the Earl was gone with the Queen to Loch Leven. Sir
+Alexander Douglas, however, the master of his Lordship's horse, was then
+on the eve of following him with John Knox, to whom the Queen had sent a
+peremptory message, requiring his attendance; and Sir Alexander invited
+my grandfather to come with them; the which invitation he very joyfully
+accepted, on account of the happy occasion of travelling in the
+sanctified company of that brave worthy.
+
+In the journey, however, save in the boat when they crossed the ferry,
+he showed but little of his precious conversation; for the knight and
+the Reformer rode on together some short distance before their train,
+earnestly discoursing, and seemingly they wished not to be overheard.
+But when they were all seated in the ferry-boat, the ardour of the
+preacher, which on no occasion would be reined in, led him to continue
+speaking, by which it would seem that they had been conversing anent the
+Queen's prejudices in matters of religion and the royal authority.
+
+"When I last spoke with her Highness," said John Knox, "she laid sore to
+my charge, that I had brought the people to receive a religion different
+from what their princes allowed, asking sharply, if this was not
+contrary to the Divine command, which enjoins that subjects should obey
+their rulers; so that I was obliged to contend plainly, that true
+religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from
+God; that princes were often most ignorant respecting it, and that
+subjects never could be bound to frame their religious sentiments
+according to the pleasure of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to
+have conformed to the idolatry of Pharaoh, and Daniel and his associates
+to that of Nebuchadnezzar, and the primitive Christians to that of the
+Roman emperors."
+
+"And what could her Highness answer to this?" said Sir Alexander.
+
+"She lacketh not the gift of a shrewd and ready wit," replied Master
+Knox; for she nimbly remarked, "That though it was as I had said, yet
+none of those men raised the sword against their princes;"--which
+enforced me to be more subtle than I was minded to have been, and to
+say, "that nevertheless, they did resist, for those who obey not the
+commandments given them, do in verity resist." "Ay," cried her Highness,
+"but not with the sword," which was a thrust not easy to be turned
+aside, so that I was constrained to speak out, saying, "God, madam, had
+not given them the means and the power." Then said she, still more
+eagerly, "Think you that subjects, having the power, may resist their
+princes?" And she looked with a triumphant smile, as if she had caught
+me in a trap; but I replied, "If princes exceed their bounds, no doubt
+they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour or greater
+obedience is to be given to kings and princes than God has commanded to
+be given to father or mother. But the father may be struck with a
+frenzy, in which he would slay his children; in such a case, if the
+children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from
+him, bind his hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over,
+think you, madam," quo' I, "that the children do any wrong? Even so is
+it with princes that would slay the children of God that are subject to
+them. Their blind zeal is nothing but frenzy, and therefore to take the
+power from them till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no
+disobedience to princes, but a just accordance to the will of God. So I
+doubt not," continued the Reformer, "I shall again have to sustain the
+keen encounter of her Highness' wit in some new controversy."
+
+This was the chief substance of what my grandfather heard pass in the
+boat; and when they were again mounted, the knight and preacher set
+forward as before, some twenty paces or so in advance of the retinue.
+
+On reaching Kinross, Master Knox rode straight to the shore, and went
+off in the Queen's barge to the castle, that he might present himself to
+her Highness before supper, for by this time the sun was far down. In
+the meantime, my grandfather went to the house in Kinross where the Earl
+of Murray resided, and his Lordship, though albeit a grave and reserved
+man, received him with the familiar kindness of an old friend, and he
+was with him when the Reformer came back from the Queen, who had dealt
+very earnestly with him to persuade the gentlemen of the west country to
+desist from their interruption of the popish worship.
+
+"But to this," said the Reformer to the Earl, "I was obligated, by
+conscience and the fear of God, to say, that if her Majesty would exert
+her authority in executing the laws of the land, I would undertake for
+the peaceable behaviour of the protestants; but if she thought to evade
+them, there were some who would not let the papists offend with
+impunity."
+
+"Will you allow," exclaimed her Highness, "that they shall take my sword
+in their hands?"
+
+"The sword of justice is God's," I replied, "and is given to princes
+and rulers for an end, which if they transgress, sparing the wicked and
+oppressing the innocent, they who in the fear of God execute judgment
+where God has commanded, offend not God, although kings do it not. The
+gentlemen of the west, madam, are acting strictly according to law; for
+the act of parliament gave power to all judges within their jurisdiction
+to search for and punish those who transgress its enactments;" and I
+added, "it shall be profitable to your Majesty to consider what is the
+thing your Grace's subjects look to receive of your Majesty, and what it
+is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. They are bound to
+obey you, and that not but in God; ye are bound to keep laws to them--ye
+crave of them service, they crave of you protection and defence. Now,
+madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them (which especially craves
+that ye punish malefactors), can ye expect to receive full obedience of
+them? I fear, madam, ye shall not."
+
+"You have indeed been plain with her Highness," said the Earl,
+thoughtfully; "and what reply made she?"
+
+"None," said the Reformer; "her countenance changed; she turned her head
+abruptly from me, and, without the courtesy of a good-night, signified
+with an angry waving of her hand, that she desired to be rid of my
+presence; whereupon I immediately retired, and, please God, I shall,
+betimes in the morning, return to my duties at Edinburgh. It is with a
+sad heart, my Lord, that I am compelled to think, and to say to you, who
+stand so near to her in kin and affection, that I doubt she is not only
+proud but crafty; not only wedded to the popish faith, but averse to
+instruction. She neither is nor will be of our opinion; and it is plain
+that the lessons of her uncle, the Cardinal, are so deeply printed in
+her heart, that the substance and quality will perish together. I would
+be glad to be deceived in this, but I fear I shall not; never have I
+espied such art in one so young; and it will need all the eyes of the
+Reformed to watch and ward that she circumvent not the strong hold in
+Christ, that has been but so lately restored and fortified in this
+misfortunate kingdom."
+
+Nothing farther passed that night; but the servants being called in, and
+the preacher having exhorted them in their duties, and prayed with even
+more than his wonted earnestness, each one retired to his chamber, and
+the Earl gave orders for horses to be ready early in the morning, to
+convey Master Knox back to Edinburgh. This, however, was not permitted;
+for by break of day a messenger came from the castle, desiring him not
+to depart until he had again spoken with her Majesty; adding, that as
+she meant to land by sunrise with her falconer, she would meet him on
+the fields where she intended to take her pastime, and talk with him
+there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+In the morning, all those who were in the house with the Earl of Murray
+and John Knox were early afoot, and after prayers had been said, they
+went out to meet the Queen at her place of landing from the castle,
+which stands on an islet at some distance from the shore; but, before
+they reached the spot, she was already mounted on her jennet and the
+hawks unhooded, so that they were obligated to follow her Highness to
+the ground, the Reformer leaning on the Earl, who proffered him his left
+arm as they walked up the steep bank together from the brim of the lake.
+
+The Queen was on the upland when they drew near to the field, and on
+seeing them approach she came ambling towards them, moving in her
+beauty, as my grandfather often delighted to say, like a fair rose
+caressed by the soft gales of the summer. A smile was in her eye, and it
+brightened on her countenance like the beam of something more lovely
+than light; the glow, as it were, of a spirit conscious of its power,
+and which had graced itself with all its enchantments to conquer some
+stubborn heart. Even the Earl of Murray was struck with the unwonted
+splendour of her that was ever deemed so surpassing fair; and John Knox
+said, with a sigh, "THE MAKER had indeed taken gracious pains with the
+goodly fashion of such perishable clay."
+
+When she had come within a few paces of where they were advancing
+uncovered, she suddenly checked her jennet, and made him dance proudly
+round till she was nigh to John Knox, where, seeming in alarm, she
+feigned as if she would have slipped from the saddle, laying her hand
+on his shoulder for support; and while he, with more gallantry than it
+was thought in him, helped her to recover her seat, she said, with a
+ravishing look, "The Queen thanks you, Master Knox, for this upholding,"
+dwelling on the word this in a special manner; which my grandfather
+noticed the more, as he as well as others of the retinue observed, that
+she was playing as it were in dalliance.
+
+She then inquired kindly for his health, grieving she had not given
+orders for him to bed in the castle; and turning to the Earl of Murray,
+she chided his Lordship with a gentleness that was more winning than
+praise, why he had not come to her with Master Knox, saying, "We should
+then perhaps have not been so sharp in our controversy." But, before the
+Earl had time to make answer, she noticed divers gentlemen by name, and
+taking off her glove, made a most sweet salutation with her lily hand to
+the general concourse of those who had by this time gathered around.
+
+In that gracious gesture, it was plain, my grandfather said, that she
+was still scattering her feminine spells; for she kept her hand for some
+time bare, and though enjoying the pleasure which her beautiful presence
+diffused, like a delicious warmth into the air, she was evidently
+self-collected, and had something more in mind than only the triumph of
+her marvellous beauty.
+
+Having turned her horse's head, she moved him a few paces, saying,
+"Master Knox, I would speak with you." At which he went towards her, and
+the rest of the spectators retired and stood aloof.
+
+They appeared for some time to be in an easy and somewhat gay discourse
+on her part; but she grew more and more earnest, till Mr Knox made his
+reverence and was coming away, when she said to him aloud, "Well, do as
+you will, but that man is a dangerous man."
+
+Their discourse was concerning the titular Bishop of Athens, a brother
+of the Earl of Huntly, who had been put in nomination for a
+superintendent of the church in the West Country, and of whose bad
+character her Highness, as it afterwards proved, had received a just
+account.
+
+But scarcely had the Reformer retired two steps when she called him
+back, and holding out to him her hand, with which, when he approached to
+do his homage, she familiarly took hold of his and held it, playing with
+his fingers as if she had been placing on a ring, saying, loud enough
+to be heard by many on the field,--
+
+"I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me since I came
+into this realm to open to you, and I must have your help in it."
+
+Then, still holding him earnestly by the hand, she entered into a long
+discourse concerning, as he afterwards told the Earl of Murray, a
+difference subsisting between the Earl and Countess of Argyle.
+
+"Her Ladyship," said the Queen, for my grandfather heard him repeat what
+passed, "has not perhaps been so circumspect in everything as one could
+have wished, but her lord has dealt harshly with her."
+
+Master Knox having once before reconciled the debates of that honourable
+couple, told her Highness he had done so, and that not having since
+heard anything to the contrary, he had hoped all things went well with
+them.
+
+"It is worse," replied the Queen, "than ye believe. But, kind sir, do
+this much for my sake, as once again to put them at amity, and if the
+Countess behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour
+of me; but in no wise let Argyle know that I have requested you in this
+matter."
+
+Then she returned to the subject of their contest the preceding evening,
+and said, with her sweetest looks and most musical accents, "I promise
+to do as ye required. I shall order all offenders to be summoned, and
+you shall see that I shall minister justice."
+
+To which he replied, "I am assured then, madam, that you shall please
+God, and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your
+Majesty is more profitable than all the Pope's power can be." And having
+said this much he made his reverence, evidently in great pleasure with
+her Highness.
+
+Afterwards, in speaking to the Earl of Murray, as they returned to
+Kinross, my grandfather noted that he employed many terms of soft
+courtliness, saying of her that she was a lady who might, he thought,
+with a little pains, be won to grace and godliness, could she be
+preserved from the taint of evil counsellors; so much had the winning
+sorceries of her exceeding beauty and her blandishments worked even upon
+his stern honesty and enchanted his jealousy asleep.
+
+When Master Knox had, with the Earl, partaken of some repast, he
+requested that he might be conveyed back to Edinburgh, for that it
+suited not with his nature to remain sorning about the skirts of the
+court; and his Lordship bade my grandfather be of his company, and to
+bid Sir Alexander Douglas, the master of his horse, choose for him the
+gentlest steed in his stable.
+
+But it happened before the Reformer was ready to depart, that Queen Mary
+had finished her morning pastime, and was returning to her barge to
+embark for the castle, which the Earl hearing, went down to the brim of
+the loch to assist at her embarkation. My grandfather, with others, also
+hastened to the spot.
+
+On seeing his Lordship, she inquired for "her friend," as she then
+called John Knox, and signified her regret that he had been so list to
+leave her, expressing her surprise that one so infirm should think so
+soon of a second journey; whereby the good Earl being minded to cement
+their happy reconciliation, from which he augured a great increase of
+benefits both to the realm and the cause of religion, was led to speak
+of his concern thereat likewise, and of his sorrow that all his own
+horses at Kinross being for the chase and road, he had none well-fitting
+to carry a person so aged, and but little used to the toil of riding.
+
+Her Highness smiled at the hidden counselling of this remark, for she
+was possessed of a sharp spirit; and she said, with a look which told
+the Earl and all about her that she discerned the pith of his Lordship's
+discourse, she would order one of her own palfreys to be forthwith
+prepared for him.
+
+When the Earl returned from the shore and informed Master Knox of the
+Queen's gracious condescension, he made no reply, but bowed his head in
+token of his sense of her kindness; and soon after, when the palfrey was
+brought saddled with the other horses to the door, he said, in my
+grandfather's hearing, to his Lordship, "It needs, you see, my Lord,
+must be so; for were I not to accept this grace, it might be thought I
+refused from a vain bravery of caring nothing for her Majesty's favour;"
+and he added, with a smile of jocularity, "whereas I am right well
+content to receive the very smallest boon from so fair and blooming a
+lady."
+
+Nothing of any particularity occurred in the course of the journey; for
+the main part of which Master Knox was thoughtful and knit up in his own
+cogitations, and when from time to time he did enter into discourse with
+my grandfather, he spoke chiefly of certain usages and customs that he
+had observed in other lands, and of things of indifferent import; but
+nevertheless there was a flavour of holiness in all he said, and my
+grandfather treasured many of his sweet sentences as pearls of great
+price.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Before the occurrence of the things spoken of in the foregoing chapter,
+the great Earl of Glencairn, my grandfather's first and constant patron,
+had been dead some time; but his son and successor, who knew the
+estimation in which he had been held by his father, being then in
+Edinburgh, allowed him, in consideration thereof, the privilege of his
+hall. It suited not, however, with my grandfather's quiet and sanctified
+nature to mingle much with the brawlers that used to hover there;
+nevertheless, out of a respect to the Earl's hospitality, he did
+occasionally go thither, and where, if he heard little to edify the
+Christian heart, he learnt divers things anent the Queen and court that
+made his fears and anxieties wax stronger and stronger.
+
+It seemed to him, as he often was heard to say, that there was a better
+knowledge of Queen Mary's true character and secret partialities among
+those loose varlets than among their masters; and her marriage being
+then in the parlance of the people, and much dread and fear rife with
+the protestants that she would choose a papist for her husband, he was
+surprised to hear many of the lewd knaves in Glencairn's hall speak
+lightly of the respect she would have to the faith or spirituality of
+the man she might prefer.
+
+Among those wuddy worthies he fell in with his ancient adversary
+Winterton, who, instead of harbouring any resentment for the trick he
+played him in the Lord Boyd's castle, was rejoiced to see him again: he
+himself was then in the service of David Rizzio, the fiddler, whom the
+Queen some short time before had taken into her particular service.
+
+This Rizzio was by birth an Italian of very low degree; a man of
+crouched stature, and of an uncomely physiognomy, being yellow-skinned
+and black-haired, with a beak-nose, and little quick eyes of a free and
+familiar glance, but shrewd withal, and possessed of a pleasant way of
+winning facetiously on the ladies, to the which his singular skill in
+all manner of melodious music helped not a little; so that he had great
+sway with them, and was then winning himself fast into the Queen's
+favour, in which ambition, besides the natural instigations of his own
+vanity, he was spirited on by certain powerful personages of the
+papistical faction, who soon saw the great efficacy it would be of to
+their cause, to have one who owed his rise to them constantly about the
+Queen, and in the depths of all her personal correspondence with her
+great friends abroad. But the subtle Italian, though still true to his
+papal breeding, built upon the Queen's partiality more than on the
+favour of those proud nobles, and, about the time of which I am now
+speaking, he carried his head at court as bravely as the boldest baron
+amongst them. Still in this he had as yet done nothing greatly to
+offend. The protestant Lords, however, independent of their aversion to
+him on account his religion, felt, in common with all the nobility, a
+vehement prejudice against an alien, one too of base blood, and they
+openly manifested their displeasure at seeing him so gorgeous and
+presuming even in the public presence of the Queen, but he regarded not
+their anger.
+
+In this fey man's service Winterton then was, and my grandfather never
+doubted that it was for no good he came so often to the Earl of
+Glencairn's, who, though not a man of the same weight in the realm as
+the old Earl his father, was yet held in much esteem, as a sincere
+protestant and true nobleman, by all the friends of the Gospel cause;
+and, in the sequel, what my grandfather jealoused was soon very plainly
+seen. For Rizzio learning, through Winterton's espionage and that of
+other emissaries, how little the people of Scotland would relish a
+foreign prince to be set over them, had a hand in dissuading the Queen
+from accepting any of the matches then proposed for her; and the better
+to make his own power the more sicker, he afterwards laid snares in the
+water to bring about a marriage with that weak young prince, the Lord
+Henry Darnley. But it falls not within the scope of my narrative to
+enter into any more particulars here concerning that Italian, and the
+tragical doom which, with the Queen's imprudence, he brought upon
+himself; for, after spending some weeks in Edinburgh, and in visiting
+their friends at Crail, my grandfather returned with his wife and Agnes
+Kilspinnie to Quharist, where he continued to reside several years, but
+not in tranquillity.
+
+Hardly had they reached their home, when word came of quarrels among the
+nobility; and though the same sprung out of secular debates, they had
+much of the leaven of religious faction in their causes, the which
+greatly exasperated the enmity wherewith they were carried on. But even
+in the good Earl of Murray's raid, there was nothing which called on my
+grandfather to bear a part. Nevertheless, those quarrels disquieted his
+soul, and he heard the sough of discontents rising afar off, like the
+roar of the bars of Ayr when they betoken a coming tempest.
+
+After the departure of the Earl of Murray to France, there was a syncope
+in the land, and men's minds were filled with wonder and with
+apprehensions to which they could give no name; neighbours distrusted
+one another: the papists looked out from their secret places, and were
+saluted with a fear that wore the semblance of reverence. The Queen
+married Darnley, and discreet men marvelled at the rashness with which
+the match was concluded, there being seemingly no cause for such
+uncomely haste, nor for the lavish favours that she heaped upon him. It
+was viewed with awe, as a thing done under the impulses of fraud, or
+fainness, or fatality. Nor was their wedding-cheer cold when her eager
+love changed into aversion. Then the spirit of the times, which had long
+hovered in willingness to be pleased with her intentions, began to alter
+its breathings, and to whisper darkly against her. At last the murder of
+Rizzio, a deed which, though in the main satisfactory to the nation, was
+yet so foul and cruel in the perpetration, that the tidings of it came
+like a thunder-clap over all the kingdom.
+
+The birth of Prince James, which soon after followed, gave no joy; for
+about the same time a low and terrible whispering began to be heard of
+some hideous and universal conspiracy against all the protestants
+throughout Europe. None ventured to say that Queen Mary was joined with
+the conspirators; but many preachers openly prayed that she might be
+preserved from their leagues in a way that showed what they feared;
+besides this suspicion, mournful things were told of her behaviour, and
+the immoralities of her courtiers and their trains rose to such a pitch,
+compared with the chastity and plain manners of her mother's court, that
+the whole land was vexed with angry thoughts, and echoed to the rumours
+with stern menaces.
+
+No one was more disturbed by these things than my pious grandfather; and
+the apprehensions which they caused in him came to such a head at last,
+that his wife, becoming fearful of his health, advised him to take a
+journey to Edinburgh, in order that he might hear and see with his own
+ears and eyes; which he accordingly did, and on his arrival went
+straight to the Earl of Glencairn, and begged permission to take on
+again his livery, chiefly that he might pass unnoticed, and not be
+remarked as having neither calling nor vocation. That nobleman was
+surprised with his request; but, without asking any questions, gave him
+leave, and again invited him to use the freedom of his hall; so he
+continued as one of his retainers till the Earl of Murray's return from
+France. But, before speaking of what then ensued, there are some things
+concerning the murder of the the Queen's protestant husband--the
+blackest of the sins of that age--of which, in so far as my grandfather
+participated, it is meet and proper I should previously speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+While the cloud of troubles, whereof I have spoken in the foregoing
+chapter was thickening and darkening over the land, the event of the
+King's dreadful death came to pass; the which, though in its birth most
+foul and monstrous, filling the hearts of all men with consternation and
+horror, was yet a mean in the hands of Providence, as shall hereafter
+appear, whereby the kingdom of THE LORD was established in Scotland.
+
+Concerning that fearful treason, my grandfather never spoke without
+taking off his bonnet, and praying inwardly with such solemnity of
+countenance that none could behold him unmoved. Of all the remarkable
+passages of his long life it was indeed the most remarkable; and he has
+been heard to say that he could not well acquit himself of the actual
+sin of disobedience in not obeying an admonition of the Spirit which was
+vouchsafed to him on that occasion.
+
+For some time there had been a great variance between the King and
+Queen. He had given himself over to loose and low companions; and though
+she kept her state and pride, ill was said of her, if in her walk and
+conversation she was more sensible of her high dignity. All at once,
+however, when he was lying ill at Glasgow of a malady, which many
+scrupled not to say was engendered by a malignant medicine, there was a
+singular demonstration of returning affection on her part, the more
+remarkable and the more heeded of the commonality, on account of its
+suddenness, and the events that ensued; for while he was at the worst
+she minded not his condition, but took her delights and pastimes in
+divers parts of the country. No sooner, however, had his strength
+overcome the disease, than she was seized with this fond sympathy, and
+came flying with her endearments, seemingly to foster his recovery with
+caresses and love. The which excessive affection was afterwards ascribed
+to a guilty hypocrisy; for in the sequel it came to light that, while
+she was practising all those winning blandishments, which few knew the
+art of better, and with which she regained his confidence, she was at
+the same time engaged in unconjugal correspondence with the Earl of
+Bothwell. The King, however, was won by her kindness, and consented to
+be removed from among the friends of his family at Glasgow to Edinburgh,
+in order that he might there enjoy the benefits of her soft cares and
+the salutary attendance of the physicians of the capital. The house of
+the provost of Kirk o' Field, which stood not far from the spot where
+the buildings of the college now stand, was accordingly prepared for his
+reception, on account of the advantages which it afforded for the free
+and open air of a rising ground; but it was also a solitary place--a fit
+haunt for midnight conspirators and the dark purposes of mysterious
+crime.
+
+There, for some time, the Queen lavished upon him all the endearing
+gentleness of a true and loving wife, being seldom absent by day, and
+sleeping near his sick-chamber at night. The land was blithened with
+such assurances of their reconciliation; and the King himself, with the
+frank ardour of flattered youth, was contrite for his faults, and
+promised her the fondest devotion of all his future days. In this sweet
+cordiality, on Sunday, the 9th of February, A.D. 1567, she parted from
+him to be present at a masquing in the palace; for the Reformation had
+not so penetrated into the habits and business of men as to hallow the
+Sabbath in the way it has since done amongst us. But before proceeding
+farther, it is proper to resume the thread of my grandfather's story.
+
+He had passed that evening, as he was wont to tell, in pleasant gospel
+conversation with several acquaintances in the house of one Raphael
+Doquet, a pious lawyer in the Canongate; for even many writers in those
+days were smitten with the love of godliness; and as he was returning to
+his dry lodgings in an entry now called Baron Grant's Close, he
+encountered Winterton, who, after an end had been put to David Rizzio,
+became a retainer in the riotous household of the Earl of Bothwell. This
+happened a short way aboon the Netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to
+speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which
+made him rather eschew this civility. My grandfather at the time,
+however, did not much remark it; but scarcely had they parted ten paces
+when a sudden jealousy of some unknown guilt or danger, wherein
+Winterton was concerned, came into his mind like a flash of fire, and he
+felt as it were an invisible power constraining him to dog his steps, in
+so much that he actually did turn back. But on reaching the Bow he was
+obligated to stop, for the ward was changing; and observing that the
+soldiers then posting were of the Queen's French guard, his thoughts
+began to run on the rumour that was bruited of a league among the papist
+princes to cut off all the Reformed with one universal sweep of the
+scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to
+some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what
+he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable
+suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus,
+though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some
+bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom
+which is of this world to suppress and refuse obedience to the
+promptings of the inspiration.
+
+On reaching his chamber, he unbuckled his belt, as his custom was, and
+laid down his sword and began to undress, when again the same alarm
+from on high fell upon him, and the same warning spirit whispered to his
+mind's ear unspeakable intimations of dreadful things. Fear came upon
+him and trembling, which made all his bones to shake, and he lifted his
+sword and again buckled on his belt. But again the prudence of this
+world prevailed, and, heeding not the admonition to warn the Lords of
+the Congregation, he threw himself on his bed, without, however,
+unbuckling his sword, and in that condition fell asleep. But though his
+senses were shut, his mind continued awake, and he had fearful visions
+of bloody hands and glimmering daggers gleaming over him from behind his
+curtains, till in terror he started up, gasping like one that had
+struggled with a stronger than himself.
+
+When he had in some degree composed his thoughts, he went to the window
+and opened it, to see by the stars how far the night had passed. The
+window overlooked the North Loch and the swelling bank beyond, and the
+distant frith and the hills of Fife. The skies were calm and clear, and
+the air was tempered with a bright frost. The stars in their courses
+were reflected in the still waters of the North Loch, as if there had
+been an opening through the earth showing the other concave of the
+spangled firmament. But the dark outline of the swelling bank on the
+northern side was like the awful corpse of some mighty thing prepared
+for interment.
+
+As my grandfather stood in contemplation at the window, he heard the
+occasional churme of discourse from passengers still abroad, and now and
+then the braggart flourish of a trumpet resounded from the royal
+masquing at the palace,--breaking upon the holiness of the night with
+the harsh dissonance of a discord in some solemn harmony.--And as he was
+meditating on many things, and grieving in spirit at the dark fate of
+poor Scotland, and the woes with which the children of salvation were
+environed, he was startled by the apparition of a great blaze in the
+air, which for a moment lighted up all the land with a wild and fiery
+light, and he beheld in the glass of the North Loch, reflected from
+behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams
+and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the
+chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town
+like an earthquake.
+
+He was for an instant astounded; but soon roused by the clangour of an
+alarm from the castle; and while a cry rose from all the city, as if the
+last trumpet itself was sounding, he rushed into the street, where the
+inhabitants, as they had flown from their beds, were running in
+consternation like the sheeted dead startled from their graves. Drums
+beat to arms;--the bells rang;--some cried the wild cry of fire, and
+there was wailing and weeping, and many stood dumb with horror, and
+could give no answer to the universal question.--"God of the heavens,
+what is this?" Presently a voice was heard crying, "The King, the King!"
+and all, as if moved by one spirit, replied, "The King, the King!" Then
+for a moment there was a silence stiller than the midnight hour, and
+drum, nor bell, nor voice was heard, but a rushing of the multitude
+towards St Mary's Port, which leads to the Kirk o' Field.
+
+Among others, my grandfather hastened to the spot by Todrick's Wynd; and
+as he was running down towards the postern gate, he came with great
+violence against a man who was struggling up through the torrent of the
+people, without cap or cloak, and seemingly maddened with terrors. Urged
+by some strong instinct, my grandfather grasped him by the throat; for,
+by the glimpse of the lights that were then placing at every window, he
+saw it was Winterton. But a swirl of the crowd tore them asunder, and he
+had only time to cry, "It's ane of Bothwell's men."
+
+The people caught the Earl's name; but instead of seizing the fugitive,
+they repeated, "Bothwell, Bothwell, he's the traitor!" and pressed more
+eagerly on to the ruins of the house, which were still burning. The
+walls were rent, and in many places thrown down; the west gable was
+blown clean away, and the very ground, on the side where the King's
+chamber had been, was torn as with a hundred ploughshares. Certain trees
+that grew hard by were cleft and riven as with a thunderbolt, and stones
+were sticking in their timber like wedges and the shot of cannon.
+
+It was thought, that in such a sudden blast of desolation, nothing in
+the house could have withstood the shock, but that all therein must have
+been shivered to atoms. When, however, the day began to dawn, it was
+seen that many things had escaped unblemished by the fire; and the
+King's body, with that of the servant who watched in his chamber, was
+found in a neighbouring garden, without having suffered any material
+change,--the which caused the greater marvelling; for it thereby
+appeared that they were the only sufferers in that dark treason, making
+the truth plain before the people, that the contrivance and firing
+thereof was concerted and brought to maturity by some in authority with
+the Queen,--and who that was the people answered by crying as the royal
+corpse was carried to the palace, "Bothwell, Lord Bothwell, he is the
+traitor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+All the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the
+streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her
+dwelling-places. Multitudes stood in amazement from morning to night
+around the palace; for the Earl of Bothwell was within, and still
+honoured with all the homages due to the greatest public trusts. Ever
+and anon a cry was heard, "Bothwell is the murderer!" and the multitude
+shouted, "Justice, justice!" But their cry was not heard.
+
+Night after night the trembling citizens watched with candles at their
+casements, dreading some yet greater alarm; and in the stillness of the
+midnight hour a voice was heard crying, "The Queen and Bothwell are the
+murderers!" and another voice replied, "Vengeance, vengeance!--Blood for
+blood!"
+
+Every morning on the walls of the houses writings were seen, demanding
+the punishment of the regicides--and the Queen's name, and the name of
+Bothwell, and the names of many more, with the Archbishop of St Andrews
+at their head, were emblazoned on all sides as the names of the
+regicides. But Bothwell, with the resolute bravery of guilt in the
+confidence of power, heeded not the cry that thus mounted continually
+against him to Heaven, and the Queen feigned a widow's sorrow.
+
+The whole realm was as when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was
+removed from Israel and captive in the hands of the Philistines. The
+injured sought not the redress of their wrongs; even the guilty were
+afraid of one another, and by the very cowardice of their distrust were
+prevented from banding at a time when they might have rioted at will.
+What aggravated these portents of a kingdom falling asunder, was the
+mockery of law and justice which the court attempted. Those who were
+accused of the King's death ruled the royal councils, and were greatest
+in the Queen's favour. The Earl of Bothwell dictated the very
+proceedings by which he was himself to be brought to trial,--and when
+the day of trial arrived, he came with the pomp and retinue of a
+victorious conqueror--to be acquitted.
+
+But acquitted, as the guilty ever needs must be whom no one dares to
+accuse, nor any witness hazards to appear against, his acquittal served
+but to prove his guilt, and the forms thereof the murderous
+participation of the Queen. Thus, though he was assoilzied in form of
+law, the libel against him was nevertheless found proven by the
+universal verdict of all men. Yet, in despite of the world, and even of
+the conviction recorded within their own bosoms, did the infatuated Mary
+and that dreadless traitor, in little more than three months from the
+era of their crime, rush into an adulterous marriage; but of the
+infamies concerning the same, and of the humiliated state to which poor
+Scotland sank in consequence, I must refer the courteous reader to the
+histories and chronicles of the time--while I return to the narrative of
+my grandfather.
+
+When the Earl of Bothwell, as I have been told by those who heard him
+speak of these deplorable blots on the Scottish name, had been created
+Duke of Orkney, the people daily expected the marriage. But instead of
+the ordinary ceremonials used at the marriages of former kings and
+princes, the Queen and all about her, as if they had been smitten from
+on high with some manifest and strange phrenzy, resolved, as it were in
+derision and blasphemy, notwithstanding her own and the notour popery of
+the Duke, to celebrate their union according to the strictest forms of
+the protestants; and John Knox being at the time in the West Country,
+his colleague, Master Craig, was ordered by the Queen in council to
+publish the bans three several Sabbaths in St Giles' kirk.
+
+On the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a
+vast concourse of the people were assembled, and the worthy minister,
+when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was
+pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and
+purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an
+awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. He then laid
+down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his
+eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,--"Lord God of the pure
+heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, I protest, as a minister
+of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and
+adulterous sin; and I call all the nobility and all of the Queen's
+council to remonstrate with her Majesty against a step that must cover
+her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." Three days did he
+thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim
+his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council,
+where the guilty Bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having
+exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic
+bravery,--
+
+"My commission is from the word of God, good laws, and natural reason,
+to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. The Earl of Bothwell,
+there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,--the divorce that he
+has procured from his wife has been by collusion,--and he knows likewise
+that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the
+Queen's person."
+
+Yet, notwithstanding, Mr Craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested
+by the astonished and overawed Bothwell; but, as I have said, the
+marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of
+papistical device that the Lord suffered to see done within the bounds
+of Scotland. For the same night letters were sent to the Earl of Murray
+from divers of the nobility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my
+grandfather, at the incitement of the Earl of Argyle, was secretly sent
+by his patron Glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful
+prince, the son whom the Queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet
+without delay at Stirling.
+
+Accordingly, with the flower of their vassals and retainers, besides
+Argyle and Glencairn, came many of the nobles; and having protested
+their detestation of the conduct of the Queen, they entered into a
+Solemn League and Covenant, wherein they rehearsed, as causes for their
+confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled,
+that the Scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all
+Christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had
+revenged the foul murder of the King, rescued the Queen from her
+thraldom to the Earl of Bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious
+marriage.
+
+The Queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were
+panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. She issued a bold
+proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her
+defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. She fled with Bothwell
+from Edinburgh to the castle of Borthwick; but scarcely were they within
+the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her,
+and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the Queen of all
+Scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced
+paramour.
+
+The covenanting nobles in the meantime were mustering their clans and
+their vassals; and the Earls of Morton and Athol having brought the
+instrument of the League to Edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council
+signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the
+burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the
+city walls. The whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike
+preparations, and the ancient valour of the Scottish heart was blithened
+with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought
+upon the honour of the land.
+
+Meanwhile the regicide and the Queen drew together what forces his power
+could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from Dunbar to
+Carberry Hill, where they encamped. The army of the Covenanters at the
+same time left Edinburgh to meet them. Mary appeared at the head of her
+troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to
+fight. She exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;--she wept,
+she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice,
+but still they stood sullen.
+
+To retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill
+on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with
+a voice of despair for Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw
+at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having
+halted his horse and procured leave from his leaders, advanced toward
+her. Bothwell, with a few followers, during the interval, quitted the
+field; and, as soon as Kirkcaldy came up, she surrendered herself to
+him, and was conducted by him to the headquarters of the Covenanters, by
+whom she was received with all the wonted testimonials of respect, and
+was assured, if she forsook Bothwell and governed her kingdom with
+honest councils, they would honour and obey her as their sovereign. But
+the common soldiers overwhelmed her with reproaches, and on the march
+back to Edinburgh poured upon her the most opprobrious names.
+
+"Never was such a sight seen," my grandfather often said, "as the return
+of that abject Princess to her capital. On the banner of the League was
+depicted the corpse of the murdered king, her husband, lying under a
+tree, with the young prince, his son, kneeling before it, and the motto
+was, 'Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord.' The standard-bearer rode with
+it immediately before the horse on which she sat weeping and wild, and
+covered with dust, and as often as she raised her distracted eye the
+apparition of the murder in the flag fluttered in her face. In vain she
+supplicated pity--yells and howls were all the answers she received, and
+volleys of execrations came from the populace, with Burn her, burn her,
+bloody murderess! Let her not live!"
+
+In that condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which
+she was assisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she
+was conveyed a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was soon after
+compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the Earl of
+Murray, by whose great wisdom the Reformation was established in truth
+and holiness throughout the kingdom--though for a season it was again
+menaced when Mary effected her escape, and dared the cause of the Lord
+to battle at Langside. But of that great day of victory it becomes not
+me to speak, for it hath received the blazon of many an abler pen; it is
+enough to mention, that my grandfather was there, and after the battle
+that he returned with the army to Glasgow, and was present at the
+thanksgiving. The same night he paid his last respects to the Earl of
+Murray, who permitted him to take away, as a trophy and memorial, the
+gloves which his Lordship had worn that day in the field; and they have
+ever since been sacredly preserved at Quharist, where they may be still
+seen. They are of York buff; the palm of the one for the right hand is
+still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool
+is stained with the ink of a letter which the Earl wrote on the field to
+Argyle, who had joined the Queen's faction; the which letter, it has
+been thought, caused the swithering of that nobleman in the hour of the
+onset, by which Providence gave the Regent the victory--a conquest which
+established the Gospel in his native land for ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles and great personages of
+the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own
+demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of
+deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them,
+much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will
+that he thought was his due. But to all people of a lower degree, like
+those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and
+gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small
+courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that,
+being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his
+fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as
+the sweet odour of many blessings.
+
+Few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the
+base murder by the Hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the
+labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant
+to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the
+retribution with which their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken
+and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and
+kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just
+vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with
+all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my
+grandfather bore arms for the commonweal.
+
+Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow
+merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal,
+finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers
+lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times,
+the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil,
+he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my
+grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to
+see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the
+time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet. And it happened that
+Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous
+exploit against the castle of Dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in
+the Trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in
+which he was held by many noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him
+cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, among other
+things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the Reformation, the
+Archbishop of St Andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry
+pronounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of King
+Henry, the Queen's protestant husband, and of the good Regent Murray,
+taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress.
+
+Some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my
+grandfather while he was in communion with Jordanhill; but after parting
+from him, and going back to the Saracen's inn in the Gallowgait, where
+Bailie Kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the
+spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as I have
+heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise
+to balk the undertaking. So he was in consequence troubled in thought,
+and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the
+remainder of the day, wishing that he might be able to overcome the
+thirst which Captain Crawford had bred within him to join his company.
+
+Bailie Kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as
+a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my
+grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of
+the great palpable Antichrist of Scotland, who had done the bailie's
+fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their
+taking, told him what had been propounded by Jordanhill.
+
+"Say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his
+family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly
+hand to grip him. Body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power
+of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the
+Lord permits justice to be done within the realm of Scotland."
+
+The which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of Crail
+kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and
+blazing flame, and he replied,--
+
+"Then, sir, if you be so minded, I cannot perforce abide behind, but
+will go forth with you to the battle, and swither not with the sword
+till we have effected some notable achievement."
+
+They accordingly went forthwith to Captain Crawford and proffered to him
+their service; and he was gladdened that my grandfather had come to so
+warlike a purpose; but he looked sharply at the bailie, and twice smiled
+to my grandfather, as if in doubt of his soldiership, saying, "But,
+Gilhaize, since you recommend him, he must be a good man and true."
+
+So the same night they set out at dusk, with a chosen troop and band of
+not more than two hundred men. A boat, provided with ladders, dropped
+down the river with the tide, to be before them.
+
+By midnight the expedition reached the bottom of Dumbuckhill, where,
+having ascertained that the boat was arrived, Jordanhill directed those
+aboard to keep her close in with the shore, and move with their march.
+
+The evening when they left Glasgow was bright and calm, and the moon, in
+her first quarter, shed her beautiful glory on mountain and tower and
+tree, leading them as with the light of a heavenly torch; and when they
+reached the skirts of the river, it was soon manifest that their
+enterprise was favoured from on high. The moon was by that time set, and
+a thick mist came rolling from the Clyde and the Leven, and made the
+night air dim as well as dark, veiling their movements from all mortal
+eyes.
+
+Jordanhill's guide led them to a part of the rock which was seldom
+guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. He had been in
+the service of the Lord Fleming, the governor, but on account of
+contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver of the
+scheme.
+
+Scarcely was the first ladder placed when the impatience of the men
+brought it to the ground; but there was a noise in the ebbing waters of
+the Clyde that drowned the accident of their fall, and prevented it from
+alarming the soldiers on the watch. This failure disconcerted Jordanhill
+for a moment; but the guide fastened the ladder to the roots of an ash
+tree which grew in a cleft of the rock, and to the first shelf of the
+precipice they all ascended in safety.
+
+The first ladder was then drawn up and placed against the upper story,
+as it might be called, of the rock, reaching to the gap where they could
+enter into the fortress, while another ladder was tied in its place
+below. Jordanhill then ascended, leading the way, followed by his men,
+the bailie of Crail being before my grandfather.
+
+They were now at a fearful height from the ground; but the mist was
+thick, and no one saw the dizzy eminence to which he had attained. It
+happened, however, that just as Jordanhill reached the summit, and while
+my grandfather and the bailie were about half-way up the ladder, the
+mist below rolled away, and the stars above shone out, and the bailie,
+casting his eyes downward, was so amazed and terrified at the eagle
+flight he had taken, that he began to quake and tremble, and could not
+mount a step farther.
+
+At that juncture delay was death to success. It was impossible to pass
+him. To tumble him off the ladder and let him be dashed to pieces, as
+some of the men both above and below roughly bade my grandfather do, was
+cruel. All were at a stand.
+
+Governed, however, by a singular inspiration, my grandfather took off
+his own sword-belt and also the bailie's, and fastened him with them to
+the ladder by the oxters and legs, and then turning round the ladder,
+leaving him so fastened pendent in the air on the lower side, the
+assailants ascended over his belly, and courageously mounted to their
+perilous duty.
+
+Jordanhill shouted as they mustered on the summit. The officers and
+soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked, but sword in hand. The
+assailants seized the cannon. Lord Fleming, the governor, leaped the
+wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed
+away. The garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate
+was among the prisoners.
+
+As soon as order was in some degree restored, my grandfather went with
+two other soldiers to where the bailie had been left suspended, and
+having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight
+increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought
+him to Jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one
+of the guard appointed to conduct the Archbishop to Stirling.
+
+In that service the worthy magistrate proved more courageous, and
+upbraided the prisoner several times on the road for the ill he had done
+to him. But that traitorous high priest heard his taunts in silence, for
+he was a valiant and proud man; such, indeed, was his gallant bearing in
+the march that the soldiers were won by it to do him homage as a true
+knight: and had he been a warrior as he was but a priest, it was thought
+by many that, though both papist and traitor, they might have been
+worked upon to set him free. To Stirling, however, he was carried; and
+on the fourth day from the time he was taken he was executed on the
+gallows, where, notwithstanding his guilty life, he suffered with the
+bravery of a gentleman dying in a righteous cause, in so much that the
+papists honoured his courage as if it had been the virtue of a holy
+martyr; and Bailie Kilspinnie all his days never ceased to wonder how so
+wicked a man could die so well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Having thus set forth the main passages in my grandfather's life, I
+should now quit the public highway of history, and turn for a time into
+the pleasant footpath of his domestic vineyard, the plants whereof,
+under his culture, and the pious waterings of Elspa Ruet, my excellent
+progenitrix, were beginning to spread their green tendrils and goodly
+branches, and to hang out their clusters to the gracious sunshine, as it
+were in demonstration to the heavens that the labourer was no sluggard,
+and as an assurance that in due season, under its benign favour, they
+would gratefully repay his care with sweet fruit. But there is yet one
+thing to be told, which, though it may not be regarded as germane to the
+mighty event of the Reformation, grew so plainly out of the signal
+catastrophe related in the foregoing chapter, that it were to neglect
+the instruction mercifully intended were I not to describe all its
+circumstances and particularities as they came to pass.
+
+Accordingly to proceed. In the winter after the storming of Dumbarton
+Castle, Widow Ruet, the mother of my grandmother, hearing nothing for a
+long time of her poor donsie daughter Marion, had, from the hanging of
+Archbishop Hamilton, the anti-Christian paramour of that misguided
+creature, fallen into a melancholy state of moaning and inward grief, in
+so much that Bailie Kilspinnie wrote a letter invoking my grandfather to
+come with his wife to Crail, that they might join together in comforting
+the aged woman; which work of duty and of charity they lost no time in
+undertaking, carrying with them Agnes Kilspinnie to see her kin.
+
+Being minded both in the going and the coming to partake of the feast of
+the heavenly and apostolic eloquence of the fearless Reformer's
+life-giving truths, they went by the way of Edinburgh; and in going
+about while there to show Agnes Kilspinnie the uncos of the town, it
+happened as they were coming down from the Castlehill, in passing the
+Weigh-house, that she observed a beggar woman sitting on a stair
+seemingly in great distress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and
+she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a
+rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry heaven are let loose
+upon't.
+
+What made this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant
+of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of
+garments that had once been costly. For, as she from time to time lifted
+her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of
+blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and
+lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without
+compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she
+had fallen into such abject poverty.
+
+My grandfather and his wife, with Agnes, stopped for a moment, and
+conferred together about what alms they would offer to a gentlewoman
+brought so low; when she, observing them, came wildly towards them
+crying, "For the Mother of God, to save a famishing outcast from death
+and perdition."
+
+Her frantic gesture, far more than her papistical exclamation, made
+their souls shudder; and before they had time to reply, she fell on her
+knees, and taking Elspa by the hand, repeated the same vehement prayer,
+adding, "Do, do, even though I be the vilest and guiltiest of
+womankind."
+
+"Marion Ruet!--O, my sister!--O, my dear Marion!" as wildfully and as
+wofully did my grandmother in that instant also cry aloud, falling on
+the beggar-woman's neck, and sobbing as if her heart would have burst;
+for it was indeed the bailie's wife, and the mother of Agnes, that
+supplicated for a morsel.
+
+This sad sight brought many persons around, among others a decent
+elderly carlin that kept a huxtry shop close by, who pitifully invited
+them to come from the public causey into her house; and with some
+difficulty my grandfather removed the two sisters thither. Agnes
+Kilspinnie, poor thing, following like a demented creature, not even
+able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from
+the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some
+extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone.
+
+When they had been some time in the house of old Ursie Firikins, as the
+kind carlin was called, Elspa Ruet all the while weeping like a constant
+fountain and repeating, "Marion, Marion!" with a fond and sorrowful
+tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having
+got a drink of meal and water prepared, gave it to the famished outcast,
+and she gradually recovered from her stupor.
+
+For many minutes, however, she sat still and said nothing, and when she
+did speak it was in a voice of such misery of soul that my grandfather
+never liked to tell what terrible thoughts the remembrance of it ever
+gave him. I shall therefore not venture to repeat what she said, farther
+than to mention that, having sunk down on her knees, she spread her
+hands aloft and exclaimed, "Ay, the time's come now, and the words of
+her prophecy, that never ceased to dirl in my soul, are fulfilled. I
+will go back to Crail--my penitence shall be seen in my shame;--I will
+go openly, that all may take warning--and before all, in the face of
+day, will I confess the wrongs I hae done to my gudeman and bairns."
+
+She then rose and said to her sister, "Elspa, ye hae heard my vow, and
+this very hour I will begin my pilgrimage."
+
+Some further conversation ensued, in which she told them that she had
+run a woful course after the havock at St Andrews; but, though humbled
+to the dust, and almost perishing of hunger, pride had still warsled
+with penitence, and would not let her return to seek shelter from her
+mother. "But at last," said she, "all has now come to pass, and it is
+meet I submit to what is so plainly required of me." Then turning to her
+daughter she looked at her for some time with a watery and inquiring
+eye, and would have spoken, but her heart filled full and she could only
+weep.
+
+By way of consolation my grandfather told her they were then on their
+way to Crail, and that as soon as they had procured for her some fit
+apparel, they would take her with them. At these words she lifted the
+skirt of her ragged gown, and looking at it for a moment, smiled, as if
+in contempt of all things, saying,--
+
+"No, this is the livery of Him that I hae served so weel. It is fit that
+my friends should behold the coat of many colours, and the garment of
+praise wherewith He rewards all those that serve Him as I hae done." And
+no admonition, nor any affectionate petition, could shake her sad
+purpose.
+
+"But," said she, "I ought not to shame you on the road; and yet, Elspa,
+at least till the entrance of the town, let me travel with you; for when
+I hae dreed my penance, we must part, never to meet again. Darkness and
+dule is my portion now in this world. I hae earnt them, and it is just
+that I should enjoy them. They are my ain conquest, bought wi' the price
+of everything but my soul, and wha kens but for this meeting that it
+might hae been bartered away too."
+
+In nothing, however, of all that then passed was there anything which so
+moved the tranquil heart of my grandfather as the looks which, from
+time to time, the desolate woman cast at her daughter. Fain she seemed
+to speak and to catch her in her arms; but ever and anon the sense of
+her own condition came upon her, and she began to weep, crying, "No, no,
+I darena do that--I darena even mysel' to a parent's privilege after
+what I hae done."
+
+The poor lassie sat unable to make any answer; but at last, in a timid
+manner, she took her mother softly by the hand, and the fond and lowly
+penitent for a few moments allowed it to linger in her grip, willing to
+have left it there; but suddenly stung by her conscience she snatched it
+away, and again broke out into piercing lamentations and confessions of
+unworthiness.
+
+Meanwhile the charitable Ursie Firikins had made ready a mess of
+porridge, and the mournful Magdalen being soothed and consoled, was
+persuaded to partake. And afterwards, when they had sat some time, and
+the crowd which had gathered out of doors in the street was dispersed,
+my grandfather went to his lodgings; and having paid his lawin, returned
+to the two sisters and Agnes Kilspinnie, and they all walked to the
+shore of Leith together, where they found a boat going to Kinghorn, into
+which they embarked; and having slept there, they hired a cart to take
+them to Crail next morning, everyone who saw them wondering at the
+dejected and ruinous appearance of the penitent. The particulars,
+however, of their journey and of her reception in her native place, will
+furnish matter for another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+When they came within a mile of the town, where a small public stood
+that wayfaring men were wont to stop and refresh themselves at, my
+grandfather urged the disconsolate Marion, who had come all the way from
+Kinghorn without speaking a single word, to alight from the cart, and
+remain there till the cloud of night, when she might go to her mother's
+unafflicted by the gaze of the pitiless multitude.
+
+To this, at first, she made no answer; but leaping out of the cart, and
+standing still for a moment, she looked wistfully at her sister and
+daughter, and then began to weep, crying, "Gang ye awa, and no mind me;
+ye canna thole, and oughtna to share what I maun bear; and I'll never
+break another vow: so, in the face o' day, and of a' people, I'm
+constrained to enter Crail--first, to confess my guilt at the door of
+the honest man and his bairns that I hae sae disgraced; and syne to beg
+my mother to take in the limmer that was scofft frae door to door, till
+the blessed time when ye were sent to stop me laying desperate hands on
+mysel'."
+
+Elspa remonstrated with her for some time, but she was not to be
+entreated: "My guilt and my shamelessness were public," said she, "and
+it is meet that the world should behold what hae been the wages I hae
+earnt, and the depth of the humiliation to which my vain and proud heart
+has been brought; so, go ye on wi' your gudeman and Agnes, and let me
+come by mysel'."
+
+"No, Marion," replied her sister, "that sha'na be; I'll no let you do
+that. If you will make sic a pilgrimage, I'll bear you company, for I
+can ne'er be ashamed nor mortified in being wi' you, when ye are seeking
+again the path of righteousness that ye were sae beguil't to quit."
+
+"Say nae I was beguil't; say naething to gar me think less o' my fault
+than I should: there was nae beguiler but my ain vain and sinful
+nature."
+
+Her daughter, who had all this time stood silent with the tear in her
+e'e, then said, "I'll gang wi' you, mother, too."
+
+"Mother!--O Agnes Kilspinnie, dinna sae wrang yoursel', and your honest
+father, as to ca' the like o' me mother. But did ye say ye would come
+wi' me?" and she dropped vehemently on her knees, and, spreading her
+arms to the skies, cried out with a loud and wild voice,--
+
+"God, God! is thy goodness so great, that thou canst already vouchsafe
+to me a mercy like this?"
+
+Seeing her so bent on going into the town in her miserable estate, and
+his wife and her daughter so mindit to go with her, my grandfather said
+it would be as well for him to run forward and prepare her mother for
+her coming; so he left them, and hastened into the town, thinking they
+would come in the cart; but when he was gone, Marion, still in the hope
+she might get her sister and daughter dissuaded from accompanying her,
+told them that she was resolved to go on her bare feet, which, however,
+made them in pity still adhere the more closely to their determination;
+and, having paid the Kinghorn man for his cart, the three set forward
+together, Elspa on the right hand and Agnes on the left hand of the
+lowly penitent.
+
+In the meantime my grandfather hastened to the dwelling of Widow Ruet,
+his gude-mother, to tell her who was coming, and to prepare her aged
+mind for the sore shock. For though she was a sectarian of the Roman
+seed, she was nevertheless a most devout character, and abided more in
+the errors of her religion, because she thought herself too old to learn
+a new faith, than from that obstinacy of spirit which in those days so
+abounded in the breasts of the papisticals.
+
+The news was at first as glad tidings to the humane old woman; but every
+now and then she began to start, and to listen--and a tear fell from her
+eye. When she heard the voice of anyone talking in the street, or the
+sound of a foot passing, she hurried to the window and looked hastily
+out. The struggle within her was great, and it grew every minute
+stronger and stronger; and after walking very wofully divers times
+across the floor, she went and closed the shutters of her window, and
+sitting down gave full vent to her grief. In that state she had not been
+long, when the sough of a din gathering at a distance was heard.
+
+"Mother of Christ!" she cried, starting up, clapping her hands; "Mother
+of Jesus, thou hast seen the fruit of thy womb exposed to ignominy. By
+thine own agonies in that hour, I implore thy support. O blessed Mary,
+thy sorrow was light compared to my burden, for thy bairn was holy, and
+meek, and kind, and without sin. But thou hast known what it was to sit
+by thy baby sleeping in its innocence; thou hast known what it was to
+love it for the very troubles it then gave thee. By the remembrance of
+that sweet watching and care, O pity me, and help me to receive my
+erring bairn!"
+
+My grandfather could not stand her lament and ejaculations, and hearing
+the sound drawing nearer and nearer, he went out of the house to see if
+his presence might be any protection; but the sight he saw was even more
+sorrowful than the aged mother's grief.
+
+Instead of the cart in which he expected to see the women, he beheld
+them coming along, side by side, together attended by a great
+multitude; doors and windows flew open as they came along, and old and
+young looked out. Many cried, "She has been well serv't for her shame."
+Some laughed; and the young turned aside their heads to hide their
+tears. Among others that ran from the causey-side to look in the face of
+Marion--still beautiful, though faded, but shining with something
+brighter than beauty--there was a little boy that went up close to her,
+and took her by the hand, without speaking, and led her along. He was
+her own son; but still she moved not her solemn heavenward eye, though a
+universal sobbing burst from ail the multitude; and my grandfather, at
+the piteous pageantry, was no longer able to remain master of his
+feelings. Seeing, however, that the mournful actors therein were going
+on towards Bailie Kilspinnie's, and not intending to stop, as he
+expected they would, at Widow Ruet's door, he ran forward to warn his
+old friend; but in this he was too late; some one had been already
+there; and he found the poor man, with his three other children,
+standing at the door, seemingly utterly at a loss to know what his duty
+should be; nor was my grandfather in any condition of mind to help him
+with advice.
+
+At that juncture the multitude came rushing on before the women, and
+halted in front of the bailie's house; for, seeing him and his bairns,
+they were taught, by some sense of gentle sympathy, to divide and retire
+to a distance, leaving an open and silent space for the penitent to go
+forward.
+
+When Agnes Kilspinnie and her brother saw their father and brother and
+sisters at the door, they quitted their mother and joined them, as if
+instructed by an instinct, while she slowly approached.
+
+Elspa Ruet, who had hitherto maintained a serene and resigned composure
+of countenance, was so moved at this sad spectacle, that my grandfather,
+seeing her distress, stepped out and caught her in his arms, and
+supported her from falling, she was so faint with anguish of heart.
+
+In the same moment, with a look that struck awe and consternation into
+every one around, Marion stepped on towards her husband and children,
+and gazed at them, and was dropping on her knees when the bailie caught
+her in his arms as if he would have carried her into the house. But he
+faltered in his purpose; and, casting his eyes on the five weans whom
+she had so deserted, he unloosed his embrace, and, gathering them before
+him, went in and shut the door.
+
+The multitude uttered a fearful sough; Elspa Ruet, roused by it, rushed
+from my grandfather towards her sister, and stooping, tried to raise her
+up. Poor Marion, still kneeling, looked around to the people, who stood
+all as still as mourners at an interment, and her dark ringlets falling
+loose, made her pale face appear of an unearthly fairness. She seemed as
+if she would have said something to her sister, who had clasped her by
+the hand, but litherly swinging backwards, she laid her head down on her
+husband's threshold and gave a heavy sigh, and died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+The burial of Marion Ruet was decently attended by Bailie Kilspinnie and
+all his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yet
+ordered their eldest son to do so, because, whatever her faults had
+been, she was still the youth's mother. And my grandfather, with his
+wife, having spent some time after with their friends at Crail, returned
+homeward by themselves, passing over to Edinburgh, that they might taste
+once more of the elixir of salvation as dispensed by John Knox, who had
+been for some time in a complaining way, and it was by many thought that
+the end of his preaching was drawing nigh.
+
+It happened that the dreadful tidings of the murder of the protestants
+in France, by the command of "the accursed king," reached Edinburgh in
+the night before my grandfather and wife returned thither; and he used
+to speak of the consternation that they found reigning in the city when
+they arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. Every shop was
+shut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, when
+death was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearance
+of the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign,
+the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead body
+was then lying in every family.
+
+There was also a terrifying solemnity in the streets; for, though they
+were as if all the people had come forth in panic and sad wonderment,
+many were clothed in black, and there was a funereal stillness--a dismal
+sense of calamity that hushed the voices of men, and friends meeting one
+another, lifted their hands, and shuddering, passed by without speaking.
+My grandfather saw but one, between Leith Wynd and the door of the house
+in the Lawnmarket, where he proposed to lodge, that wore a smile, and it
+was not of pleasure, but of avarice counting its gains.
+
+The man was one Hans Berghen, an armourer that had feathered his nest in
+the raids of the war with the Queen Regent. He was a Norman by birth,
+and had learnt the tempering of steel in Germany. In his youth he had
+been in the Imperator's service, and had likewise worked in the arsenal
+of Venetia. Some said he was perfected in his trade by the infidel at
+Constantinopolis; but, however this might be, no man of that time was
+more famous among roisters and moss-troopers, for the edge and metal of
+his weapons, than that same blasphemous incomer, who thought of nothing
+but the greed of gain, whether by dule to protestant or papist; so that
+the sight of his hard-favoured visage, blithened with satisfaction, was
+to my grandfather, who knew him well by repute, as an omen of portentous
+aspect.
+
+For two days the city continued in that dismal state, and on the third,
+which was Sabbath, the churches were so filled that my grandmother,
+being then in a tender condition, did not venture to enter the High
+Kirk, where the Reformer was waited for by many thirsty and languishing
+souls from an early hour in the morning, who desired to hear what he
+would say concerning the dark deeds that had been done in France. She
+therefore returned to the Lawnmarket; but my grandfather worked his way
+into the heart of the crowd, where he had not long been when a murmur
+announced that Master Knox was coming, and soon after he entered the
+kirk.
+
+He had now the appearance of great age and weakness, and he walked with
+slow and tottering steps, wearing a virl of fur round his neck, and a
+staff in one hand; godlie Richie Ballanden, his man, holding him up by
+the oxter. And when he came to the foot of the pulpit, Richie, by the
+help of another servant that followed with the Book, lifted him up the
+steps into it, where he was seemingly so exhausted that he was
+obligated to rest for the space of several minutes. No man who had never
+seen him before could have thought that one so frail would have had
+ability to have given out even the psalm; but when he began the spirit
+descended upon him, and he was so kindled that at last his voice became
+as awful as the thunders of wrath, and his arm was strengthened as with
+the strength of a champion's. The kirk dirled to the foundations; the
+hearts of his hearers shook, till the earth of their sins was shaken
+clean from them; and he appeared in the wirlwind of inspiration, as if
+his spirit was mounting, like the prophet Elijah, in a fiery chariot
+immediately to the gates of heaven.
+
+His discourse was of the children of Bethlehem slain by Herod, and he
+spoke of the dreadful sound of a bell and a trumpet heard suddenly in
+the midnight hour, when all were fast bound and lying defenceless in the
+fetters of sleep. He described the dreadful knocking at the doors--the
+bursting in of men with drawn swords--how babies were harled by the arms
+from their mothers' beds and bosoms, and dashed to death upon the marble
+floors. He told of parents that stood in the porches of their houses and
+made themselves the doors that the slayers were obliged to hew in pieces
+before they could enter in. He pictured the women flying along the
+street, in the nakedness of the bedchamber, with their infants in their
+arms, and how the ruffians of the accursed king, knowing their prey by
+their cries, ran after them, caught the mother by the hair and the bairn
+by the throat, and, in one act, flung the innocent to the stones and
+trampled out its life. Then he paused, and said, in a soft and thankful
+voice, that in the horrors of Bethlehem there was still much mercy; for
+the idolatrous dread of Herod prompted him to slay but young children,
+whose blameless lives were to their weeping parents an assurance of
+their acceptance into heaven.
+
+"What then," he cried, "are we to think of that night, and of that king,
+and of that people, among whom, by whom, and with whom, the commissioned
+murderer twisted his grip in the fugitive old man's grey hairs, to draw
+back his head that the knife might the surer reach his heart? With what
+eyes, being already blinded with weeping, shall we turn to that city
+where the withered hands of the grandmother were deemed as weapons of
+war by the strong and black-a-vised slaughterer, whose sword was owre
+vehemently used for a' the feckless remnant of life it had to cut! But
+deaths like these were brief and blessed compared to other
+things--which, Heaven be praised, I have not the power to describe, and
+which, among this protestant congregation, I trust there is not one able
+to imagine, or who, trying to conceive, descries but in the dark and
+misty vision the pains of mangled mothers; babes, untimely and
+unquickened, cast on the dung-hills and into the troughs of swine; of
+black-iron hooks fastened into the mouths, and driven through the cheeks
+of brave men, whose arms are tied with cords behind, as they are dragged
+into the rivers to drown, by those who durst not in fair battle endure
+the lightning of their eyes. O, Herod!--Herod of Judea--thy name is
+hereafter bright, for in thy bloody business thou wast thyself nowhere
+to be seen. In the vouts and abysses of thy unstained palace, thou hidst
+thyself from the eye of history, and perhaps humanely sat covering thine
+ears with thy hands to shut out the sound of the wail and woe around
+thee. But this Herod--let me not call him by so humane a name. No: let
+all the trumpets of justice sound his own to everlasting infamy--Charles
+the Ninth of France! And let his ambassador that is here aye yet, yet to
+this time audaciously in this Christian land, let him tell his master
+that sentence has been pronounced against him in Scotland; that the
+Divine vengeance will never depart from him or his house until
+repentance has ensued, and atonement been made in their own race; that
+his name will remain a blot--a blot of blood, a stain never to be
+effaced--a thing to be pronounced with a curse by all posterity; and
+that none proceeding from his loins shall ever enjoy his kingdom in
+peace."
+
+The preacher, on saying these prophetic words, paused, and, with his
+eyes fixed upwards, he stood some time silent, and then, clasping his
+hands together, exclaimed with fear and trembling upon him, "Lord, Lord,
+thy will be done?"
+
+Many thought that he had then received some great apocalypse; for it was
+observed of all men that he was never after like the man he had once
+been, but highly and holily elevated above earthly cares and
+considerations, saving those only of his ministry, and which he
+hastened to close. He was as one that no longer had trust, portion, or
+interest in this temporal world, which in less than two months after he
+bade farewell, and was translated to a better. Yes, to a better; for
+assuredly, if there is aught in this life that may be regarded as the
+symbols of infeftment to the inheritance of Heaven, the labours and
+ministration of John Knox were testimonies that he had verily received
+the yird and stane of an heritage on High.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+Shortly after my grandfather had returned with his wife to their quiet
+dwelling at Quharist on the Garnock side, he began, in the course of the
+winter following, to suffer an occasional pang in that part of his body
+which was damaged by the fall he got in rugging down the Virgin Mary out
+of her niche in the idolatrous abbeykirk of Kilwinning, and the anguish
+of his suffering grew to such an head by Candlemas that he was obligated
+to send for his old acquaintance, Dominick Callender, who had, after his
+marriage with the regenerate nun, settled as a doctor of physic in the
+godly town of Irvine. But for many a day all the skill and medicamenting
+of Doctor Callender did him little good, till Nature had, of her own
+accord, worked out the root of the evil in the shape of a sklinter of
+bone. Still, though the wound then closed, it never was a sound part,
+and he continued in consequence a lamiter for life. Yet were his days
+greatly prolonged beyond the common lot of man; for he lived till he was
+ninety-one years, seven months, and four days old, and his end at last
+was but a pleasant translation from the bodily to the spiritual life.
+
+For some days before the close he was calm and cheerful, rehearsing to
+the neighbours that came to speer for him, many things like those of
+which I have spoken herein. Towards the evening a serene drowsiness fell
+upon him, like the snow that falleth in silence, and froze all his
+temporal faculties in so gentle a manner, that it could not be said he
+knew what it was to die; being, as it were, carried in the downy arms of
+sleep to the portal door of Death, where all the pains and terrors that
+guard the same were hushed, and stood mute around, as he was softly
+received in.
+
+No doubt there was something of a providential design in the singular
+prolongation of such a pious and a blameless life; for through it the
+possessor became a blessed mean of sowing, in the hearts of his children
+and neighbours, the seeds of those sacred principles, which afterwards
+made them stand firm in their religious integrity when they were so
+grievously tried. For myself I was too young, being scant of eight years
+when he departed, to know the worth of those precious things which he
+had treasured in the garnel of his spirit for seed-corn unto the Lord;
+and therefore, though I often heard him speak of the riddling wherewith
+that mighty husbandman of the Reformation, John Knox, riddled the truths
+of the gospel from the errors of papistry, I am bound to say that his
+own exceeding venerable appearance, and the visions of past events,
+which the eloquence of his traditions called up to my young fancy,
+worked deeper and more thoroughly into my nature than the reasons and
+motives which guided and governed many of his other disciples. But,
+before proceeding with my own story, it is meet that I should still tell
+the courteous reader some few things wherein my father bore a part--a
+man of very austere character, and of a most godly, though, as some
+said, rather of a stubbornly affection for the forms of worship which
+had been established by John Knox and the pious worthies of his times;
+he was withal a single-minded Christian, albeit more ready for a raid
+than subtle in argument. He had, like all who knew the old people his
+parents, a by-common reverence for them; and spoke of the patriarchs
+with whom of old the Lord was wont to hold communion, as more favoured
+of Him than David or Solomon, or any other princes or kings.
+
+When he was very young, not passing, as I have heard him often tell,
+more than six or seven years of age, he was taken, along with his
+brethren, by my grandfather, to see the signing at Irvine of the
+Covenant, with which, in the lowering time of the Spanish armada, King
+James, the son of Mary, together with all the Reformed, bound themselves
+in solemn compact to uphold the protestant religion. Afterwards, when he
+saw the country rise in arms, and heard of the ward and watch, and the
+beacons ready on the hills, his imagination was kindled with some
+dreadful conceit of the armada, and he thought it could be nothing less
+than some awful and horrible creature sent from the shores of perdition
+to devour the whole land. The image he had thus framed in his fears
+haunted him continually; and night after night he could not sleep for
+thinking of its talons of brass, and wings of thunder, and nostrils
+flaming fire, and the iron teeth with which it was to grind and gnash
+the bodies and bones of all protestants, in so much that his parents
+were concerned for the health of his mind, and wist not what to do to
+appease the terrors of his visions.
+
+At last, however, the great Judith of the protestant cause, Queen
+Elizabeth of England, being enabled to drive a nail into the head of
+that Holofernes of the idolaters, and many of the host of ships having
+been plunged, by the right arm of the tempest, into the depths of the
+seas, and scattered by the breath of the storm, like froth over the
+ocean, it happened that, one morning about the end of July, a cry arose
+that a huge galley of the armada was driven on the rocks at Pencorse;
+and all the shire of Ayr hastened to the spot to behold and witness her
+shipwreck and overthrow. Among others my grandfather, with his three
+eldest sons, went, leaving my father at home; but his horrors grew to
+such a passion of fear that his mother, the calm and pious Elspa Ruet,
+resolved to take him thither likewise, and to give him the evidence of
+his eyes, that the dreadful armada was but a navy of vessels like the
+ship which was cast upon the shore. By this prudent thought of her, when
+he arrived at the spot his apprehensions were soothed; but his mind had
+ever after a strange habitude of forming wild and wonderful images of
+every danger, whereof the scope and nature was not very clearly
+discerned, and which continued with him till the end of his days.
+
+Soon after the death of my grandfather, he had occasion to go into
+Edinburgh anent some matter of legacy that had fallen to us through the
+decease of an uncle of my mother, a bonnet-maker in the Canongate; and,
+on his arrival there, he found men's minds in a sore fever concerning
+the rash councils wherewith King Charles the First, then reigning, was
+mindit to interfere with the pure worship of God, and to enact a part in
+the kirk of Scotland little short of the papistical domination of the
+Roman Antichrist. To all men this was startling tidings; but to my
+father it was an enormity that fired his blood and spirit with the
+fierceness of a furnace. And it happened that he lodged with a friend of
+ours, one Janet Geddes, a most pious woman, who had suffered great
+molestation in her worldly substance, from certain endeavours for the
+restorations of the horns of the mitre, and the prelatic buskings with
+which that meddling and fantastical bodie, King James the Sixth, would
+fain have buskit and disguised the sober simplicity of gospel
+ordinances.
+
+No two persons could be more heartily in unison upon any point of
+controversy than was my worthy father and Janet Geddes, concerning the
+enormities that would of a necessity ensue from the papistical
+pretensions and unrighteous usurpation of King Charles; and they sat
+crooning and lamenting together all the Saturday afternoon and night
+about the woes of idolatry that were darkening again over Scotland.
+
+No doubt there was both reason and piety in their fears; but in the
+method of their sorrow, from what I have known of my father's earnest
+and simple character, I redde there might be some lack of the decorum of
+wisdom. But be this as it may, they heated the zeal of one another to a
+pitch of great fervour, and next morning, the Sabbath, they went
+together to the high Kirk of St Giles to see what the power of an
+infatuated government would dare to do.
+
+The kirk was filled to its uttermost bunkers; my father, however, got
+for Janet Geddes, she being an aged woman, a stool near the skirts of
+the pulpit; but nothing happened to cause any disturbance till the godly
+Mr Patrick Henderson had made an end of the morning prayer, when he
+said, with tears in his eyes, with reference to the liturgy, which was
+then to be promulgated, "Adieu, good people, for I think this is the
+last time of my saying prayers in this kirk;" and the congregation being
+much moved thereat, many wept.
+
+No sooner had Mr Henderson retired, than Master Ramsay, that horn of the
+Beast, which was called the Dean of Edinburgh, appeared in the pulpit in
+the pomp of his abominations, and began to read the liturgy. At the
+first words of which Janet Geddes was so transported with indignation
+that, starting from her stool, she made it fly whirring at his head, as
+she cried, "Villain, dost thou say the mass at my lug?" Then such an
+uproar began as had not been witnessed since the destruction of the
+idols; the women screaming, and clapping their hands in terrification as
+if the legions of the Evil One had been let loose upon them; and the men
+crying aloud, "Antichrist! Antichrist! down wi' the Pope!" and all
+exhortation to quiet them was drowned in the din.
+
+Such was the beginning of those troubles in the church and state so
+wantonly provoked by the weak and wicked policy of the first King
+Charles, and which in the end brought himself to an ignominious death;
+and such the cause of that Solemn League and Covenant, to which, in my
+green years, my father, soon after his return home, took me to be a
+party, and to which I have been enabled to adhere, with unerring
+constancy, till the glorious purpose of it has all been fulfilled and
+accomplished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+When my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved
+to see his sad and altered looks. We gathered around him, and she
+thought he had failed to get the legacy, and comforted him by saying
+they had hitherto fenn't without it, and so might they still do.
+
+To her tender condolements he however made no answer; but, taking a
+leathern bag, with the money in it, out of his bosom, he flung it on the
+table, saying, "What care I for this world's trash, when the ark of the
+Lord is taken from Israel?" which to hear daunted the hearts of all
+present. And then he told us, after some time, what was doing on the
+part of the King to bring in the worship of the Beast again, rehearsing,
+with many circumstances, the consternation and sorrow and rage and
+lamentations that he had witnessed in Edinburgh.
+
+I, who was the ninth of his ten children, and then not passing nine
+years old, was thrilled with an unspeakable fear; and all the dreadful
+things, which I had heard my grandfather tell of the tribulations of his
+time, came upon my spirit like visions of the visible scene, and I began
+to weep with an exceeding sorrow, in so much that my father was amazed,
+and caressed me, and thanked Heaven that one so young in his house felt
+as a protestant child should feel in an epoch of such calamity.
+
+It was then late in the afternoon, towards the gloaming, and having
+partaken of some refreshment, my father took the big Bible from the
+press-head, and, after a prayer uttered in great heaviness of spirit, he
+read a portion of the Revelations, concerning the vials and the woes,
+expounding the same like a preacher; and we were all filled with
+anxieties and terrors; some of the younger members trembled with the
+thought that the last day was surely at hand.
+
+Next morning a sough and rumour of that solemn venting of Christian
+indignation which had been manifested at Edinburgh, having reached our
+country-side, and the neighbours hearing of my father's return, many of
+them came at night to our house to hear the news; and it was a meeting
+that none present thereat could ever after forget:--well do I mind
+everything as if it had happened but yestreen. I was sitting on a laigh
+stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old
+Nanse Snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we
+took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in
+silence, as of guests coming to a burial.
+
+The first was Ebenezer Muir, an aged man, whose grandson stood many a
+blast in the persecution of the latter days, both with the Blackcuffs
+and the bloody dragoons of the remorseless Graham of Claver. He was bent
+with the burden of time, and leaning on his staff, and his long white
+hair hung down from aneath his broad blue bonnet. He was one whom my
+grandfather held in great respect for the sincerity of his principles
+and the discretion of his judgment, and among all his neighbours, and
+nowhere more than in our house, was he considered a most patriarchal
+character.
+
+"Come awa, Ebenezer," said my father, "I'm blithe and I'm sorrowful to
+see you. This night we may be spar't to speak in peace of the things
+that pertain unto salvation; but the day and the hour is not far off,
+when the flock of Christ shall be scattered and driven from the pastures
+of their Divine Master."
+
+To these words of affliction Ebenezer Muir made no response, but went
+straight to the fireside, facing Nanse Snoddie, and sat down without
+speaking; and my father, then observing John Fullarton of Dykedivots
+coming in, stretched out his hand, and took hold of his, and drew him to
+sit down by his side.
+
+They had been in a manner brothers from their youth upward. An uncle of
+John Fullarton's, by whom he was brought up, had been owner, and he
+himself had heired, and was then possessor of, the mailing of Dykedivot,
+beside ours. He was the father of four brave sons, the youngest of whom,
+a stripling of some thirteen or fourteen years, was at his back: the
+other three came in afterwards. He was, moreover, a man of a stout and
+courageous nature, though of a much-enduring temper.
+
+"I hope," said he to my father--"I hope, Sawners, a' this straemash and
+hobbleshow that fell out last Sabbath in Embro' has been seen wi' the
+glamoured een o' fear, and that the King and government canna be sae far
+left to themsels as to meddle wi' the ordinances of the Lord."
+
+"I doot, I doot, it's owre true, John," replied my father in a very
+mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, Nahum Chapelrig came
+ben. He was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster
+of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of
+country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and
+both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years
+he was greatly looked up to amang all his acquaintance, notwithstanding
+a small spicin of conceit that he was in with himself.
+
+On seeing him coming in, worthy Ebenezer Muir made a sign for him to
+draw near and sit by him; and when he went forward, and drew in a stool,
+the old man took hold of him by the hand, and said, "Ye're weel come,
+Nahum;" and my father added, "Ay, Nahum Chapelrig, it's fast coming to
+pass, as ye hae been aye saying it would; the King has na restit wi'
+putting the prelates upon us."
+
+"What's te prelates, Robin Fullarton?" said auld Nanse Snoddie, turning
+round to John's son, who was standing behind his father.
+
+"They're the red dragons o' unrighteousness," replied the sincere laddie
+with great vehemence.
+
+"Gude guide us!" cried Nanse with the voice of terror; "and has the
+King daur't to send sic accursed things to devour God's people?"
+
+But my mother, who was sitting behind me, touched her on the shoulder,
+bidding her be quiet; for the poor woman, being then doited, when left
+to the freedom of her own will, was apt to expatiate without ceasing on
+whatsoever she happened to discourse anent; and Nahum Chapelrig said to
+my father,--
+
+"'Deed, Sawners Gilhaize, we could look for nae better; prelacy is but
+the prelude o' papistry; but the papistry o' this prelude is a perilous
+papistry indeed; for its roots of rankness are in the midden-head of
+Arminianism, which, in a sense, is a greater Antichrist than Antichrist
+himself, even where he sits on his throne of thraldom in the Roman
+vaticano. But, nevertheless, I trust and hope, that though the virgin
+bride of protestantism be for a season thrown on her back, she shall not
+be overcome, but will so strive and warsle aneath the foul grips of that
+rampant Arminian, the English high-priest Laud, that he shall himself be
+cast into the mire, or choket wi' the stoure of his own bakiefu's of
+abominations, wherewith he would overwhelm and bury the Evangil. Yea,
+even though the shield of his mighty men is made red, and his valiant
+men are in scarlet, he shall recount his worthies, but they shall
+stumble in their walk."
+
+While Nahum was thus holding forth, the house filled even to the
+trance-door with the neighbours, old and young; and several from time to
+time spoke bitterly against the deadly sin and aggression which the King
+was committing in the rape that the reading of the liturgy was upon the
+consciences of his people. At last Ebenezer Muir, taking off his bonnet,
+and rising, laid it down on his seat behind him, and then resting with
+both his hands on his staff, looked up, and every one was hushed. Truly
+it was an affecting sight to behold that very aged, time-bent and
+venerable man so standing in the midst of all his dismayed and pious
+neighbours,--his grey hairs flowing from his haffets,--and the light of
+our lowly hearth shining upon his bald head and reverent countenance.
+
+"Friens," said he, "I hae lived lang in the world; and in this house I
+hae often partaken the sweet repast of the conversations of that
+sanctified character, Michael Gilhaize, whom we a' revered as a parent,
+not more for his ain worth than for the great things to which he was a
+witness in the trials and troubles of the Reformation; and it seems to
+me, frae a' the experience I hae gatherit, that when ance kings and
+governments hae taken a step, let it be ne'er sae rash, there's a
+something in the nature of rule and power that winna let them confess a
+fau't, though they may afterwards be constrained to renounce the evil of
+their ways. It was therefore wi' a sore heart that I heard this day the
+doleful tidings frae Embro', and moreover, that I hae listened to the
+outbreathings this night of the heaviness wherewith the news hae
+oppressed you a'. Sure am I, that frae the provocation given to the
+people of Scotland by the King's miscounselled majesty, nothing but
+tears and woes can ensue; for by the manner in which they hae already
+rebutted the aggression, he will in return be stirred to aggrieve them
+still farther. I'm now an auld man, and may be removed before the woes
+come to pass; but it requires not the e'e of prophecy to spae bloodshed
+and suffering, and many afflictions in your fortunes. Nevertheless,
+friens, be of good cheer, for the Lord will prosper his own cause.
+Neither king, nor priest, nor any human authority has the right to
+interfere between you and your God; and allegiance ends where
+persecution begins. Never, therefore, in the trials awaiting you, forget
+that the right to resist in matters of conscience is the
+foundation-stone of religious liberty; O see, therefore, that you guard
+it weel!"
+
+The voice and manner of the aged speaker melted every heart. Many of the
+women sobbed aloud, and the children were moved, as I was myself, and as
+I have often heard them in their manhood tell, as if the spirit of faith
+and fortitude had entered into the very bones and marrow of their
+bodies; nor ever afterwards have I heard psalm sung with such melodious
+energy of holiness as that pious congregation of simple country folk
+sung the hundred and fortieth psalm before departing for their lowly
+dwellings on that solemn evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+It was on the Wednesday that my father came home from Edinburgh. On
+Friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our
+house to hear the news, and all their discourse was concerning the
+manifest foretaste of papistry which was in the praying of the prayers,
+that an obdurate prince and an alien Arminian prelate were attempting to
+thrust into their mouths, and every one spoke of renewing the Solemn
+League and Covenant, which, in the times of the Reformation and the
+dangers of the Spanish Armada, had achieved such great things for THE
+TRUTH AND THE WORD.
+
+On Saturday, Mr Sundrum, our minister, called for my father about twelve
+o'clock. He had heard the news, and also that my father had come back. I
+was doing something on the green, I forget now what it was, when I saw
+him coming towards the door, and I ran into the house to tell my father,
+who immediately came out to meet him.
+
+Little passed in my hearing between them, for, after a short inquiry
+concerning how my father had fared in the journey, the minister took
+hold of him by the arm, and they walked together into the fields, where,
+when they were at some distance from the house, Mr Sundrum stopped, and
+began to discourse in a very earnest and lively manner, frequently
+touching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right, as he
+spoke to my father, and sometimes lifting both his hands as one in
+amaze, ejaculating to the heavens.
+
+While they were thus reasoning together, worthy Ebenezer Muir came
+towards the house, but, observing where they were, he turned off and
+joined them, and they continued all three in vehement deliberation, in
+so much that I was drawn by the thirst of curiosity to slip so near
+towards them that I could hear what passed; and my young heart was
+pierced at the severe terms in which the minister was condemning the
+ringleaders of the riot, as he called the adversaries of popedom in
+Edinburgh, and in a manner rebuking my honest father as a sower of
+sedition.
+
+My father, however, said stiffly, for he was not a man to controvert
+with a minister, that in all temporal things he was a true and leil
+subject, and in what pertained to the King as king, he would stand as
+stoutly up for as any man in the three kingdoms; but against a
+usurpation of the Lord's rights, his hand, his heart, and his father's
+sword, that had been used in the Reformation, were all alike ready.
+
+Old Ebenezer Muir tried to pacify him, and reasoned in great gentleness
+with both, expressing his concern that a presbyterian minister could
+think that the attempt to bring in prelacy, and the reading of
+court-contrived prayers, was not a meddling with things sacred and
+rights natural, which neither prince nor potentate had authority to do.
+But Mr Sundrum was one of those that longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt,
+and the fat things of a lordly hierarchy; and the pacific remonstrances
+of the pious old man made him wax more and more wroth at what he
+hatefully pronounced their rebellious inclinations; at which bitter
+words both my father and Ebenezer Muir turned from him, and went
+together to the house with sadness in their faces, leaving him to return
+the way he had come alone--a thing which filled me with consternation,
+he having ever before been treated and reverenced as a pastor ought
+always to be.
+
+What comment my father and the old man made on his conduct when they
+were by themselves I know not; but on the Sabbath morning the kirk was
+filled to overflowing, and my father took me with him by the hand, and
+we sat together on the same form with Ebenezer Muir, whom we found in
+the church before us.
+
+When Mr Sundrum mounted into the pulpit, and read the psalm and said the
+prayer, there was nothing particular; but when he prepared to preach,
+there was a rustle of expectation among all present, for the text he
+chose was from Romans, chapter xiii. and verses 1 and 2; from which he
+made an endeavour to demonstrate, as I heard afterwards, for I was then
+too young to discern the matter of it myself, the duty and advantages of
+passive obedience--and, growing warm with his ungospel rhetoric, he
+began to rail and to daud the pulpit in condemnation of the spirit which
+had kithed in Edinburgh.
+
+Ebenezer Muir and my father tholed with him for some time; but at last
+he so far forgot his place and office, that they both rose and moved
+towards the door. Many others did the same, and presently the whole
+congregation, with the exception of a very few, also began to move, so
+that the kirk skayled; and from that day, so long as Mr Sundrum
+continued in the parish, he was as a leper and an excommunicant.
+
+Meanwhile the alarm was spreading far and wide, and a blessed thing it
+was for the shire of Ayr, though it caused its soil to be soakened with
+the blood of martyrs, that few of the ministers were like the
+time-serving Mr Sundrum, but trusty and valiant defenders of the green
+pastures whereon they had delighted, like kind shepherds, to lead their
+confiding flocks, and to cherish the young lambs thereof with the tender
+embraces of a holy ministry. Among the rest, that godly and great saint,
+Mr Swinton of Garnock, our neighbour parish, stood courageously forward
+in the gap of the broken fence of the vineyard, announcing, after a most
+weighty discourse, on the same day on which Mr Sundrum preached the
+erroneous doctrine of passive obedience, that next Sabbath he would
+administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, not knowing how long it
+might be in the power of his people to partake of it. Every body around
+accordingly prepared to be present on that occasion, and there was a
+wonderful congregation. All the adjacent parishes in succession did the
+same thing Sabbath after Sabbath, and never was there seen, in the
+memory of living man, such a zealous devotion and strictness of life as
+then reigned throughout the whole West Country.
+
+At last the news came, that it was resolved among the great and faithful
+at Edinburgh to renew the Solemn League and Covenant; and the ministers
+of our neighbourhood having conferred together concerning the same, it
+was agreed among them, that the people should be invited to come forward
+on a day set apart for the purpose, and that as the kirk of Irvine was
+the biggest in the vicinage, the signatures both for the country and
+that town should be received there. Mr Dickson, the minister, than whom
+no man of his day was more brave in the Lord's cause, accordingly made
+the needful preparation, and appointed the time.
+
+In the meanwhile the young men began to gird themselves for war. The
+swords that had rested for many a day were drawn from their idle places;
+and the women worked together, that their brothers and their sons might
+be ready for the field; but at their work, instead of the ancient
+lilts, they sung psalms and godly ballads. However, as I mean not to
+enter upon the particulars of that awakening epoch, but only to show
+forth the pure and the holy earnestness with which the minds of men were
+then actuated, I shall here refer the courteous reader to the annals and
+chronicles of the time,--albeit the truth in them has suffered from the
+alloy of a base servility.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+The sixteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1638, was appointed
+for the renewal at Irvine of the Solemn League and Covenant. On the
+night before, my five elder brothers, who were learning trades at
+Glasgow and Kilmarnock, came home that they might go up with their
+father to the house of God, in order to set down their names together;
+me and my four sisters, the rest of his ten children, were still biding
+with our mother and him at the mailing.
+
+From my grandfather's time there had been a by-common respect among the
+neighbours for our family on his account; and that morning my brother
+Jacob, who happened to be the first that went, at break of day, to the
+door, was surprised to see many of the cotters and neighbouring farmer
+lads already assembled on the lone, waiting to walk with us to the town,
+as a token of their reverence for the principles and the memory of that
+departed worthy; and they were all belted and armed with swords like men
+ready for battle.
+
+Seeing such a concourse of the neighbours, instead of making exercise in
+the house, my father, as the morning was bright and lown, bade me carry
+the Bible and a stool to the dykeside, that our friends might have room
+to join us in worship,--which I did accordingly, placing the stool under
+the ash-tree, at the corner of the stack-yard, and by all those who were
+present on that occasion the spot was ever afterwards regarded as a
+hallowed place. Truly there was a scene and a sight there not likely to
+be soon forgotten; for the awful cause that had brought together that
+meeting was a thing which no man who had a part therein could ever in
+all his days forget.
+
+My father chose the seventy-sixth psalm, and when it was sung, he opened
+the Scriptures in Second Kings, and read aloud, with a strong voice, the
+twenty-third chapter, and every one likened Josiah to the old King, and
+Jehoahaz to his son Charles, by whose disregard of the Covenant the
+spirit of the land was then in such tribulation; and at the conclusion,
+instead of kneeling to pray, as he was wont, my father stood up, and, as
+if all temporal things were then of no account, he only supplicated that
+the work they had in hand for that day might be approved and sanctified.
+
+The worship being over, the family returned into the house, and having
+partaken of a repast of bread and milk, my father put on his father's
+sword, and my brothers, who had brought weapons of their own home with
+them, also belted themselves for the road. I was owre young to be yet
+trysted for war, so my father led me out by the hand, and walking
+forward, followed by my brothers, the neighbours, two and two, fell into
+the rear, and the women, in their plaids, came mournful and in tears at
+some short distance behind.
+
+As we were thus proceeding towards the main road, we heard the sound of
+a drum and fife, and saw over the hedge of the lane that leads to the
+clachan, a white banner waving aloft with the words, "SOLEMN LEAGUE AND
+COVENANT" painted thereon; at the sight of which my father was much
+disturbed, saying,--"This is some silly device of Nahum Chapelrig, that,
+if we allow to proceed, may bring scoff and scorn upon the cause as we
+enter the town;" and with that, dropping my hand, he ran forward and
+stopped their vain bravery; for it was, as he had supposed, the work of
+Nahum, who was marching, like a man of war, at the head of his band.
+However, on my father's remonstrance, he consented to send away his
+sounding instruments and idle banner, and to walk composedly along with
+us.
+
+As we reached the town-end port, we fell in with a vast number of other
+persons, from different parts of the country, going to sign the
+Covenant, and, on a cart, worthy Ebenezer Muir and three other aged men
+like himself, who, being all of our parish, it was agreed that they
+should alight and walk to the kirk at the head of those who had come
+with my father. While this was putting in order, other men and lads
+belonging to the parish came and joined us, so that, to the number of
+more than a hundred, we went up the town together.
+
+When we arrived at the Tolbooth, we were obligated, with others, to halt
+for some time, by reason of the great crowd at the Kirkgatefoot waiting
+to see if the magistrates, who were then sitting in council, would come
+forth and go to the kirk; and the different crafts and burgesses, with
+their deacons, were standing at the Cross in order to follow them, if
+they determined, in their public capacity, to sign the Covenant,
+according to the pious example which had been set to all in authority by
+the magistrates and town-council of Edinburgh three days before. We had
+not, however, occasion to be long detained; for it was resolved, with a
+unanimous heart, that the provost should sign in the name of the town,
+and that the bailies and councillors should, in their own names, sign
+each for himself; so they came out, with the town-officers bearing their
+battle-axes before them, and the crafts, according to their privilege,
+followed them to the kirk.
+
+The men of our parish went next; but on reaching the kirk-yard yett, it
+was manifest that, large as the ancient fabric was, it would not be able
+to receive a moité of the persons assembled. Godly Mr David Dickson, the
+minister, had, however, provided for this; and on one of the old tombs,
+on the south side of the kirk, he had ordered a table and chair to be
+placed, where that effectual preacher, Mr Livingstone, delivered a great
+sermon,--around him the multitude from the country parishes were
+congregated; but my father being well acquainted with Deacon Auld of the
+wrights, was invited by him to come into his seat in the kirk, where he
+carried me in with him, and we heard Mr Dickson himself.
+
+Of the strain and substance of his discourse I remember nothing, save
+only the earnestness of his manner; but well do I remember the awful
+sough and silence that was in the kirk when, at the conclusion of the
+sermon, he prepared to read the words of the Covenant.
+
+"Now," said he, when he had come to the end, and was rolling it up, "as
+no man knoweth how long, after this day, he may be allowed to partake of
+the sacrament of the Supper, the elders will bring forward the elements;
+and it is hoped that sisters in Christ will not come to communion till
+the brethren are served, who, as they take their seats at the Lord's
+table, are invited to sign their names to this solemn charter of the
+religious rights and liberties of God's people in Scotland."
+
+He then came down from the pulpit with the parchment in his hand, and
+going to the head of the sacramental table, he opened it again, and laid
+it down over the elements of the bread and wine which the elders had
+just placed there; and a minister, whose name I do not well recollect,
+sitting at his right hand, holding an inkstand, presented him with a
+pen, which, when he had taken, he prayed in silence for the space of a
+minute, and then, bending forward, he signed his name; having done so,
+he raised himself erect and said, with a loud voice, holding up his
+right hand, "Before God and these witnesses, in truth and holiness, I
+have sworn to keep this Covenant." At that moment a solemn sound rose
+from all the congregation, and every one stood up to see the men, as
+they sat at the table, put down their names.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+From the day on which the Covenant was signed, though I was owre young
+to remember the change myself, I have heard it often said that a great
+alteration took place in the morals and manners of the Covenanters. The
+Sabbath was observed by them with far more than the solemnity of times
+past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them,
+which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated
+Christians. The company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was
+eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were
+suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because
+of the danger with which the Truth and the Word were threatened by the
+Arminian Antichrist of the King's government.
+
+But the more immediate effect of the renewal of the Solemn League and
+Covenant was the preparation for defence and resistance, which the
+deceitful policy of that false monarch, King Charles the First, taught
+every one to know would be required. The men began to practise firing
+at butts and targets, and to provide themselves with arms and munitions
+of war; while, in order to maintain a life void of offence in all
+temporal concerns, they were by ordinare obedient and submissive to
+those in authority over them, whether holding jurisdiction from the
+King, or in virtue of baronies and feudalities.
+
+In this there was great wisdom; for it left the sin of the provocation
+still on the heads of the King and his evil counsellors, in so much that
+even, when the General Assembly, holden at Glasgow, vindicated the
+independence and freedom of Christ's kingdom, by continuing to sit in
+despite of the dissolution pronounced by King Charles' commissioner, the
+Marquis Hamilton, and likewise by decreeing the abolition of prelacy as
+an abomination, there was no political blame wherewith the people, in
+their capacity of subjects to their earthly prince, could be wyted or
+brought by law to punishment.
+
+In the meantime, the King, who was as fey as he was false, mustered his
+forces, and his rampant high-priest, Laud, was, with all the voices of
+his prelatic emissaries, inflaming the honest people of England to wage
+war against our religious freedom. The papistical Queen of Charles was
+no less busy with the priesthood of her crafty sect, and aids and
+powers, both of men and money, were raised wherever they could be had,
+in order to reinstall the discarded episcopacy of Scotland.
+
+The Covenanters, however, were none daunted, for they had a great ally
+in the Lord of Hosts; and, with Him for their captain, they neither
+sought nor wished for any alien assistance, though they sent letters to
+their brethren in foreign parts, exhorting them to unite in the
+Covenant, and to join them for the battle. General Lesley, in Gustavus
+Adolphus' army, was invited by his kinsman, the Lord Rothes, to come
+home, that, if need arose, he might take the temporal command of the
+Covenanters.
+
+The King having at last, according to an ancient practice of the English
+monarchs, when war in old times was proclaimed against the Scots,
+summoned his nobles to attend him with their powers at York, the
+Covenanters girded their loins, and the whole country rung with the din
+of the gathering of an host for the field.
+
+One Captain Bannerman, who had been with Lesley in the armies of
+Gustavus, was sent from Edinburgh to train the men in our part; and our
+house being central for the musters of the three adjacent parishes, he
+staid a night in the week with us at Quharist for the space of better
+than two months, and his military discourse greatly instructed our
+neighbours in the arts and stratagems of war.
+
+He was an elderly man, of a sedate character, and had gone abroad with
+an uncle from Montrose when he was quite a youth. In his day he had seen
+many strange cities, and places of wonderful strength to withstand the
+force of sieges. But, though bred a soldier, and his home in the camp,
+he had been himself but seldom in the field of battle. In appearance he
+was tall and lofty, and very erect and formal; a man of few words, but
+they were well chosen; and he was patient and pains-taking; of a
+contented aspect, somewhat hard-favoured, and seldom given to smile. To
+little children he was, however, bland and courteous; taking a pleasure
+in setting those that were of my age in battle array, for he had no
+pastime, being altogether an instructive soldier; or, as William, my
+third brother, used to say, who was a free out-spoken lad, Captain
+Bannerman was a real dominie o' war.
+
+Besides him, in our country-side, there was another officer, by name
+Hepburn, who had also been bred with the great Gustavus, sent to train
+the Covenanters in Irvine; but he was of a more mettlesome humour, and
+lacked the needful douceness that became those who were banding
+themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not
+just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the
+case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the
+Golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at
+them as if he had been himself one of the King's cavaliers, and they no
+better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the
+Covenant. In sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature,
+and about seven months after he left the town twa misfortunate creatures
+gave him the wyte of their bairns.
+
+Yet, for all the regardlessness of his ways and moral conduct, he was
+much beloved by the men he had the training of; and, on the night before
+he left the town, lies were told of a most respectit and pious officer
+of the town's power, if he did not find the causey owre wide when he
+was going home, after partaking of Captain Hepburn's pay-way supper. But
+how that may have been is little of my business at present to
+investigate; for I have only spoken of Hepburn, to notify what happened
+in consequence of a brag he had with Bannerman, anent the skill of their
+respective disciples, the which grew to such a controversy between them,
+that nothing less would satisfy Hepburn than to try the skill of the
+Irvine men against ours, and the two neighbouring parishes of Garnock
+and Stoneyholm. Accordingly a day was fixt for that purpose, and the
+Craiglands-croft was the place appointed for this probation of
+soldiership.
+
+On the morning of the appointed day the country folk assembled far and
+near, and Nahum Chapelrig, at the head of the lads of his clachan, was
+the first on the field. The sight to my young eyes was as the greatest
+show of pageantry that could be imagined; for Nahum had, from the time
+of the covenanting, been gathering arms and armour from all quarters,
+and had thereby not only obtained a glittering breastplate for himself,
+but three other coats of mail for the like number of his fellows; and
+when they were coming over the croft, with their fife and drum, and the
+banner of the Covenant waving aloft in the air, every one ran to behold
+such splendour and pomp of war; many of the women, that were witnesses
+among the multitude, wept at such an apparition of battles dazzling our
+peaceful fields.
+
+My father, with my five brothers, headed the Covenanters of our parish.
+There was no garnish among that band. They came along with austere looks
+and douce steps, and their belts were of tanned leather. The hilts of
+many of their swords were rusty, for they had been the weapons of their
+forefathers in the raids of the Reformation. As my father led them to
+their station on the right flank of Nahum Chapelrig's array, the crowd
+of onlookers fell back, and stood in silence as they passed by.
+
+Scarcely had they halted, when there was a rushing among the onlookers,
+and presently the townsmen, with Hepburn on horseback, were seen coming
+over the brow of the Gowan-brae. They were scant the strength of the
+country folk by more than a score; but there was a band of sailor boys
+with them that made the number greater; so that, when they were all
+drawn up together forenent the countrymen, they were more than man for
+man.
+
+It is not to be suppressed nor denied, that, in the first show of the
+day, Hepburn got far more credit and honour than old sedate Bannerman;
+for his lads were lighter in the heel, glegger in the eye, and brisker
+in the manoeuvres of war: moreover, they were all far more similar in
+their garb and appearance, which gave them a seeming compactness that
+the countrymen had nothing like. But when the sham contest began, it was
+not long till Bannerman's disciples showed the proofs of their master's
+better skill to such a mark, that Hepburn grew hot, and so kindled his
+men by reproaches, that there was like to have been fighting in true
+earnest; for the blood of the country folk was also rising. Their eyes
+grew fierce, and they muttered through their teeth.
+
+Old Ebenezer Muir, who was among the multitude, observing that their
+blood was heating, stepped forward, and lifting up his hand, cried,
+"Sirs, stop;" and both sides instanter made a pause. "This maunna be,"
+said he. "It may be sport to those who are by trade soldiers to try the
+mettle o' their men, but ye're a covenanted people, obligated by a
+grievous tyranny to quit your spades and your looms only for a season;
+therefore be counselled, and rush not to battle till need be, which may
+the Lord yet prevent."
+
+Hepburn uttered an angry ban, and would have turned the old man away by
+the shoulder; but the combatants saw they were in the peril of a
+quarrel, and many of them cried aloud, "He's in the right, and we're
+playing the fool for the diversion o' our adversaries." So the townsmen
+and the country folk shook hands; but instead of renewing the contest,
+Captain Bannerman proposed that they should all go through their
+discipline together, it being manifest that there were little odds in
+their skill, and none in their courage. The which prudent admonition
+pacified all parties, and the remainder of the day was spent in
+cordiality and brotherly love. Towards the conclusion of the exercises,
+worthy Mr Swinton came on the field; and when the business of the day
+was over, he stepped forward, and the trained men being formed around
+him, the onlookers standing on the outside, he exhorted them in prayer,
+and implored a blessing on their covenanted union, which had the effect
+of restoring all their hearts to a religious frame and a solemnity
+befitting the spirituality of their cause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+One night, about a month after the ploy whereof I have spoken in the
+foregoing chapter, just as my father had finished the worship, and the
+family were composing themselves round the fireside for supper, we were
+startled by the sound of a galloping horse coming to the door; and
+before any one had time to open it, there was a dreadful knocking with
+the heft of the rider's whip. It was Nahum Chapelrig, who being that day
+at Kilmarnock, had heard, as he was leaving the town, the cry get up
+there that the Aggressor was coming from York with all the English
+power, and he had flown far and wide on his way home publishing the
+dismal tidings.
+
+My father, in a sober manner, bade him alight and partake of our supper,
+questioning him sedately anent what he had heard; but Nahum was raised,
+and could give no satisfaction in his answers; he, however, leapt from
+his horse, and drawing the bridle through the ring at the door-cheek,
+came ben to the fire where we had all so shortly before been
+harmoniously sitting. His eyes were wide and wild; his hair, with the
+heat he was in, was as if it had been pomated; his cheeks were white,
+his lips red, and he panted with haste and panic.
+
+"They're coming," he cried, "in thousands o' thousands; never sic a
+force has crossed the Border since the day o' Flodden Field. We'll a'
+either be put to the sword, man, woman, and child, or sent in slavery to
+the plantations."
+
+"No," replied my father, "things are no just come to that pass; we have
+our swords yet, and hearts and hands to use them."
+
+The consternation, however, of Nahum Chapelrig that night was far ayont
+all counsel; so, after trying to soothe and reason him into a more
+temperate frame, my father was obligated to tell him, that since the
+battle was coming so near our gates, it behoved the Covenanters to be
+in readiness for the field, advising Nahum to go home, and be over with
+him betimes in the morning.
+
+While they were thus speaking, James Newbigging also came to the door
+with a rumour of the same substance, which his wife had brought from
+Eglinton Castle, where she had been with certain cocks and hens, a
+servitude of the Eglintons on their mailing; so that there was no longer
+any dubiety about the news, though matters were not in such a desperate
+condition as Nahum Chapelrig had terrified himself with the thought of.
+Nevertheless, the tidings were very dreadful; and it was a judgment-like
+thing to hear that an anointed king was so far left to himself as to be
+coming with wrath, and banners, and trampling war-horses, to destroy his
+subjects for the sincerity of their religious allegiance to that
+Almighty Monarch, who has but permitted the princes of the earth to be
+set up as idols by the hands of men.
+
+James Newbigging, as well as Nahum, having come ben to the fireside, my
+father called for the Books again, and gave out the eight first verses
+of the forty-fourth psalm, which we all sung with hearts in holy unison
+and zealous voices.
+
+When James Newbigging and Nahum Chapelrig were gone away home, my father
+sat for some time exhorting us, who were his youngest children, to be
+kind to one another, to cherish our mother, and no to let auld doited
+aunty want, if it was the Lord's will that he should never come back
+from the battle. The which to hear caused much sorrow and lamentation,
+especially from my mother, who, however, said nothing, but took hold of
+his hand and watered it with her tears. After this he walked out into
+the fields, where he remained some time alone; and during his absence,
+me and the three who were next to me, were sent to our beds; but, young
+as we then were, we were old enough to know the danger that hung over
+us, and we lay long awake, wondering and woful with fear.
+
+About two hours after midnight the house was again startled by another
+knocking, and on my father inquiring who was at the door, he was
+answered by my brother Jacob, who had come with Michael and Robin from
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, on hearing the news, and had thence brought
+William and Alexander with them to go with their father to the war. For
+they had returned to their respective trades after the day of the
+covenanting, and had only been out at Hepburn's raid, as the ploy with
+the Irvine men was called in jocularity, in order that the neighbours,
+who venerated their grandfather, might see them together as Covenanters.
+
+The arrival of her sons, and the purpose they had come upon, awakened
+afresh the grief of our mother; but my father entreated us all to be
+quiet, and to compose ourselves to rest, that we might be the abler on
+the morn to prepare for what might then ensue. Yet, though there was no
+sound in the house, save only our mother's moaning, few closed their
+eyes, and long before the sun every one was up and stirring, and my
+father and my five brothers were armed and belted for the march.
+
+Scarcely were they ready, when different neighbours in the like trim
+came to go with them; presently also Nahum Chapelrig, with his banner,
+and fife, and drum, at the head of some ten or twelve lads of his
+clachan, came over; and on this occasion no obstacle was made to that
+bravery which was thought so uncomely on the day of the covenanting.
+
+While the armed men were thus gathering before our door, with the intent
+of setting forward to Glasgow, as the men of the West had been some time
+before trysted to do, by orders from General Lesley, on the first alarm,
+that godly man and minister of righteousness, the Reverend Mr Swinton,
+made his appearance with his staff in his hand, and a satchel on his
+back, in which he carried the Bible.
+
+"I am come, my friens," said he, "to go with you. Where the ensigns of
+Christ's Covenant are displayed, it is meet that the very lowest of his
+vassals should be there;" and having exhorted the weeping women around
+to be of good cheer, he prayed for them and for their little children,
+whom the Aggressor was, perhaps, soon to make fatherless. Nahum
+Chapelrig then exalted his banner, and the drum and fife beginning to
+play, the venerable man stepped forward, and heading the array with his
+staff in his hand, they departed amidst the shouts of the boys, and the
+loud sorrow of many a wife and mother.
+
+I followed them, with my companions, till they reached the high road,
+where, at the turn that led them to Glasgow, a great concourse of other
+women and children belonging to the neighbouring parishes were
+assembled, having there parted from their friends. They were all
+mourning and weeping, and mingling their lamentations with bitter
+predictions against the King and his evil counsellors; but seeing Mr
+Swinton, they became more composed, and he having made a sign to the
+drum and fife to cease, he stopped, and earnestly entreated them to
+return home and employ themselves in the concerns of their families,
+which, the heads being for a season removed, stood the more in need of
+all their kindness and care.
+
+This halt in the march of their friends brought the onlookers, who were
+assembled round our house, running to see what was the cause; and, among
+others, it gave time to the aged Ebenezer Muir to come up, whom Mr
+Swinton no sooner saw than he called on him by name, and bade him
+comfort the women, and invite them away from the high road, where their
+presence could only increase the natural grief that every covenanted
+Christian, in passing to join the army, could not but suffer, on seeing
+so many left defenceless by the unprovoked anger of the Aggressor. He
+then bade the drum again beat, and, the march being resumed, the band of
+our parish soon went out of sight.
+
+While our men continued in view Ebenezer Muir said nothing; but as soon
+as they had disappeared behind the brow of the Gowan-brae, he spoke to
+the multitude in a gentle and paternal manner, and bade them come with
+him into the neighbouring field, and join him in prayer; after which he
+hoped they would see the wisdom of returning to their homes. They
+accordingly followed him, and he having given out the twenty-third
+psalm, all present joined him, till the lonely fields and silent woods
+echoed to the melody of their pious song.
+
+As we were thus standing around the old man in worship and unison of
+spirit, the Irvine men came along the road; and seeing us, they hushed
+their drums as they passed by, and bowed down their banners in reverence
+and solemnity. Such was the outset of the worthies of the renewed
+Covenant, in their war with the first Charles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+After my father and brothers, with our neighbours that went with them,
+had returned from the bloodless raid of Dunse Law, as the first
+expedition was called, a solemn thanksgiving was held in all the
+country-side; but the minds of men were none pacified by the treaty
+concluded with the King at Berwick. For it was manifest to the world,
+that coming in his ire, and with all the might of his power, to punish
+the Covenanters as rebels, he would never have consented to treat with
+them on anything like equal terms, had he not been daunted by their
+strength and numbers; so that the spirit awakened by his Ahab-like
+domination continued as alive and as distrustful of his word and
+pactions as ever.
+
+After the rumours of his plain juggling about the verbals of the
+stipulated conditions, and his arbitrary prorogation of the parliament
+at Edinburgh, a thing which the best and bravest of the Scottish
+monarchs had never before dared to do without the consent of the States
+then assembled, the thud and murmur of warlike preparation was renewed
+both on anvil and in hall. And when it was known that the King, fey and
+distempered with his own weak conceits and the instigations of cruel
+counsellors, had, as soon as he heard that the Covenanters were
+disbanded, renewed his purposes of punishment and oppression, a gurl of
+rage, like the first brush of the tempest on the waves, passed over the
+whole extent of Scotland, and those that had been in arms fiercely
+girded themselves again for battle.
+
+As the King's powers came again towards the borders, the Covenanters,
+for the second time, mustered under Lesley at Dunse; but far different
+was this new departure of our men from the solemnity of their first
+expedition. Their spirits were now harsh and angry, and their drums
+sounded hoarsely on the breeze. Godly Mr Swinton, as he headed them
+again, struck the ground with his staff, and, instead of praying, said,
+"It is the Lord's pleasure, and he will make the Aggressor fin' the
+weight of the arm of flesh. Honest folk are no ever to be thus obligated
+to leave their fields and families by the provocations of a prerogative
+that has so little regard for the people. In the name and strength of
+God, let us march."
+
+With six-and-twenty thousand horse and foot Lesley crossed the Tweed,
+and in the first onset the King's army was scattered like chaff before
+the wind. When the news of the victory arrived among us, every one was
+filled with awe and holy wonder; for it happened on the very day which
+was held as a universal fast throughout the land; on that day, likewise,
+even in the time of worship, the castle of Dumbarton was won, and the
+covenanted Earl of Haddington repelled a wasteful irruption from the
+garrison of Berwick.
+
+Such disasters smote the King with consternation; for the immediate
+fruit of the victory was the conquest of Newcastle, Tynemouth, Shields
+and Durham.
+
+Baffled and mortified, humbled but not penitent, the rash and vindictive
+monarch, in a whirlwind of mutiny and desertion, was obligated to
+retreat to York, where he was constrained, by the few sound and
+sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another
+negotiation with his insulted and indignant subjects. But as all the
+things which thence ensued are mingled with the acts of perfidy and
+aggression by which, under the disastrous influence of the fortunes of
+his doomed and guilty race, he drew down the vengeance of his English
+subjects, it would lead me far from this household memorial to enter
+more at large on circumstances so notour, though they have been
+strangely palliated by the supple spirit of latter times, especially by
+the sordid courtliness of the crafty Clarendon. I shall therefore skip
+the main passages of public affairs, and hasten forward to the time when
+I became myself enlisted on the side of our national liberties, briefly,
+however, noticing, as I proceed, that after the peace which was
+concluded at Ripon my father and my five brothers came home. None of
+them received any hurt in battle; but in the course of the winter the
+old man was visited with a great income of pains and aches, in so much
+that, for the remainder of his days, he was little able to endure
+fatigue or hardship of any kind; my second brother, Robin, was therefore
+called from his trade in Glasgow to look after the mailing, for I was
+still owre young to be of any effectual service; Alexander continued a
+bonnet-maker at Kilmarnock; but Michael, William and Jacob, joined and
+fought with the forces that won the mournful triumph of Marston Moor,
+where fifty thousand subjects of the same King and laws contended with
+one another, and where the Lord, by showing himself on the side of the
+people, gave a dreadful admonition to the government to recant and
+conciliate while there was yet time.
+
+Meanwhile the worthy Mr Swinton, having observed in me a curiosity
+towards books of history and piety, had taken great pains to instruct me
+in the rights and truths of religion, and to make it manifest alike to
+the ears and eyes of my understanding, that no human authority could, or
+ought to, dictate in matters of faith, because it could not discern the
+secrets of the breast, neither know what was acceptable to Heaven in
+conduct or in worship. He likewise expounded to me in what manner the
+Covenant was not a temporal but a spiritual league, trenching in no
+respect upon the natural and contributed authority of the kingly office.
+But, owing to the infirm state of my father's health, neither my brother
+Robin nor I could be spared from the farm, in any of the different raids
+that germinated out of the King's controversy with the English
+parliament; so that in the whigamore expedition, as it was profanely
+nicknamed, from our shire, with the covenanted Earls of Cassilis and
+Eglinton, we had no personality, though our hearts went with those that
+were therein.
+
+When, however, the hideous tidings came of the condemnation and
+execution of the King, there was a stop in the current of men's minds,
+and as the waters of Jordan, when the ark was carried in, rushed back to
+their fountain-head, every true Scot on that occasion felt in his heart
+the ancient affections of his nature returning with a compassionate
+horror. Yet even in this they were true to the Covenant; for it was not
+to be hidden that the English parliament, in doing what it did in that
+tragical event, was guided by a speculative spirit of political
+innovation and change, different and distinct, both in principle and
+object, from the cause which made our Scottish Covenanters have recourse
+to arms. In truth, the act of bringing kings to public condign
+punishment was no such new thing in the chronicles of Scotland, as that
+brave historian, George Buchanan, plainly shows, to have filled us with
+such amazement and affright, had the offences of King Charles been
+proven as clearly personal, as the crimes for which the ancient tyrants
+of his pedigree suffered the death;--but his offences were shared with
+his counsellors, whose duty it was to have bridled his arbitrary
+pretensions. He was in consequence mourned as a victim, and his son, the
+second Charles, at once proclaimed and acknowledged King of Scotland.
+How he deported himself in that capacity, and what gratitude he and his
+brother showed the land for its faith and loyalty in the wreck and
+desperation of their royal fortunes, with a firm and a fearless pen I
+now purpose to show. But as the tale of their persecutions is ravelled
+with the sorrows and the sufferings of my friends and neighbours, and
+the darker tissue of my own woes, it is needful, before proceeding
+therein, that I should entreat the indulgence of the courteous reader to
+allow a few short passages of my private life now to be here recorded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+Some time before the news of King Charles' execution reached us in the
+West, the day had been set for my marriage with Sarah Lochrig; but the
+fear and consternation which the tidings bred in all minds, many
+dreading that the event would be followed by a total breaking up of the
+union and frame of society, made us consent to defer our happiness till
+we saw what was ordained to come to pass.
+
+When, however, it was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of an
+anointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon the
+tides of the time than the death of a sparrow,--and that men were called
+as usual to their daily tasks and toils,--and that all things moved
+onward in their accustomed courses,--and that laws and jurisdictions,
+and all the wonted pacts and processes of community between man and man,
+suffered neither molestation nor hindrance, godly Mr Swinton bestowed
+his blessing on our marriage, and our friends their joyous countenance
+at the wedding feast.
+
+My lot was then full of felicity, and I had no wish to wander beyond the
+green valley where we established our peaceful dwelling. It was in a
+lown holm of the Garnock, on the lands of Quharist, a portion of which
+my father gave me in tack; and Sarah's father likewise bestowed on us
+seven rigs, and a cow's grass of his own mailing, for her tocher, as
+the beginning of a plenishment to our young fortunes. Still, like all
+the neighbours, I was deeply concerned about what was going on in the
+far-off world of conflicts and negotiations; and this was not out of an
+idle thirst of curiosity, but from an interest mingled with sorrows and
+affections; for, after the campaign in England, my three brothers,
+Michael, William and Alexander, never domiciled themselves at any civil
+calling. Having caught the roving spirit of camps, they remained in the
+skirts of the array which the covenanted Lords at Edinburgh continued to
+maintain; and here, poor lads! I may digress a little, to record the
+brief memorials of their several unhappy fates.
+
+When King Charles the Second, after accepting and being sworn to abide
+by the Covenant, was brought home, and the crown of his ancient
+progenitors placed upon his head at Scoone, by the hands of the Marquis
+of Argyle, in the presence of the great and the godly Covenanters, my
+brothers went in the army that he took with him into England. Michael
+was slain at the battle of Worcester, by the side of Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, who carried that day the royal banner. Alexander was wounded
+in the same fight, and left upon the field, where he was found next
+morning by the charitable inhabitants of the city, and carried to the
+house of a loyal gentlewoman, one Mrs Deerhurst, that treated him with
+much tenderness; but after languishing in agony, as she herself wrote to
+my father, he departed this life on the third day.
+
+Of William I have sometimes wished that I had never heard more; for
+after the adversity of that day, it would seem he forgot the Covenant
+and his father's house. Ritchie Minigaff, an old servant of the Lord
+Eglinton's, when the Earl his master was Cromwell's prisoner in the
+Tower of London, saw him there among the guard, and some years after the
+Restoration he met him again among the King's yeomen at Westminster,
+about the time of the beginning of the persecution. But Willy then
+begged Ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor was
+ever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought of
+such backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us at
+home, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become of
+blithe light-hearted Willy. No doubt he died in the servitude of the
+faithless tyrant; but the storm that fell among us, soon after Ritchie
+had told me of his unfortunate condition, left us neither time nor
+opportunity to inquire about any distant friend. But to return to my own
+story.
+
+From my marriage till the persecution began, I took no part in the
+agitations of the times. It is true, after the discovery of Charles
+Stuart's perfidious policy, so like his father's, in corresponding with
+the Marquis of Montrose for the subjection of Scotland by the tyranny of
+the sword, at the very time he was covenanting with the commissioners
+sent from the Lords at Edinburgh with the offer of the throne of his
+ancestors, that with my father and my brother Robin, together with many
+of our neighbours, I did sign the Remonstrance against making a prince
+of such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. But in that we only
+delivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; for
+it was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation to
+arm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of the
+spirit in which it was conceived and understood. For when the prince had
+received the crown and accepted the Covenant, we submitted ourselves as
+good subjects. Fearing God, we were content to honour in all rights and
+prerogatives, not contrary to Scripture, him whom, by His grace in the
+mysteries of His wisdom, He had, for our manifold sins as a nation and a
+people, been pleased to ordain and set over us for king. And verily no
+better test of our sincerity could be, than the distrust with which our
+whole country-side was respected by Oliver Cromwell, when he thought it
+necessary to build that stronghold at Ayr, by which his Englishers were
+enabled to hold the men of Carrick, Kyle and Cunningham in awe,--a race
+that, from the days of Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce,
+have ever been found honest in principle, brave in affection, and
+dauntless and doure in battle. But it is not necessary to say more on
+this head; for full of griefs and grudges as were the hearts of all true
+Scots, with the thought of their country in southern thraldom, while
+Cromwell's Englishers held the upper hand amongst us, the season of
+their dominion was to me and my house as a lown and pleasant spring. All
+around me was bud, and blossom, and juvenility, and gladness, and hope.
+My lot was as the lot of the blessed man. I ate of the labour of my
+hands, I was happy, and it was well with me; my wife, as the fruitful
+vine that spreads its clusters on the wall, made my lowly dwelling more
+beautiful to the eye of the heart than the golden palaces of crowned
+kings, and our pretty bairns were like olive plants round about my
+table;--but they are all gone. The flood and the flame have passed over
+them;--yet be still, my heart; a little while endure in silence; for I
+have not taken up the avenging pen of history, and dipped it in the
+blood of martyrs, to record only my own particular woes and wrongs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+It has been seen, by what I have told concerning the part my grandfather
+had in the great work of the Reformation, that the heads of the house of
+Argyle were among the foremost and the firmest friends of the
+resuscitated Evangil. The aged Earl of that time was in the very front
+of the controversy as one of the Lords of the Congregation; and though
+his son, the Lord of Lorn, hovered for a season, like other young men of
+his degree, in the purlieus and precincts of the Lady Regent's court,
+yet when her papistical counsels broke the paction with the protestants
+at Perth, I have rehearsed how he, being then possessed of the
+inheritance of his father's dignities, did, with the bravery becoming
+his blood and station, remonstrate with her Highness against such
+impolitic craft and perfidy, and, along with the Lord James Stuart,
+utterly eschew her presence and method of government.
+
+After the return of Queen Mary from France, and while she manifested a
+respect for the rights of her covenanted people, that worthy Earl was
+among her best friends; and even after the dismal doings that led to her
+captivity in Lochleven Castle, and thence to the battle of Langside, he
+still acted the part of a true nobleman to a sovereign so fickle and so
+faithless. Whether he rued on the field that he had done so, or was
+smitten with an infirmity that prevented him from fighting against his
+old friend and covenanted brother, the good Regent Murray, belongs not
+to this history to inquire; but certain it is, that in him the
+protestant principles of his honourable house suffered no dilapidation;
+and in the person of his grandson, the first marquis of the name, they
+were stoutly asserted and maintained.
+
+When the first Charles, and Laud, that ravenous Arminian Antichrist,
+attempted to subvert and abrogate the presbyterian gospel worship, not
+only did the Marquis stand forth in the van of the Covenanters to stay
+the religious oppression then meditated against his native land, but
+laboured with all becoming earnestness to avert the pestilence of civil
+war. In that doubtless Argyle offended the false counsellors about the
+King; but when the English parliament, with a lawless arrogance, struck
+off the head of the miscounselled and bigoted monarch, faithful to his
+covenants and the loyalty of his race, the Marquis was amongst the
+foremost of the Scottish nobles to proclaim the Prince of Wales king.
+With his own hands he placed on Charles the Second's head the ancient
+diadem of Scotland. Surely it might therefore have been then supposed
+that all previous offence against the royal family was forgotten and
+forgiven; yea, when it is considered that General Monk himself, the
+boldest in the cause of Cromwell's usurpation, was rewarded with a
+dukedom in England for doing no more for the King there than Argyle had
+done for him before in greater peril here, it could not have entered
+into the imagination of Christian men, that Argyle, for only submitting
+like a private subject to the same usurped authority when it had become
+supreme, would, after the Restoration, be brought to the block. But it
+was so; and though the machinations of political enemies converted that
+submission into treasons to excuse their own crime, yet there was not an
+honest man in all the realm that did not see in the doom of Argyle a
+dismal omen of the cloud and storm which so soon after burst upon our
+religious liberties.
+
+Passing, however, by all those afflictions which took the colour of
+political animosities, I hasten to speak of the proceedings which, from
+the hour of the Restoration, were hatched for the revival of the
+prelatic oppression. The tyranny of the Stuarts is indeed of so fell a
+nature that, having once tasted of blood in any cause, it will return
+again and again, however so often baffled, till it has either devoured
+its prey, or been itself mastered; and so it showed in this instance.
+For, regardless of those troubles which the attempt of the first Charles
+to exercise an authority in spiritual things beyond the rights of all
+earthly sovereignty caused to the realm and to himself, the second no
+sooner felt the sceptre in his grip than he returned to the same
+enormities; and he found a fit instrument in James Sharp, who, in
+contempt of the wrath of God, sold himself to Antichrist for the prelacy
+of St Andrews.
+
+But it was not among the ambitious and mercenary members of the clergy
+that the evidences of a backsliding generation were alone to be seen;
+many of the people, nobles and magistrates were infected with the sin of
+the same reprobation; and in verity, it might have been said of the
+realm that the restoration of King Charles the Second was hailed as an
+advent ordained to make men forget all vows, sobriety and solemnities.
+It is, however, something to be said in commendation of the constancy of
+mind and principle of our West Country folk that the immorality of that
+drunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to God and man among
+them, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemorate
+the anniversary of the King's restoration, it was nevertheless done with
+humiliation and anxiety of spirit. But a vain thing it would be of me to
+attempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner that
+the Covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourable
+to religious Scotland, were treated in the town of Lithgow on that
+occasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of old
+it was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone to
+lick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruption
+abiding there.
+
+Had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to such
+mockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of Lithgow,
+we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; but
+they were soon followed by more palpable enormities. Middleton, the
+King's commissioner, coming on a progress to Glasgow, held a council of
+state there, at which was present the apostate Fairfoul, who had been
+shortly before nominated Archbishop of that city; and at his wicked
+incitement, Middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strong
+drink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by that memorable act
+of council which bears the date of the 1st of October, 1662,--an
+anniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in Scotland, if
+such things might be, for by it all the ministers that had received
+Gospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who still
+refused to bend the knee to Baal, were banished, with their families,
+from their kirks and manses.
+
+But to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causing
+proclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, before
+proceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember the
+preaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-serving
+pastor, Mr Sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion;
+because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly Mr
+Swinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inducted
+according to the apostolic ordination of Presbytery, fell, of course,
+like many of his Gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaid
+proclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on the
+Friday after it was framed.
+
+At first the particulars were not known, for it was described as the
+muttering of unclean spirits against the purity of the Truth; but the
+tidings startled us like the growl of some unknown and dreadful thing,
+and I dreamt that night of my grandfather, with his white hair and the
+comely venerableness of his great age, appearing pale and sorrowful in a
+field before me, and pointing with a hand of streaming light to
+horsemen, and chariots, and armies with banners, warring together on the
+distant hills.
+
+Saturday was then the market-day at Irvine; and though I had but little
+business there, I yet went in with my brother Robin, chiefly to hear the
+talk of the town. In this I but partook of the common sympathy of the
+whole country-side; for, on entering the town-end port, we found the
+concourse of people there assembled little short of the crowd at Marymas
+Fair, and all eager to learn what the council held at Glasgow had done;
+but no one could tell. Only it was known that the Earl of Eglinton, who
+had been present at the council, was returned home to the castle, and
+that he had sent for the provost that morning on very urgent business.
+
+While we were thus all speaking and marvelling one with another, a cry
+got up that a band of soldiers was coming into the town from Ayr, the
+report of which, for the space of several minutes, struck every one with
+awe and apprehension. And scarcely had the sough of this passed over us,
+when it was told that the provost had privately returned from Eglinton
+Castle by the Gallows-knowes to the backsides, and that he had sent for
+the minister and the bailies, with others of the council, to meet him in
+the clerk's chamber.
+
+No one wist what the meaning of such movements and mysteries could be;
+but all boded danger to the fold and flock, none doubting that the
+wolves of episcopalian covetousness were hungering and thirsting for the
+blood of the covenanted lambs. Nor were we long left to our guesses;
+for, soon after the magistrates and the minister had met, a copy of the
+proclamation of the council held at Glasgow was put upon the Tolbooth
+door, by which it was manifested to every eye that the fences of the
+vineyard were indeed broken down, and that the boar was let in and
+wrathfully trampling down and laying waste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+The proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of the
+Covenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly in
+prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing in
+his discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore and
+solemn business. On the Friday night, however, before the last Lord's
+day of that black October, he sent for my brother, who was one of his
+elders, and told him that he had received a mandatory for conformity to
+the proclamation, and to acknowledge the prelatic reprobation that the
+King's government had introduced into the church; but that it was his
+intention, strengthened of the Lord, to adhere to his vows and
+covenants, even to the uttermost, and not to quit his flock, happen what
+would.
+
+"The beild of the kirk and the manse," said he, "being temporalities,
+are aneath the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in the
+things that pertain to the allegiance I owe to the King of Kings, I will
+act, with His heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal."
+
+This determination being known throughout the parish, and the first of
+November being the last day allowed for conforming, on the Sabbath
+preceding we had a throng kirk and a solemneezed congregation. According
+to their wonted custom, the men, before the hour of worship, assembled
+in the kirk-yard, and there was much murmuring and marvelling among us,
+that nobody in all the land would stand forth to renew the Covenant, as
+was done in the year thirty-eight; and we looked around and beheld the
+green graves of many friends that had died since the great day of the
+covenanting, and we were ashamed of ourselves and of our time, and
+mourned for the loss of the brave spirits which, in the darkness of His
+mysterious wisdom, the Lord had taken away.
+
+The weather, for the season, was bright and dry; and the withered leaf
+still hung here and there on the tree, so that old and young, the infirm
+and the tender, could come abroad; and many that had been bed-rid were
+supported along by their relations to hear the word of Truth, for the
+last time, preached in the house of God.
+
+Mr Swinton came, followed by his wife and family. He was, by this time,
+a man well stricken in years, but Mrs Swinton was of a younger
+generation; and they had seven children,--Martha, the eldest, a fine
+lassie, was not passing fourteen years of age. As they came slowly up
+the kirk-stile, we all remarked that the godly man never lifted his eyes
+from the ground, but came along perusing, as it were, the very earth for
+consolation.
+
+The private door which, at that epoch, led to the minister's seat and
+the pulpit, was near to where the bell-rope hung on the outer wall, and
+as the family went towards it, one of the elders stepped from the plate
+at the main door to open it. But after Mrs Swinton and the children were
+gone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, instead
+of then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, and
+laying his hand on the shoulder of old Willy Shackle, who was ringing
+the bell, he said,--
+
+"Stop, my auld frien,--they that in this parish need a bell this day to
+call them to the service of their Maker winna come on the summons o'
+yours."
+
+He then walked in; and the old man, greatly affected, mounted the stool,
+and tied up the rope to the ring in the wall in his usual manner, that
+it might be out of the reach of the school weans. "But," said he, as he
+came down, "I needna fash; for after this day little care I wha rings
+the bell; since it's to be consecrat to the wantonings o' prelacy, I wis
+the tongue were out o' its mouth and its head cracket, rather than that
+I should live to see't in the service of Baal and the hoor o' Babylon."
+
+After all the congregation had taken their seats, Mr Swinton rose and
+moved towards the front of the pulpit, and the silence in the church was
+as the silence at the martyrdom of some holy martyr. He then opened THE
+BOOK, and having given out the ninety-fourth psalm, we sang it with
+weeping souls; and during the prayer that followed there was much
+sobbing and lamentations, and an universal sorrow. His discourse was
+from the fifth chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, verse first, and
+first clause of the verse; and with the tongue of a prophet, and the
+voice of an apostle, he foretold, as things already written in the
+chronicles of the kingdom, many of those sufferings which afterwards
+came to pass. It was a sermon that settled into the bottom of the hearts
+of all that heard it, and prepared us for the woes of the vial that was
+then pouring out.
+
+At the close of the discourse, when the precentor rose to read the
+remembering prayer, old Ebenezer Muir, then upwards of fourscore and
+thirteen, who had been brought into the church on a barrow by two of his
+grandsons, and was, for reason of his deafness, in the bench with the
+elders, gave him a paper, which, after rehearsing the names of those in
+distress and sickness, he read, and it was "The persecuted kirk of
+SCOTLAND."
+
+"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning,"
+cried Mr Swinton at the words, with an inspiration that made every heart
+dirl; and surely never was such a prayer heard as that with which he
+followed up the divine words.
+
+Then we sang the hundred and fortieth psalm, at the conclusion of which
+the minister came again to the front of the pulpit, and with a calm
+voice, attuned to by ordinare solemnity, he pronounced the blessing;
+then, suddenly turning himself, he looked down to his family and said,
+"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
+of man hath not where to lay his head." And he covered his face with
+his hands, and sat down and wept.
+
+Never shall I forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not a
+cry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow,
+nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadful
+rustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, in
+passing by, had shaken all his wings.
+
+The kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family came
+out into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by some
+sacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to the
+manse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever the
+Lord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart for
+His servant. I was the spokesman on that occasion, and verily do I think
+that, as I said the words, a glorious light shone around me, and that I
+felt a fanning of the inward life, as if the young cherubims were
+present among us, and fluttering their wings with an exceeding great joy
+at the piety of our kind intents.
+
+So passed that memorable Sabbath in our parish; and here I may relate,
+that we had the satisfaction and comfort to know, in a little time
+thereafter, that the same Christian faithfulness with which Mr Swinton
+adhered to his gospel-trusts and character, was maintained on that day
+by more than three hundred other ministers, to the perpetual renown of
+our national worth and covenanted cause. And therefore, though it was an
+era of much sorrow and of many tears, it was thus, through the
+mysterious ways of Providence, converted into a ground of confidence in
+our religion, in so much that it may be truly said, out of the ruins and
+the overthrow of the first presbyterian church the Lord built up among
+us a stronghold and sanctuary for his truth and law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+Nothing particular happened till the second week of November, when a
+citation came from Irvine, commanding the attendance of Mr Swinton, on a
+suffragan of Fairfoul's, under the penalties of the proclamation. In the
+meantime we had been preparing for the event; and my father having been
+some time no more, and my brother with his family in a house of their
+own, it was settled between him and me, that I should take our mother
+into mine, in order that the beild of Quharist might be given up to the
+minister and his houseless little ones; which all our neighbours much
+commended; and there was no slackness on their part in making a
+provision to supply the want of his impounded stipend.
+
+As all had foreseen, Mr Swinton, for not appearing to the citation, was
+pronounced a non-conformist; and the same night, after dusk, a party of
+the soldiers, that were marched from Ayr into Irvine on the day of the
+proclamation, came to drive him out of the manse.
+
+There was surely in this a needless and exasperating severity, for the
+light of day might have served as well; but the men were not to blame,
+and the officer who came with them, having himself been tried in the
+battles of the Covenant, and being of a humane spirit, was as meek and
+compassionate in his tyrannical duty as could reasonably be hoped for.
+He allowed Mrs Swinton to take away her clothes, and the babies, that
+were asleep in their beds, time to be awakened and dressed, nor did he
+object to their old ploughman, Robin Harrow, taking sundry articles of
+provision for their next morning's repast; so that, compared with the
+lewd riots and rampageous insolence of the troopers in other places, we
+had great reason to be thankful for the tenderness with which our
+minister and his small family of seven children were treated on that
+memorable night.
+
+It was about eight o'clock when Martha, the eldest daughter, came flying
+to me like a demented creature, crying the persecutors were come, with
+naked swords and dreadful faces; and she wept and wrung her hands,
+thinking they were then murdering her parents and brothers and sisters.
+I did, however, all that was in my power to pacify her, saying our lots
+were not yet laid in blood, and, leaving her to the consolatory
+counsellings of my wife, I put on my bonnet and hastened over to the
+manse.
+
+The night was troubled and gusty. The moon was in her first quarter, and
+wading dim and low through the clouds on the Arran hills. Afar off, the
+bars of Ayr, in their roaring, boded a storm, and the stars were
+rushing through a swift and showery south-west carry. The wind, as it
+hissed over the stubble, sounded like the whisperings of desolation; and
+I was thrice startled in my walk by passing shapes and shadows, whereof
+I could not discern the form.
+
+At a short distance from the manse door I met the godly sufferer and his
+destitute family, with his second youngest child in his arms. Mrs
+Swinton had their baby at her bosom, and the other four poor, terrified,
+helpless creatures were hirpling at their sides, holding them by the
+skirts, and often looking round in terror, dreading the persecutors, by
+whom they were in that dismal and inclement night so cast upon the mercy
+of the elements. But He that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb was
+their protector.
+
+"You see, Ringan Gilhaize," said the minister, "how it fares with them
+in this world whose principles are at variance with the pretensions of
+man. But we are mercifully dealt by--a rougher manner and a harder
+heart, in the agent of persecution that has driven us from house and
+home, I had laid my account for; therefore, even in this dispensation, I
+can see the gentle hand of a gracious Master, and I bow the head of
+thankfulness."
+
+While we were thus speaking and walking towards Quharist, several of the
+neighbours, who had likewise heard the alarm of what had thus come to
+pass, joined us on the way; and I felt within myself that it was a proud
+thing to be able to give refuge and asylum to an aged gospel minister
+and his family in such a time and on such a night.
+
+We had not been long in the house when a great concourse of his friends
+and people gathered around, and among others Nahum Chapelrig, who had
+been some time his father's successor in the school. But all present
+were molested and angry with him, for he came in battle array, with the
+sword and gun that he had carried in the raids of the civil war, and was
+bragging of valorous things then needful to be done.
+
+"Nahum Chapelrig," said the Worthy to him with severity, "this is no
+conduct for the occasion. It would hae been a black day for Scotland had
+her children covenanted themselves for temporal things. No, Nahum; if
+the prelatic reprobation now attempted on the kirk gang nae farther
+than outing her ministers from their kirks and manses, it maun be
+tholet; so look to it, that ye give not the adversary cause to reproach
+us with longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt when we are free to taste of
+the heavenly manna. I redde ye, therefore, Nahum Chapelrig, before these
+witnesses, to unbuckle that belt of war, and lay down thae weapons of
+offence. The time of the shield and banner may come owre soon upon us.
+Let us not provoke the smiter, lest he draw his sword against us, and
+have law and reason on his side. Therefore, I say unto thee, Peter, put
+up thy sword."
+
+The zealous dominie, being thus timeously rebuked, unharnessed himself,
+and the minister having returned thanks for the softness with which the
+oppression was let down upon him, and for the pious affection of his
+people, we returned home to our respective dwellings.
+
+But though by this Christian submission the power of cruelty was at that
+time rendered innocent towards all those who did as Mr Swinton had done,
+we were, nevertheless, not allowed to remain long unvisited by another
+swirl of the rising storm. Before the year was out, Fairfoul, the
+Glasgow Antichrist, sent upon us one of the getts that prelacy was then
+so fast adopting for her sons and heirs. A lang, thin, bare lad he was,
+that had gotten some spoonful or two of pagan philosophy at college, but
+never a solid meal of learning, nor, were we to judge by his greedy
+gaping, even a satisfactory meal of victuals. His name was Andrew
+Dornock; and, poor fellow, being eschewed among us on account of his
+spiritual leprosy, he drew up with divers loose characters, that were
+nae overly nice of their company.
+
+This made us dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of
+his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his
+parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught I ken to the
+contrary, that, instead of believing the Gospel according to Charles
+Stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called Matthew, Mark,
+Luke and John, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew more
+than the names. But be that as it may, to a surety he did grievously
+yell and cry, because we preferred listening to the Gospel melody of Mr
+Swinton under a tree to his feckless havers in the kirk; as if it was
+nae a more glorious thing to worship God in the freedom and presence of
+universal Nature, beneath the canopy of all the heavens, than to bow the
+head in the fetters of episcopal bondage below the stoury rafters of an
+auld bigging, such as our kirk was, a perfect howf of cloks and spiders.
+Indeed, for that matter, it was said that the only sensible thing Andrew
+Dornock ever uttered from the pulpit was, when he first rose to speak
+therein, and which was caused by a spider, that just at the moment
+lowered itself down into his mouth: "O Lord," cried the curate, "we're
+puzhened wi' speeders!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+It might have been thought, considering the poor hand which the prelatic
+curates made of it in their endeavours to preach, that they would have
+set themselves down content with the stipend, and allowed the flocks to
+follow their own shepherds in peace; but their hearts were filled with
+the bitterness of envy at the sight of the multitudes that went forth to
+gather the manna in the fields, and their malice was exasperated to a
+wonderful pitch of wickedness by the derision and contempt with which
+they found themselves regarded. No one among them all, however, felt
+this envy and malice more stirring within him, than did the
+arch-apostate James Sharp; for the faithfulness of so many ministers was
+a terror and a reproach to his conscience and apostacy, and made him
+labour with an exceeding zeal and animosity to extirpate so many
+evidences of his own religious guilt. Accordingly, by his malignant
+counsellings, edicts and decrees came out against our tabernacle in the
+wilderness, and under the opprobrious name of conventicles, our holy
+meetings were made prohibited offences, and our ministers subjected to
+pains and penalties, as sowers of sedition.
+
+It is a marvellous thing to think of the madness with which the minds of
+those in authority at that time were kindled; first, to create causes of
+wrong to the consciences of the people, and afterwards to enact laws for
+the natural fruit of that frantic policy. The wanton imposition of the
+prelatic oppression begat our field preachings, and the attempts to
+disperse us by the sword brought on resistance. But it belongs not to me
+and my story to treat of the folly of a race and government, upon whom a
+curse was so manifestly pronounced; I shall therefore return from this
+generality to those particulars wherein I was myself a witness or a
+sufferer.
+
+During the greater part of the year after the banishment of Mr Swinton
+from the manse and kirk, we met with little molestation; but from time
+to time rumours came over us like the first breathings of the cold
+blasts in autumn, that forerun the storms of winter. All thoughts of
+innocent pastimes and pleasures passed away, like the yellow leaves that
+fall from the melancholy trees; and there was a heaviness in the tread,
+and a solemnity in the looks of every one, that showed how widely the
+shadows of coming woes were darkening the minds of men.
+
+But though the Court of Commission, which the apostate James Sharp
+procured to be established for the cognisance of those who refused to
+acknowledge the prelatic usurpation, was, in its proceedings, guided by
+as little truth or principle as the Spanish inquisition, the violence
+and tyranny of its awards fell less on those of my degree than on the
+gentry; and it was not till the drunkard Turner was appointed general of
+the West Country that our personal sufferings began.
+
+The curates furnished him with lists of recusants; and power having been
+given unto him to torment men for many days, he was as remorseless as
+James Sharp's own Court in the fines which he levied, and in eating the
+people up, by sending his men to live upon them at free quarters, till
+the fines were paid.
+
+In our neighbourhood we were for some time gently dealt with; for the
+colonel who, at Ayr, had the command under Turner, was of a humane
+spirit, and for a season, though the rumour of the oppressions in
+Dumfries-shire and Galloway, where the drunkard himself reigned and
+ruled, dismayed and troubled us beyond utterance, we were still
+permitted to taste of the Gospel pastures with our own faithful
+shepherd.
+
+But this was a blessing too great in those days to be of a continuance
+to any flock. The mild and considerate gentleman, who had softened the
+rigour of the prelatic rage, was removed from his command, and in his
+place came certain cruel officers, who, like the serpents that were sent
+among the children of Israel in the desert, defiled our dwellings, and
+afflicted many of us even unto death. The change was the more bitterly
+felt, because it was sudden, and came upon us in an unexpected manner,
+of which I will here set down some of the circumstantials.
+
+According to the usage among us, from the time when Mr Swinton was
+thrust from the ministry, the parish had assembled, on the third Lord's
+Day of May, in the year 1665, under the big sycamore-tree at Zachariah
+Smylie's gable, and which has ever since been reverenced by the name of
+the Poopit Tree. A cart served him for the place of lecture and
+exhortation; and Zachariah Smylie's daughter, Rebecca Armour, a godly
+widow, who resided with him, had, as her custom was in fine weather,
+ordered and arranged all the stools and chairs in the house, with the
+milk and washing-boynes upside down, around the cart as seats for the
+aged. When the day was wet or bleak, the worship was held in the barn;
+but on this occasion the morning was lown and the lift clear, and the
+natural quietude of the Sabbath reigned over all the fields. We had sung
+a portion of the psalm, and the harmonious sound of voices and spirits
+in unison was spreading into the tranquil air, as the pleasant fragrancy
+of flowers diffuses itself around, and the tune, to which we sung the
+divine inspiration, was the sweet and solemn melody of the Martyrs.
+
+Scarcely, however, had we proceeded through the second verse, when Mr
+Swinton, who was sitting on a stool in the cart, with his back to the
+house, started up and said, "Christians, dinna be disheartened, but I
+think I see yonder the glimmerin' of spears coming atween the hedges."
+
+At these words we all rose alarmed, and, on looking round, saw some
+eight or ten soldiers, in the path leading from the high road, coming
+towards us. The children and several of the women moved to run away, but
+Mr Swinton rebuked their timerarious fear, and said,--
+
+"O! ye of little faith, wherefore are ye thus dismayed? Let us put our
+trust in Him, who is mightier than all the armies of all the kings of
+all the earth. We are here doing homage to Him, and He will protect His
+true vassals and faithful people. In His name, therefore, Christians, I
+charge you to continue His praises in the psalm; for in His strength I
+will, to the end of my intent, this day fulfil the word and the
+admonition; yea, even in the very flouting of the adversary's banner."
+
+The vehemence of Elijah was in his voice; we resumed our former
+postures; and he himself leading on the psalm, we began to sing anew in
+a louder strain, for we were fortified and encouraged by his holy
+intrepidity. No one moved as it were an eyelid; the very children were
+steadfast; and all looked towards the man of God as he sat in his humble
+seat, serene, and more awful than ever was Solomon on the royal throne
+of the golden lions, arrayed in all his glory.
+
+The rough soldiers were struck for a time with amazement at the
+religious bravery with which the worshipping was continued, and they
+halted as they drew near, and whispered together, and some of them spoke
+as if the fear of the Lord had fallen upon them. During the whole time
+that we continued singing, they stood as if they durst not venture to
+disturb us; but when the psalm was finished, their sergeant, a lewd
+roister, swore at them, and called on them to do their duty.
+
+The men then advanced, but with one accord we threw ourselves in between
+them and the cart, and cried to Mr Swinton to make his escape; he,
+however, rose calmly from his seat and said,--
+
+"Soldiers, shed no blood; let us finish our prayer,--the worst of men
+after condemnation are suffered to pray,--ye will, therefore, not surely
+refuse harmless Christians the boon that is aloo't to malefactors? At
+the conclusion I will go peaceably with you, for we are not rebels; we
+yield all bodily obedience to the powers that be, but the upright mind
+will not bend to any earthly ordinance. Our bodies are subject to the
+King's authority, and to you as his servants, if ye demand them, we are
+ready to deliver them up."
+
+But the sergeant told him harshly to make haste and come down from the
+cart. Two of the men then went into the house, and brought out the churn
+and bread and cheese, and with much ribaldry began to eat and drink, and
+to speak profane jests to the young women. But my brother interposed,
+and advised all the women and children to return to their homes. In the
+meantime, Zachariah Smylie had gone to the stable and saddled his horse,
+and Rebecca Armour had made a small providing of provisions for Mr
+Swinton to take with him to the Tolbooth of Irvine; for thither the
+soldiers were intending to carry him that night, in order that he might
+be sent to Glasgow next day with other sufferers. When, however, the
+horse was brought out, and the godly man was preparing to mount the
+sergeant took him by the sleeve, and pulled him back, saying, "The horse
+is for me."
+
+Verily at this insult I thought my heart would have leapt out; and every
+one present gurled and growled; but the soldiers laughed at seeing the
+sergeant on horseback. Mr Swinton, however, calmly advised us to make no
+obstacle: "Good," said he, "will come of this, and though for a season
+we are ordained to tribulation, and to toil through the slough of
+despond, yet a firm footing and a fair and green path lies in a peaceful
+land beyond."
+
+The soldiers then took him away, the blasphemous sergeant riding, like a
+Merry Andrew, on Zachariah Smylie's horse before them, and almost the
+whole congregation following with mournful and heavy hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton in
+following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a
+tumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, on
+the second day after he was sent from Irvine to Glasgow, a gang of
+Turner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. None
+suffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house and
+mine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we had
+committed the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring our
+minister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their home
+in a wild and wintry night.
+
+We were both together, with old Zachariah Smylie, fined each in a heavy
+sum.
+
+Thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and our
+neighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, our
+friends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us the
+means, for we had not a sufficiency of our own. But this, instead of
+mitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over us
+to persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in that
+neighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that he
+not only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with which
+it was paid to double his severity. Sixteen domineering camp reprobates
+were quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine.
+
+What an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth I
+need not attempt to describe. For some days they rampaged as if we had
+been barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for their
+ravenous wastrie;--but I was resolved to keep a uniform and steady
+abstinence from all cause of offence. So seeing they were passing from
+insolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her two
+servant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn.
+
+This silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; and
+in the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless and
+peaceful demeanour that I could discern more than one of them beginning
+to be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment.
+But their officer, Lieutenant Swaby, an Englisher by birth, and a sinner
+by education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. He happened to
+cast his eye on Martha Swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then but
+in her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that she
+was in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertain
+fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,
+however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her
+fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only
+made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust
+herself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and woman
+was rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace and
+human charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made
+him fain to be removed from among us.
+
+For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of
+their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was
+discerned that they were as much under the common fears and
+superstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in so
+much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and
+warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,
+they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,
+however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless
+partook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it was
+thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.
+
+But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not
+daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old
+Mysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he
+entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and
+from less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend a
+cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the
+bonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.
+
+Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the
+proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's
+daughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and
+said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst
+with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of
+furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of
+her acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon the
+profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,
+merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.
+
+Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,
+when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led in
+the times of the civil war to the raid of Dunse-hill. He was sib to
+herself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though not
+without a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree;
+besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home a
+heart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasons
+and occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called Swaby by any
+other name than the cavalier.
+
+Between Mysie and Robin, with some of his companions, a paction was made
+that she should keep her tryst with Swaby, and settle on a time and
+place for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find Martha
+Swinton; Robin covenanting that between him and his friends the
+cavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. Accordingly, at
+the time appointed, when she met Swaby on the road where they had
+foregathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house on
+Hallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no to
+bring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief.
+
+After parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin the
+other, Robin Finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with a
+seeming respectfulness, said,--
+
+"Ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; I hope ye hae gi'en her nae
+offence?"
+
+The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed the
+gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirpling
+homeward--"The devil! is she one of that sort?"
+
+"I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robin
+with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her
+liking."
+
+Swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was then
+nearly out of sight. Robin at the same time moved onward.
+
+"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with you
+about the old--"
+
+"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I would
+na for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o'
+her cantrips."
+
+"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low and
+apprehensive voice.
+
+"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin very
+seriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world
+were I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a pious
+wife, sir,--deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to be
+hang'd if she was a witch,--an' it could be proven upon her."
+
+But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the
+contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil take
+her, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."
+
+"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal.
+Surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsome
+young lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever,
+that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;--and what I hae heard tell
+of was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain,
+that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye were
+sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that
+ye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your
+judgment,--the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye
+could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her
+to the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae
+farther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye
+respek yoursel."
+
+In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the
+clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore
+state o' dread and wonderment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+It seems that shortly after Robin Finnie had departed from the gallant
+cavalier, a lad, called Sandy Macgill, who was colleagued with him in
+the plot, came towards the captain with looks cast to the earth, and so
+full of thought, that he seemingly noticed nothing. Going forward in
+this locked-up state of the outward sense, he came close upon Swaby,
+when, affecting to be startled out of his meditations, he stopped
+suddenly short, and looked in the lieutenant's broad face, with all the
+alarm he could put into his own features, till he saw he was frightened
+out of his judgment, when he said,--
+
+"Gude be about us, sir, ye hae gotten scaith; the blighting blink o' an
+ill e'e has lighted upon you.--O, sir; O, sir! tak tent o' yoursel!"
+
+Sandy had prepared a deal more to say, but finding himself overcome with
+an inward inclination to risibility at the sight of Swaby's
+terrification, he was obligated to flee as fast as he could from the
+spot; the which wild-like action of his no doubt dismayed the cavalier
+fully as meikle as all he had said.
+
+But it's the nature of man to desire to do whatever he is forbidden.
+Notwithstanding all their mystical admonitions, Swaby still persevered
+in his evil intents, and accordingly he was seen lurking, without his
+sword, about the heel of the evening, on Hallowe'en, near the skirts of
+the clachan where Mysie Gilmour lived. And, as it had been conspired
+among her friends, Mungo Affleck, her gude-brother, a man weel stricken
+in years, but of a youthy mind, and a perfect pen-gun at a crack, came
+across the cavalier in his path, and Swaby having before some slight
+acquaintance with his garb and canny observes, hovered for a little in
+discourse with Mungo.
+
+"I counsel you, sir," said the pawkie auld carl as they were separating,
+"no to gang far afield this night, for this is a night that there is na
+the like o' in a' the year round. It's Hallowe'en, sir, so be counselled
+by me, and seek your hame betimes; for mony a ane has met with things on
+Hallowe'en that they never after forgot."
+
+Considering the exploit on which the cavalier was then bowne, it's no to
+be thought that this was very heartening music; but for all that, he
+said blithely, as Mungo told me himself, "Nae, not so fast, governor,
+tell us what you mean by Hallowe'en!"
+
+"Hallowe'en!" cried Mungo Affleck, with a sound o' serious sincerity.
+"Do ye no ken Hallowe'en? but I need na say that. Ye'll excuse me,
+captain, what can you Englishers, that are brought up in the darkness o'
+human ordinances in Gospel things, and who live in the thraldom of
+episcopalian ignorance, ken o' Hallowe'en, or o' any other solemn day
+set apart for an occasion?--O, sir, Hallowe'en among us is a dreadful
+night! Witches and warlocks, and a' lang-nebbit things, hae a power and
+a dominion unspeakable on Hallowe'en. The de'il at other times gi'es,
+it's said, his agents a mutchkin o' mischief, but on this night it's
+thought they hae a chappin; and one thing most demonstrable is;--but,
+sir, the sun's down--the blessed light o' day is ayont the hill, and
+it's no safe to be subjek to the whisking o' the mildew frae the tails
+o' the benweed ponies that are saddled for yon awfu' carnavaulings,
+where Cluty plays on the pipes! so I wis you, sir, gude night and weel
+hame.--O, sir, an ye could be persuaded!--Tak an auld man's advice, and
+rather read a chapter of THE BOOK, an it should even be the unedyfying
+tenth of Nehemiah, than be seen at the gloaming in this gait, about the
+dyke-sides, like a wolf yearning for some tender lamb of a defenceless
+fold."
+
+Mungo having thus delivered himself, went away, leaving Swaby as it were
+in a swither; for, on looking back, the old man saw him standing half
+turned round as if he was minded to go home. The power of the sin was,
+however, strong upon him, and shortly after the dusk had closed in, when
+the angels had lighted their candles at their windows in the sky, to
+watch over the world in the hours of sleep, Swaby, with stealthy steps,
+came to Mysie Gilmour's door, and softly tirling at the pin was
+admitted; for all within was ready for his reception.
+
+Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill having carried thither Zachariah Smylie's
+black ram, a condumacious and outstropolous beast, which they had laid
+in Mysie's bed, and keepit frae baaing with a gude fothering of
+kail-blades and a cloute soaken in milk.
+
+Mysie, on opening the door, said to the gallant cavalier,--
+
+"Just step in, ye'll fin' a' ready," and she blew out her crusie which
+she had in her hand, and letting the captain grope in by himself,
+hirpled as fast as she could to one of the neighbours; for, although she
+had covenanted with him to come without his sword, she was terrified
+with the fear of some dreadful upshot.
+
+As soon as he was in, Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill went and hearkened
+at the window, where they heard the gay gallant stumbling in the floor,
+churming sweet and amorous words as he went groping his way towards the
+bed where the auld toop was breathing thickly, mumbling and crunching
+the kail-blades in a state of as great sensual delight and satisfaction
+as any beast could well be. But no sooner had the cavalier placed his
+hand on the horned head of the creature than he uttered a yell of
+despair; in the same moment the toop, in little less fright, jumpit out
+of the bed against him and knocked him down over a stool with a lounder.
+Verily Providence might be said, with reverence, to have had a hand in
+the mirth of his punishment; for the ram recovering its senses before
+the cavalier, and being in dread of danger, returned to the charge, and
+began to butt him as if it would have been his death. The cries that
+ensued are not to be told; all the neighbours came running to the door,
+to see what was the matter, some with lighted sticks in their hands, and
+some with burning coals in the tongs. Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill
+were like to die of laughing; but fearing the wrathful ram might dunt
+out the bowels or the brains, if he had any, of the poor young cavalier,
+they opened the door, and so delivered him from its horns. He was,
+however, by this time, almost in a state of distraction, believing the
+beast was the real Evil One; so that he no sooner felt himself free and
+saw the lights, than he flew to his quarters as if he had been pursued
+by a legion.
+
+Some of his own soldiers that were lying in the clachan, and who had
+come out with the rest of the folk, saw through the stratagem, and,
+forgetting all reverence for their afflicted commander, laughed louder
+and longer than any body. In short, the story was o'er the whole parish
+next day, and the very weans, wherever the cavalier appeared, used to
+cry ba at him, by which his very life was made a shame and a burden to
+him, insomuch that he applied for leave to give up his commission, and
+returned home to his kindred in the south of England, and we never heard
+tell of him after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+But although in the exploit of Mysie Gilmour, and Robin Finnie with his
+confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of
+lessening the dread and fear in which our simple country folk held his
+Majesty's ungracious fine-levers, the cavalier captains and soldiers,
+still there was a gradual ingrowth of the weight of the oppression,
+wherewith we were laden more as bondsmen and slaves than as subjects;
+and, in the meantime, the spirit of that patriarch, my apostolic
+grandfather, was gathering to heart and energy within the silent
+recesses of my afflicted bosom.
+
+I heard the murmuring, deep and sad, of my neighbours, at the insult and
+the contumely which they were obligated to endure from the irresponsible
+licentiousness of military domination,--but I said nothing; I was
+driven, with my pious wife and our simple babies, from my own hearth by
+the lewd conversation of the commissioned freebooters, and obligated to
+make our home in an outhouse, that we might not be molested in our
+prayers by their wicked ribaldry,--but I said nothing; I saw my honest
+neighbours plundered--their sons insulted--and their daughters put to
+shame,--but I said nothing; I was a witness when our godly minister,
+after having been driven with his wife and family out to the mercy of
+the winter's wind, was seized in the very time while he was worshipping
+the Maker of us all, and taken like a malefactor to prison,--but I said
+nothing; and I was told the story of the machinations against his
+innocent virgin daughter, when she was left defenceless among us,--and
+still I said nothing. Like the icy winter, tyranny had so encrusted my
+soul that my taciturnity seemed as hard, impenetrable, cold and cruel as
+the frozen river's surface, but the stream of my feelings ran stronger
+and fiercer beneath; and the time soon came when, in proportion to the
+still apathy that made my brother and my friends to wonder how I so
+quietly bore the events of so much, my inward struggles burst through
+all outward passive forms, and, like the hurling and the drifting ice,
+found no effectual obstacle to its irresistible and natural destination.
+
+Mrs Swinton, the worthy lady of that saint, our pastor, on hearing what
+had been plotted against the chaste innocence of her fair and blooming
+child, came to me, and with tears, in a sense the tears of a widow, very
+earnestly entreated of me that I would take the gentle Martha to her
+cousin, the Laird of Garlins, in Dumfries-shire, she having heard that
+some intromissions, arising out of pacts and covenants between my wife's
+cousin and the Laird of Barscob, obligated me to go thither. This was on
+the Monday after the battering that the cavalier got from Zachariah
+Smylie's black ram; and I, reasonably thinking that there was judgment
+in the request, and that I might serve, by my compliance, the helpless
+residue, and the objects of a persecuted Christian's affections, I
+consented to take the damsel with me as far as Garlins, in Galloway; the
+which I did.
+
+When I had left Martha Swinton with her friends, who, being persons of
+pedigree and opulence, were better able to guard her, I went to the end
+of my own journey; and here, from what ensued, it is needful I should
+relate that, in this undertaking, I left my own house under the care of
+my brother, and that I was armed with my grandfather's sword.
+
+It happened that, on Tuesday the 13th November 1666, as I was returning
+homeward from Barscob, I fell in with three godly countrymen, about a
+mile south of the village of Dalry, in Galloway, and we entered into a
+holy and most salutary conversation anent the sufferings and the
+fortitude of God's people in that time of trouble. Discoursing with
+great sobriety on that melancholious theme, we met a gang of Turner's
+blackcuffs, driving before them, like beasts to the slaughter, several
+miserable persons to thrash out the corn, that it might be sold, of one
+of my companions, who, being himself a persecuted man, and unable to pay
+the fine forfeited by his piety, had some days before been forced to
+flee his house.
+
+On seeing the soldiers and their prey coming towards us, the poor man
+would have run away; but we exhorted him not to be afraid, for he might
+pass unnoticed, and so he did; for, although those whom the military
+rabiators were driving to thrash his corn knew him well, they were
+enabled to bear up, and were so endowed with the strength of martyrdom,
+that each of them, only by a look, signified that they were in the
+spirit of fellowship with him.
+
+After they had gone by, his heart, however, was so afflicted that so
+many worthy persons should be so harmed for his sake, that he turned
+back, and, in despite of all our entreaties, went to them, while we went
+forward to Dalry, where we entered a small public, and, having ordered
+some refreshment, for we were all weary, we sat meditating on what could
+be the upshot of such tyranny.
+
+While we were so sitting, a cry got up that our companion was seized by
+the soldiers, and that they were tormenting him on a red-hot gridiron
+for not having paid his fine.
+
+My blood boiled at the news. I rose, and those who were with me
+followed, and we ran to the house--his own house--where the poor man
+was. I beseeched two of the soldiers who were at the door to desist from
+their cruelty; but while I was speaking, other two that were within came
+raging out, like curs from a kennel, and flew at me; and one of them
+dared to strike me with his nieve in the mouth. My grandfather's sword
+flew out at the blow, and the insulter lay wounded and bleeding at my
+feet. My companions in the same moment rushed on the other soldiers,
+dashed their teeth down their throats, and, twisting their firelocks
+from their hands, set the prisoner free.
+
+In this there was rashness, but there was also redemption and glory. We
+could not stop at what we had done;--we called on those who had been
+brought to thrash the corn to join with us, and they joined;--we
+hastened to the next farm;--the spirit of indignation was there before
+us, and master and man, and father and son, there likewise found that
+the hilts of their fathers' covenanted swords fitted their avenging
+grasps. We had now fired the dry stubble of the land--the flame
+spread--we advanced, and grew stronger and stronger. The hills, as it
+were, clapped their hands, and the valleys shouted of freedom. From all
+sides men and horse came exulting towards us; the gentleman and the hind
+knew no distinction. The cry was, "Down with tyranny--we are and we will
+make free!" The fields rejoiced with the multitude of our feet as we
+advanced towards Dumfries, where Turner lay. His blackcuffs flung down
+their arms and implored our mercy. We entered Dumfries, and the
+Oppressor was our prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+Hitherto the rising at Dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire.
+The strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms
+became our weapons; but when we had gained possession of Dumfries, and
+had set a ward over the house where we had seized Turner, I saw that we
+had waded owre far into the river to think of returning, and that to go
+on was safer than to come back. It was indeed manifest that we had been
+triumphant rather by our haste than by the achievements of victorious
+battle; and it could be hidden from no man's thought that the power and
+the vengeance both of the government and the prelacy would soon be set
+in array against us. I therefore bethought myself, in that peril of our
+lives and cause, of two things which seemed most needful; first, Not to
+falter in our enterprise until we had proved the utmost of the Lord's
+pleasure in our behalf; and second, To use the means under Him which, in
+all human undertakings, are required to bring whatsoever is ordained to
+pass.
+
+Whether in these things I did well or wisely, I leave to the
+adjudication of the courteous reader; but I can lay my hand upon my
+heart, and say aloud, yea, even to the holy skies, "I thought not of
+myself nor of mine, but only of the religious rights of my
+sorely-oppressed countrymen."
+
+From the moment in which I received the blow of the soldier, up till the
+hour when Turner was taken, I had been the head and leader of the
+people. My sword was never out of my grip, and I marched as it were in a
+path of light, so wonderful was the immediate instinct with which I was
+directed to the accomplishment of that adventure, the success of which
+overwhelmed the fierce and cruel Antichrists at Edinburgh with
+unspeakable consternation and panic. But I lacked that knowledge of the
+art of war by which men are banded into companies and ruled, however
+manifold their diversities, to one end and effect, so that our numbers,
+having by this time increased to a great multitude, I felt myself
+utterly unable to govern them. We were as a sea of billows, that move
+onward all in one way, obedient to the impulse and deep fetchings of the
+tempestuous breath of the awakened winds of heaven, but which often
+break into foam, and waste their force in a roar of ineffectual rage.
+
+Seeing this, and dreading the consequences thereof, I conferred with
+some of those whom I had observed the most discreet and considerate in
+the course of the raid, and we came to a resolve to constitute and
+appoint Captain Learmont our chief commander, he having earned an
+experience of the art and stratagems of war under the renowned Lesley.
+Had we abided by that determination, some have thought our expedition
+might have come to a happier issue; but no human helps and means could
+change what was evidently ordained otherwise. It happened, however, that
+Colonel Wallace, another officer of some repute, also joined us, and his
+name made him bright and resplendent to our enthusiasm. While we were
+deliberating whom to choose for our leader, Colonel Wallace was in the
+same breath, for his name's sake, proposed, and was united in the
+command with Learmont. This was a deadly error, and ought in all time
+coming to be a warning and an admonition to people and nations in their
+straits and difficulties, never to be guided, in the weighty shocks and
+controversies of disordered fortunes, by any prejudice or affection so
+unsubstantial as the echo of an honoured name. For this Wallace, though
+a man of questionless bravery, and a gentleman of good account among all
+who knew him, had not received any gift from Nature of that spirit of
+masterdom without which there can be no command; so that he was no
+sooner appointed to lead us on, with Learmont as his second, than his
+mind fell into a strange confusion, and he heightened disorder into
+anarchy by ordering over much. We could not, however, undo the evil,
+without violating the discipline that we were all conscious our forces
+so grievously lacked; but, from the very moment that I saw in what
+manner he took upon him the command, I augured of nothing but disaster.
+
+Learmont was a collected and an urbane character, and did much to temper
+and turn aside the thriftless ordinances of his superior. He, seeing how
+much our prosperity was dependent on the speed with which we could reach
+Edinburgh, hastened forward everything with such alacrity that we were
+ready on the morrow by mid-day to set out from Dumfries. But the element
+of discord was now in our cause, and I was reproached by many for having
+abdicated my natural right to the command. It was in vain that I tried
+to redeem the fault by taking part with Learmont, under the
+determination, when the black hour of defeat or dismay should come upon
+us, to take my stand with him, and, regardless of Wallace, to consider
+him as the chief and champion of our covenanted liberties. But why do I
+dwell on these intents? Let me hasten to describe the upshot of our
+enterprise.
+
+As soon as we had formed, in the manner herein related, something like a
+head and council for ourselves, we considered, before leaving Dumfries,
+what ought to be done with General Turner, and ordered him to be brought
+before us; for those who had suffered from his fell orders and
+licentious soldiery were clamorous for his blood. But when the man was
+brought in, he was so manifestly mastered by his wine, as his vice often
+made him, that we thought it would be as it were to ask a man mad, or
+possessed, to account for his actions, as at that time to put the
+frantic drunkard on his defence; so we heeded not his obstreperous
+menaces, but ordered him to be put into bed, and his papers to be
+searched for and laid before us.
+
+In this moderation there was wisdom; for, by dealing so gently by one
+who had proved himself so ruthless an agent of the prelatic aggressions,
+we bespoke the good opinion even of many among our adversaries; and in
+the end it likewise proved a measure of justice as well as of mercy.
+For, on examining his papers, it appeared, that pitiless as his
+domineering had been, it was far short of the universal cruelty of his
+instructions from the apostate James Sharp, and those in the council
+with him, who had delivered themselves over as instruments to the
+arbitrary prerogatives and tyrannous pretensions of the court. We
+therefore resolved to proceed no farther against him, but to keep him as
+an hostage in our hands. Many, however, among the commonalty complained
+of our lenity; for they had endured in their persons, their gear and
+their families, great severities; and they grudged that he was not
+obligated to taste the bitterness of the cup of which he had forced them
+to drink so deeply.
+
+In the meantime all the country became alive with the news of our
+exploit. The Covenanters of the shire of Ayr, headed by several of their
+ejected ministers, whom they had cherished in the solitary dens and
+hidings in the moors and hills, to which they had been forced to flee
+from the proclamation against the field-preachings, advanced to meet us
+on our march. Verily it was a sight that made the heart of man dinle at
+once with gladness and sorrow to behold, as the day dawned on our
+course, in crossing the wide and lonely wilderness of Cumnock-moor,
+those religious brethren coming towards us, moving in silence over the
+heath, like the shadows of the slowly-sailing clouds of the summer sky.
+
+As we were toiling through the deep heather on the eastern skirts of the
+Mearns-moor, a mist hovered all the morning over the pad of Neilston,
+covering like a snowy fleece the sides of the hills down almost to the
+course of our route, in such a manner that we could see nothing on the
+left beyond it. We were then within less than fourteen miles of Glasgow,
+where General Dalziel lay with the King's forces, keeping in thraldom
+the godly of that pious city and its neighbourhood. Captain Learmont,
+well aware, from the eager character of the man, that he would be fain
+to intercept us, and fearful of being drawn into jeopardy by the mist,
+persuaded Wallace to halt us some time.
+
+As November was far advanced, it was thought by the country folk that
+the mist would clear away about noon. We accordingly made a pause, and
+sat down on the ground; for many were weary, having over-fatigued
+themselves in their zeal to come up with the main body, and we all stood
+in need of rest.
+
+Scarcely, however, had we cast ourselves in a desultory manner on the
+heather, when some one heard the thud of a distant drum in the mist, and
+gave the alarm; at which we all again suddenly started to our feet, and
+listening, were not long left in doubt of the sound. Orders were
+accordingly given to place ourselves in array for battle; and while we
+were obeying the command in the best manner our little skill allowed,
+the beating of the drum came louder and nearer, intermingled with the
+shrill war-note of the spirity fife.
+
+Every one naturally thought of the King's forces; and the Reverend Mr.
+Semple, seeing that we were in some measure prepared to meet them,
+stepped out in front with all his worthy brethren in the camp, and
+having solemneezed us for worship, gave out a psalm.
+
+By the time we had sung the first three verses the drum and fife sounded
+so near, that I could discern they played the tune of "John, come kiss
+me now," which left me in no doubt that the soldiers in the mist were my
+own friends and neighbours; for it was the same tune which was played
+when the men of our parish went to the raid of Dunse-hill, and which, in
+memorial of that era, had been preserved as a sacred melody amongst us.
+
+Being thus convinced, I stepped out from my place to the ministers, and
+said, "They are friends that are coming." The worship was in consequence
+for a short space suspended, and I presently after saw my brother at the
+head of our neighbours coming out of the cloud; whereupon I went forward
+to meet him, and we shook hands sorrowfully.
+
+"This is an unco thing, Ringan," were his first words; "but it's the
+Lord's will, and HE is able to work out a great salvation."
+
+I made no answer; but inquiring for my family, of whom it was a
+cheering consolation to hear as blithe an account as could reasonably be
+hoped for, I walked with him to our captains, and made him known to them
+as my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk
+was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was
+agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with
+us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and,
+to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and
+intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our
+adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities;
+that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so
+grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked
+and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of
+worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights
+and privileges.
+
+The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a
+day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the
+Lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a
+sacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on the
+occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, we
+had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those
+whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as
+blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbath
+morning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.
+
+But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation
+of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate James
+Sharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to be
+then in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew the
+deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes
+he had made us suffer. The sough, therefore, of our approach was to the
+consternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of an
+avenging God, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of the
+engines of wrath and doom. Some said that he sat in the midst of the
+counsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying to
+and fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his
+teeth. But though all power of forethought and policy was taken from
+him, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were more
+governed, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. They
+commanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrors
+of the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were never
+committed, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection of
+their lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress,
+in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in their
+desire to come with the aid of their helps and means.
+
+The tidings of the preparations for the security of Edinburgh, with the
+unhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, between
+the captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting the
+raid, had, even before we left Lanerk, bred much sedition among us, and
+an ominous dubiety of success. Nevertheless, our numbers continued to
+increase, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle,
+that, had the Lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was no
+reason to think the human means insufficient for the end. But in the
+mysteries of the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the great
+purposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer.
+Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town,
+the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising
+wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening
+of His countenance went no farther with us at that time.
+
+Nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for the
+year was old in November, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, and
+Nature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs,
+forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mourned
+over the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all her
+pleasant places.
+
+As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless
+boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm,
+trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal
+of many,--and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still
+more and more exasperated our discontent. I observed that the men began
+to turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and to
+mutter and murmur to one another. But still we all advanced, gradually,
+however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of the
+river's stream breaking asunder in a thaw.
+
+In the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the clouds
+were gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but the
+rain was lavished without measure. The roads became sloughs,--our feet
+were drawn heavily out of the clay,--the burns and brooks raged from
+bank to brae,--and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that
+towards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of our
+broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night,
+scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left
+Lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came
+up. But still Captain Learmont thought, that as soon as the men had
+taken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outright
+to Edinburgh. Wallace, however, objected, and that night was spent
+between them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, our
+hardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-council
+against the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as I have
+said, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted to
+receive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but only
+bitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair.
+
+Seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned of
+the Lord, I retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on a
+rock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass.
+It was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around was
+dismayed and dishevelled. The storm had abated, and the rain was over,
+but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environed
+with perils. A cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over our
+camp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of the castle
+shone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold,
+were fresh in strength and ready for battle.
+
+I thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of the
+children of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and I
+marvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which I had been
+snatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in a
+scene of such inevitable woe. Sometimes, in the passion of that grief, I
+was tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of my
+affections. But as often as the thought came over my heart, with its
+soft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men who
+had borne in the march all that I had borne, and many of them in the
+cause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, I bowed my
+head and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if the
+arm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the Gospel, and
+delivering poor Scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of an
+anti-Christian usurpation in the kingly power.
+
+While I was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubting
+that before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail that
+smote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have been
+by the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, a
+light broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holy
+experiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, I beheld
+as it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, and
+disclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to rise
+from the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply of
+arbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of God, and laid waste
+His vineyard.
+
+I saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit still
+more grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture of
+the honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shown
+themselves so unworthy; and I had a foretaste in that hour of the
+fulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that were
+in store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. So that,
+although I rose from the rock whereon I was sitting, in the clear
+conviction that our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind,
+I yet had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end a
+link in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery with
+which Providence works good out of evil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+In the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set,
+some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the
+tidings that Dalziel and all the royal forces in Glasgow were coming
+upon us. This, though foreseen, caused a great panic, and a council of
+war, consisting, as usual, of ministers and officers, was held, to
+determine what should be done; but it was likewise, as usual, only a
+fruitless controversy. I, however, on this occasion, feeling myself
+sustained in spirit by the assurances I had received in my meditations
+on the rock, ventured to speak my mind freely; which was to the effect
+that, taking our dejected condition, the desertion of our friends, and
+our disappointments from the city, into consideration, we could do no
+better thing than evade the swords of our adversaries by disbanding
+ourselves, that each might be free to seek safety for himself.
+
+Many were inclined to this counsel; and I doubt not it would have been
+followed; but, while conferring together, an officer came from the
+privy-council to propose a cessation of arms till our demands could be
+considered. It was manifest that this was a wily stratagem to keep us in
+the snare till Dalziel had time to come up, and I did all in my power to
+make the council see it in the same light; but there was a blindness of
+mind among us, and the greater number thought it augured a speedy
+redress of the wrongs for which we had come to seek reparation. Nor did
+their obstinacy in this relax till next morning, when, instead of
+anything like their improbable hopes, came a proclamation ordering us to
+disperse, and containing neither promise of indemnity nor of pardon. But
+then it was too late. Dalziel was in sight. His army was coming like a
+stream along the foot of the Pentland-hills,--we saw his banners and the
+glittering of his arms, and the sound of his musicants came swelling on
+the breeze.
+
+It was plain that his purpose was to drive us in towards the town; but
+had we dispersed we might even then have frustrated his intent. There
+happened, however, besides Learmont and Wallace, to be several officers
+among us who had stubborn notions of military honour; and they would not
+permit so unsoldier-like a flight. There were also divers heated and
+fanatical spirits, whom, because our undertaking had been for religious
+ends, nothing could persuade that Providence would not interfere in some
+signal manner for their deliverance, yea, even to the overthrow of the
+enemy; and Mr Whamle, a minister, one of these, getting upon the top of
+the rock where I had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty
+things that the Lord did for the children of Israel in the valley of
+Ajalon, where He not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but
+enabled Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,--which to any
+composed mind was melancholious to hear.
+
+In sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to
+the spot, Dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle,
+brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of
+those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men,
+having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we
+repulsed him thrice.
+
+But the victory, as I have said, was not ordained for us. In the
+afternoon Dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen
+from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our
+phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,--and then we began to quit the
+field. The number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of
+the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. The dead might
+have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had
+respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of
+doing as Dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the
+fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common
+wrongs.
+
+When I saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments
+scattered over the fields, I fled with the flying, and gained, with
+about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the
+Pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been
+inclined, could not easily follow us. There, while we halted to rest a
+little, we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of
+battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in
+the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon,
+rolling slowly from behind Arthur's Seat, looked from her window in the
+clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger.
+
+The Reverend Mr Witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the
+gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,--
+
+"Friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the
+prey they pursue. They will track us long, and the hounds are not of a
+nature to lose scent, especially when they have tasted, as they have
+done this day, the rich blood of the faithful and the true. Therefore
+let us depart; but where, O where shall we find a home to receive
+us?--Where a place of rest for our weary limbs, or a safe stone for a
+pillow to our aching heads? But why do I doubt? Blameless as we are,
+even before man, of all offence, save that of seeking leave to worship
+God according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left
+without succour. No, my friends! though our bed be the damp grass and
+our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our
+drink the drumly burn, we have made for our hearts the down-beds of
+religious faith, and have found a banquet for our spirits in the
+ambrosial truths of the Gospel--luxuries that neither a James Sharp nor
+a Charles Stuart can ever enjoy, nor all the rents and revenues, fines
+and forfeitures, which princes may exact and prelates yearn to partake
+of, can buy."
+
+He then offered up a thanksgiving that we had been spared from the sword
+in the battle; after which we shook hands in silence together, and each
+pursued his own way.
+
+Mr Witherspoon lingered by my side as we descended the hill, and I
+discerned that he was inclined to be my companion; so we continued
+together, stretching towards the north-west, in order to fall into the
+Lithgow road, being mindet to pass along the skirts of Stirlingshire,
+thence into Lennox, in the hope of reaching Argyle's country by the way
+of the ferry of Balloch. But we had owre soon a cruel cause to change
+the course of our flight.
+
+In coming down towards the Amond-water, we saw a man running before us
+in the glimpse of the moonshine, and it was natural to conclude, from
+his gestures and the solitude of the place, that no one could be so
+far-a-field at such a time, but some poor fellow-fugitive from
+Rullion-green where the battle was fought; so we called to him to stop,
+and to fear no ill, for we were friends. Still, however he fled on, and
+heeded not our entreaty, which made us both marvel and resolve to
+overtake him. We thought it was not safe to follow long an unknown
+person who was so evidently afraid, and flying, as we supposed, to his
+home. Accordingly we hastened our speed, and I, being the nimblest
+reached him at a place where he was stopped by a cleft in the rocks on
+the river's woody brink.
+
+"Why do you fly so fast from us?" said I; "we're frae the Pentland-hills
+too."
+
+At these words he looked wildly round, and his face was as ghastly as a
+ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, I
+discovered in him my neighbour, Nahum Chapelrig, and I spoke to him by
+name.
+
+"O, Ringan Gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right
+hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic
+manner, "I am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of
+my days is amaist a' run out. I had been saved from the sword, spared
+from the spear, and, flying from the field, I went to a farm-house
+yonder; I sought admission and shelter for a forlorn Christian man; but
+the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of God.
+The farmer opened his casement, and speering if I had been at the raid
+of the Covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of God, I
+couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my
+breast, and is fast in my--"
+
+He could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle
+in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the
+ground where he stood, before Mr Witherspoon had time to come up.
+
+We both looked at poor guiltless Nahum as he lay on the grass, and,
+after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down
+aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the
+moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his
+martyred remains. We then consulted together; and having communed
+concerning the manner of Nahum's death, we resolved not to trust
+ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where
+the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such
+woful evidence of depravity of heart. So, instead of continuing our
+journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder
+of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and
+other untrodden ways.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+
+At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary,
+hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the
+birds in them were beginning to chirp,--we sat down and wist not what to
+do.
+
+Mr Witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in
+the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to
+gather in my bosom. I yearned for my family,--I mourned to know what had
+become of my brother in the battle,--and I grudged and marvelled
+wherefore it was that the royal and the great had so little respect for
+the religious honesty of harmless country folk.
+
+It was now the nine-and-twentieth day of November, but the weather for
+the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the
+glory of her light and beauty. As the gay and goodly sun looked over the
+eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered
+villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we
+could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end
+of poor Nahum Chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe.
+
+While we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a
+little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we
+intended to take. She had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit
+tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was
+probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the
+field.
+
+We both rose, and going towards her, Mr Witherspoon said, "For the love
+of God have compassion on two famishing Christians."
+
+The old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of
+time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence.
+
+"Hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister
+of the Gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae Janet Armstrong?" And
+she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute
+in which she carried the kit, saying, "Little did I think that sic an
+homage was in store for me, or that the merciful Heavens would e'er
+requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my
+power to help a persecuted servant of the living God. Mr Witherspoon, I
+ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling I hae gotten frae you when ye
+preached for our minister at Camrachle in the time of the great
+covenanting. I was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the
+raid of Dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a
+sinful misdooting of Providence, for I had twa wee bairns and but a toom
+garnel."
+
+She then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she
+was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a
+neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,--
+
+"This will be a blithe morning to John Armstrong, to think that out of
+our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of
+gi'eing a pick to ane o' God's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his
+day's dark ae hue the dreigher for wanting his breakfast on account of
+sic a cause."
+
+So we sat down, and began to partake of the repast with a greedy
+appetite, and the worthy woman continued to talk.
+
+"Aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever
+since Dalziel left Glasgow;--we a' jealoused that the Lanerk Covenanters
+would na be able to withstand his power and the King's forces; for it
+was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'.--But, Mr
+Witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to
+meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.--No; weel I wat that yours is
+a holier wisdom--ye would be for peace;--blessed are the peacemakers."
+
+Seeing the honest woman thus inclined to prattle of things too high for
+her to understand, Mr Witherspoon's hunger being somewhat abated, he
+calmly interposed, and turned the discourse into kind inquiries
+concerning the state of her poor soul and her straitened worldly
+circumstances; and he was well content to find that she had a pleasant
+vista of the truths of salvation, and a confidence in the unceasing care
+of Providence.
+
+"The same gracious hand that feeds the ravens," said she, "will ne'er
+let twa auld folk want, that it has been at the trouble to provide for
+so long. It's true we had a better prospek in our younger days; but our
+auld son was slain at the battle of Worcester, when he gaed in to help
+to put the English crown on the head of that false Charlie Stuart, who
+has broken his oath and the Covenant; and my twa winsome lassies diet in
+their teens, before they were come to years o' discretion. But 'few and
+evil are the days of man that is born of a woman,' as I hae heard you
+preach, Mr Witherspoon, which is a blessed truth and consolation to
+those who have not in this world any continued city."
+
+We then inquired what was the religious frame of the people in that part
+of the country, in order that we might know how to comport ourselves;
+but she gave us little heartening.
+
+"The strength and wealth o' the gentry," said she "is just sooket awa
+wi' ae fine after anither, and it's no in the power of nature that they
+can meikle langer stand out against the prelacy."
+
+"I hope," replied Mr Witherspoon, "that there's no symptom of a laxity
+of principle among them?"
+
+"I doot, I doot, Mr Witherspoon," said Janet Armstrong, "we canna hae a
+great dependence either on principle or doctrine when folk are driven
+demented wi' oppression. Many that were ance godly among us can thole no
+more, and they begin to fash and turn awa' at the sight of their
+persecuted friends."
+
+Mr Witherspoon sighed with a heavy heart on hearing this, and mournfully
+shook his head. We then thanked Janet for her hospitable kindness, and
+rising, were moving to go away.
+
+"I hope, Mr Witherspoon," said she, "that we're no to part in sic a
+knotless manner. Bide here till I gang for John Armstrong and the other
+twa men that howk wi' him in the quarry. They're bearing plants o' the
+vineyard--tarry, I pray you, and water them wi' the water of the Word."
+
+And so saying, she hastened down the track she was going, and we
+continued on the spot to wait her return.
+
+"Ringan," said Mr Witherspoon to me, "I fear there's owre meikle truth
+in what she says concerning the state of religion, not only here, but
+among all the commonality of the land. The poor beast that's overladen
+may be stubborn, and refuse for a time to draw; but the whip will at
+last prevail, until, worn out and weary, it meekly lies down to die. In
+like manner, the stoutness of the covenanted heart will be overcome."
+
+Just as he was uttering these words, a whiz in a whin-bush near to where
+we were standing, and the sound of a gun, startled us, and on looking
+round we saw five men, and one of the black-cuffs with his firelock
+still at his shoulder, looking towards us from behind a dyke that ran
+along the bottom of the brae. There was no time for consultation. We
+fled, cowering behind the whin-bushes till we got round a turn in the
+hill, which, protecting us from any immediate shot, enabled us to run in
+freedom till we reached a hazel-wood, which having entered, we halted to
+take breath.
+
+"We must not trust ourselves long here, Mr Witherspoon," said I. "Let us
+go forward, for assuredly the blood-hounds will follow us in."
+
+Accordingly we went on. But it is not to be told what we suffered in
+passing through that wood; for the boughs and branches scourged us in
+the face, and the ground beneath our feet was marshy and deep, and
+grievously overspread with brambles that tore away our very flesh.
+
+After enduring several hours of unspeakable suffering beneath those wild
+and unfrequented trees, we came to a little glen, down which a burn ran,
+and having stopped to consult, we resolved to go up rather than down the
+stream, in order that we might not be seen by the pursuers whom we
+supposed would naturally keep the hill. But by this time our strength
+was in a manner utterly gone with fatigue, in so much that Mr
+Witherspoon said it would be as well to fall into the hands of the enemy
+as to die in the wood. I however encouraged him to be of good cheer;
+and it so happened, in that very moment of despair, that I observed a
+little cavern nook aneath a rock that overhung the burn, and thither I
+proposed we should wade and rest ourselves in the cave, trusting that
+Providence would be pleased to guide our persecutors into some other
+path. So we passed the water, and laid ourselves down under the shelter
+of the rock, where we soon after fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+
+We were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay
+asleep under the rock. Mr Witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he
+sat watching beside me for some time, in great anxiety of spirit, as he
+afterwards told me; for the day was far spent, and the weather, as is
+often the custom in our climate, in the wane of the year, when the
+morning rises bright, had become coarse and drumly, threatening a rough
+night.
+
+At last I awoke, and according to what we had previously counselled
+together, we went up the course of the burn, and so got out of that
+afflicting wood, and came to an open and wide moorland, over which we
+held our journeying westward, guided by the sun, that with a sickly eye
+was then cowering through the mist to his chamber ayont the hill.
+
+But though all around us was a pathless scene of brown heather, here and
+there patched with the deceitful green of some perilous well-e'e; though
+the skies were sullen, and the bleak wind gusty, and every now and then
+a straggling flake of snow, strewed in our way from the invisible hand
+of the cloud, was a token of a coming drift, still a joyous
+encouragement was shed into our bosoms, and we saw in the wildness of
+the waste, and the omens of the storm, the blessed means with which
+Providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer
+and the persecutor from tracking our defenceless flight. So we journeyed
+onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round,
+and listening when startled by the wind whispering to the heath and the
+waving fern, till the shadows of evening began to fall, and the dangers
+of the night season to darken around us.
+
+When the snow hung on the heather like its own bells, we wished, but we
+feared to seek a place of shelter. Fain would we have gone back to the
+home for the fugitive, which we had found under the rock, but we knew
+not how to turn ourselves; for the lights of the moon and stars were
+deeply concealed in the dark folds of the wintry mantle with which the
+heavens were wrapt up. Our hearts then grew weary, and more than once I
+felt as if I was very willing to die.
+
+Still we struggled on; and when it had been dark about an hour, we came
+to the skirts of a field, where the strips of the stubble through the
+snow showed us that some house or clachan could not be far off. We then
+consulted together, and resolved rather to make our place of rest in the
+lea of a stack, or an outhouse, than to apply to the dwelling; for the
+thought of the untimely end of harmless Nahum Chapelrig lay like clay on
+our hearts, and we could not but sorrow that, among the other woes of
+the vial of the prelatic dispensation, the hearts of the people of
+Scotland should be so turned against one another.
+
+Accordingly going down the rigs, with as little interchange of discourse
+as could well be, we descried, by the schimmer of the snow, and a
+ghastly streak of moonlight that passed over the fields, a farm
+steading, with several trees and stacks around it, and thither we softly
+directed our steps. Greatly, however, were we surprised and touched with
+distress, when, as we drew near, we saw that there was no light in the
+house, nor the sign of fire within, nor inhabitant about the place.
+
+On reaching the door we found it open, and on entering in, everything
+seemed as if it had been suddenly abandoned; but by the help of a
+pistol, which I had taken in the raid from one of Turner's disarmed
+troopers, and putting our trust in the protection we had so far enjoyed,
+I struck a light and kindled the fire, over which there was still
+hanging, on the swee, a kail-pot, wherein the family at the time of
+their flight had been preparing their dinner; and we judged by this
+token, and by the visible desertion, that we were in the house of some
+of God's people who had been suddenly scattered. Accordingly we scrupled
+not to help ourselves from the aumrie, knowing how readily they would
+pardon the freedom of need in a Gospel minister, and a covenanted
+brother dejected with want and much suffering.
+
+Having finished our supper, instead of sitting by the fire, as we at
+first proposed to do, we thought it would be safer to take the blankets
+from the beds and make our lair in the barn; so we accordingly retired
+thither, and lay down among some unthreshed corn that was lying ready on
+the floor for the flail.
+
+But we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons
+near us. As there was no light, and Mr Witherspoon guessing by what we
+had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family,
+he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were
+discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. At
+the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things
+which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story
+was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife,
+who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong.
+
+"But what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know
+not,--we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after
+it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief
+that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been,
+and all the sacred exhortations that Mr Witherspoon could employ
+softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the
+dishonoured wife. He, however, persuaded them to return with us to the
+house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he
+would that night come again. As for me, during the dismal recital, I
+could not speak. The eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure I had
+left at home. Every word I heard was like the sting of an adder. My
+horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that I could no longer master
+them. I started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to
+arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected
+dwelling.
+
+Mr Witherspoon followed me, thinking I had gone by myself, and caught me
+by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into
+the house. But while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me,
+something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. The
+accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and I
+stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild
+howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,--
+
+"In the name of Heaven, what is this?
+
+"What is it?" said I, filled with unutterable dread.
+
+"Hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and
+he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years
+old. I could endure no more; I thought the voices of my own innocents
+cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment I left the godly
+man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way I went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+
+A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold;
+but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all
+wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a
+cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of
+some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of
+thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect
+of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the
+fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the
+moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that
+hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning
+women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like
+palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.
+
+The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.--I began to
+reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the
+succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of
+the eloquent orator can express.--I stopped to collect my reason and my
+thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that
+drifts in the tempestuous air.--I considered, that I knew not a footstep
+of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the
+precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very
+object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within
+me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh
+shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean
+when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five
+miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious
+dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby
+enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful
+in that woful time.
+
+But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the
+fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter
+grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The
+mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up,
+and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in
+my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my
+spirit in its power of resolution.
+
+I had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on
+Rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting
+rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows,
+I had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in
+so much that about sunrise I found myself, I cannot well tell how, on
+the heights to the south of Castlemilk, and the city of Glasgow, with
+her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in
+sight some few miles off on the north. I knew it not; but a herd that I
+fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of
+divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands
+before me.
+
+Among others he pointed out to me Nether Pollock in the midst of a
+skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted
+Christian and true Covenanter, Sir George Maxwell, the savour of whose
+piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore
+imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon
+him, shortly after that conclave of Satan, Middleton's sederunt of the
+privy-council at Glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of
+her first-born, in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of
+the Persecution, whereof I have described the promulgation as it took
+place at Irvine.
+
+Being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd,
+who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, I resolved to
+bend my way toward Nether Pollock, in the confident faith that the
+master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to
+compassionate a persecuted brother. And often since I have thought that
+there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this
+confidence; for indeed, had I reasoned from what was commonly said--and,
+alas! owre truly--that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, I
+would have feared to seek the gates of Sir George Maxwell, lest the love
+he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings
+and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. But I was encouraged of the
+spirit to proceed.
+
+Just, however, as I parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed
+to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand,
+and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "Yon'er's
+Sir George Maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. Eh! but he has had his
+ain luck to fill his pock so weel already."
+
+Whereupon I turned my steps towards Sir George, and, on approaching him,
+beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the
+Pentlands.
+
+He stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his
+head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "It was a hasty
+business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us
+lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to
+Glasgow, where Colonel Drummond came yesterday with a detachment of
+soldiers, and has already spread them over the country."
+
+In saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which,
+instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had
+supposed, contained a store of provisions.
+
+"I came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting
+to me something to eat, "but because last night I heard that many of the
+outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as I
+could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my
+tenants, I have come out with some of my men, as it were to the
+shooting, in order to succour them. But we must not remain long
+together. Take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and I
+counsel you not to take the road to Paisley, but to cross with what
+speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people
+have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of
+Drummond sending any of his force in that direction."
+
+Accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that
+Worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered.
+With many thanks I then hastened from him, praying that his private
+charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. And surely it was a
+thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted Scottish nation to
+meet with such Christian fellowship. For to the perpetual renown of many
+honourable West Country families be it spoken, both master and men were
+daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the
+ravens that fed Elijah in the wilderness.
+
+After parting from Sir George Maxwell, I continued to bend my course
+straight westward, and having crossed the road from Glasgow to Paisley,
+I directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded,
+according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by
+the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning
+my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began
+to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to
+return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the
+determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had
+become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord
+would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those
+who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+
+Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the
+Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melancholious note of the
+peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was
+heard there. Being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed
+to sleep, I laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the
+Gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period
+of the year. I was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass
+when I heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently
+also the barking of a dog. From the kindly experience I had received of
+Sir George Maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on
+looking up I beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the
+other side of the river.
+
+Near the spot where I lay there was a cloven rock overspread with
+brambles and slae-bushes. It seemed to me as if the cleft had been
+prepared on purpose by Providence for a hiding-place. I crept into it,
+and forgetting Him by whom I was protected, I trembled with a base fear.
+But in that very moment He at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a
+singular assurance of His holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come
+towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into
+the view of the pursuers. Just, however, as in my horror I was on the
+point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes,
+and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;--at the same moment a hare
+was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and
+halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement
+which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight.
+
+This adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the
+weariness with which I had been oppressed, and I rose and continued my
+course westward, over the hills, till I came in sight of the
+Shaw's-water,--the stream of which I followed for more than a mile with
+a beating heart; for the valley through which it flows is bare and open,
+and had any of the persecutors been then on the neighbouring hills, I
+must have soon been seen; but gradually my thoughts became more
+composed, and the terrors of the poor hunted creature again became
+changed into confidence and hope.
+
+In this renewed spirit I slackened my pace, and seeing, at a short
+distance down the stream, before me a tree laid across a bridge, I was
+comforted with the persuasion that some farm-town could not be far off,
+so I resolved to linger about till the gloaming, and then to follow the
+path which led over the bridge. For, not knowing how the inhabitants in
+those parts stood inclined in their consciences, I was doubtful to trust
+myself in their power until I had made some espionage. Accordingly, as
+the sun was still above the hills, I kept the hollowest track by the
+river's brink, and went down its course for some little time, till I
+arrived where the hills come forward into the valley; then I climbed up
+a steep hazel bank, and sat down to rest myself on an open green plot on
+the brow, where a gentle west wind shook the boughs around me, as if the
+silent spirits of the solitude were slowly passing by.
+
+In this place I had not been long when I heard, as if it were not far
+off, a sullen roar of falling waters rising hoarsely with the breeze,
+and listening again another sound came solemnly mingled with it, which I
+had soon the delight to discover was the holy harmony of worship, and to
+my ears it was as the first sound of the rushing water which Moses
+brought from the rock to those of the thirsty Israelites, and I was for
+some time so ravished with joy that I could not move from the spot where
+I was sitting.
+
+At last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and I arose and went
+towards the airt from which it had come; but as I advanced, the noise of
+the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the
+breaking of the summer waves along the Ardrossan shore, and presently I
+found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into
+a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and
+hazel, and garmented with ivy.
+
+On a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall,
+screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising
+ground on the other, about thirty of the Lord's flock, old and young,
+were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was
+preaching to them,--his left hand resting on his staff,--his right was
+raised in exhortation,--and a Bible lay on the ground beside him.
+
+I stood for the space of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying
+sight,--mournful it was, to think how God's people were so afflicted,
+that they durst not do their Heavenly King homage but in secrecy,--and
+edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that
+persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold.
+
+As I was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened
+to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him,
+turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. I
+attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract
+drowned my voice. I then ran as swiftly as I could towards the spot of
+worship, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was
+assisting Mr Swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to
+a tree; for the preacher was no other than that godly man; but the
+courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what passed at our
+meeting.
+
+Fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise,
+and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the
+Pentlands; but I importuned him to continue his blessed work, for I
+longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a
+fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom,
+which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called
+the Killochenn,--and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from
+the Back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing,
+in marriage.
+
+When he had closed his sermon and done these things, I went with him,
+walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous
+anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to Glasgow and
+confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had
+been examined by the Bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of
+the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with
+the Bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not
+to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt
+with according to the edict.
+
+Conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been
+solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to
+the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.
+
+"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not
+meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in
+thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats
+among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without
+question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a
+courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a
+man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman,
+and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an
+eydent ettler for preferment."
+
+So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the
+hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went
+with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+
+The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his
+house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it
+together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not
+time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at
+the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was
+the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts
+had tasted for more than eight months.
+
+"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to
+think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly
+institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole
+people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their
+iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the
+power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what
+is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again
+in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction
+and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say,
+that the peaceful worshipping according to the Word is either a sin, a
+shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and
+the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt
+of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."
+
+As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and
+pointed out to him a lassie coming running towards us. It was his
+daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her
+haste she said--
+
+"O, father ye manna gang hame;--twa of Carswell's men hae been speering
+for you and they had swords and guns. They're o'er the hill to the linn,
+for wee Willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching."
+
+"This comes," says the afflicted Gideon, "of speaking of secret things
+before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old
+would have been an instrument of discovery?--It'll no be safe now for
+you to come hame wi' me, which I'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't;
+but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the Holmstone-hill, aboon
+the auld kirk; I'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter
+for the night."
+
+So we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and
+held our course towards the house of Gideon Kemp's wife's stepmother.
+But it was not ordained that I was yet to enjoy the protection of a
+raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the Daff-burn, down the glen
+of which my godly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less
+observable way than the open road, he saw one of Ardgowan's men coming
+towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the Stuarts, were
+inclined to the prelatic side.
+
+"Hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes."
+
+And I den't myself in a nook of the glen, where I overheard what passed.
+
+"I thought, Gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the
+conventicle this afternoon. We hae heard o't a'; and Carswell has sworn
+that he'll hae baith doited Swinton and Dunrod's leddy at Glasgow afore
+the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower."
+
+"Carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied Gideon Kemp; "for though
+his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when
+horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and
+the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o'
+Carswell."
+
+The way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle;
+but I hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was assuredly in
+them: for, since the Revolution, Carswell's family has gone all to
+drift, and his house become a wastege;--folk say, a new road that's
+talked o' between Inverkip and Greenock is to go through the very
+middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will
+betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would
+exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the godless and the wrength
+of the oppressors.
+
+Ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of Gideon Kemp, and replied in a
+subdued manner, "It's really a melancholious thing to think that folk
+should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;--but tak care of
+yoursel, Gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to Cartsdyke
+to take up ony of the Rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts,
+and they catcht, I hear, in a public in the Stenners, three men, and
+have sent them to Glasgow to be hanged."
+
+I verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom.
+
+"Surely," replied Gideon Kemp, "the wrath of government is no so
+unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are
+doom't to die. But hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where
+they belong to?"
+
+"They're o' the shire o' Ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' Irvine or
+Kilwinning; and I was likewise told their names, but they're no of a
+familiarity easy to be remembered."
+
+The horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own
+peril, and I sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,--
+
+"Do you ken if any of them was of the name of Gilhaize?"
+
+Ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so
+instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at Gideon
+Kemp with a jealous and troubled eye.
+
+"Nay," said I, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you
+shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy
+man." So I took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "Ye're
+in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. I, too, am a
+rebel, as ye say, from Rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the
+ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our
+offence. But fear no wrong, if you have aught of Christian compassion
+in you. Was Gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?"
+
+"I'll no swear't," was his answer; "but I think it was something like
+that;--one of them, I think, they called Finnie."
+
+"Robin Finnie," cried I, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; I
+canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the
+tears flowed from my eyes.
+
+The better nature of Ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my
+distress, and he said to Gideon Kemp,--
+
+"Ye needna be fear't, Gideon; I hope ye ken mair o' me than to think I
+would betray either friend or acquaintance. But gang na' to the toun,
+for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing
+the day at Cartsdyke, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o'
+some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them."
+
+"That's spoken like yoursel, Johnnie Jamieson," said Gideon Kemp; "but
+this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the
+moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. When
+the sword, Johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal
+stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and dejectit, and more houseless
+than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man
+that we're bound by the laws of God and nature to help."
+
+Jamieson remained for a short space in a dubious manner, and looking
+mildly towards me, he said, "Gang you your ways, Gideon Kemp, and I'll
+ne'er say I saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and
+trust me: naebody in a' Inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house
+would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so I'll can bring him to some
+place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi'
+you."
+
+Troubled and sorrowful as I was, I could not but observe the look of
+soul-searching scrutiny that Gideon Kemp cast at Jamieson, who himself
+was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,--
+
+"Dinna misdoot me, Gideon Kemp; I would sooner put my right hand in the
+fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in
+my power."
+
+"And I'll believe you," said I; "so guide me wheresoever you will."
+
+"Ye'll never thrive, Johnnie Jamieson," added honest Gideon, "if ye're
+no sincere in this trust."
+
+So after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and I
+followed Jamieson down the Daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood
+in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water
+with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing
+after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents I had met with.
+
+"Bide you here," said Jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his
+wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before I tak you into the mill
+I maun look that she's no there."
+
+So he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me
+standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, I had not
+occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me
+with his hand to come quickly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+
+Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner,
+saying to Jamieson,--
+
+"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and
+the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power
+to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me,
+"it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep
+peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated
+to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae
+to mak your bed here in the mill."
+
+While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing
+like a bell.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and
+stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."
+
+Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder,
+I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and
+told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to
+eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the
+trap-door, in came his wife.
+
+"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied
+to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and
+they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your
+covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and
+that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills,
+as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to
+get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they
+say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."
+
+"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the
+miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home,
+so what hae I to dread?"
+
+"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's
+coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners
+Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to
+see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running
+through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's
+the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."
+
+"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things
+I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."
+
+"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A
+cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to
+happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those
+in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! Sauners Paton, ye're a
+born rebel to your King, and kintra, and wife. But this night I'll put
+it out of your power to rebel on me. Stop the mill, Sauners Paton, and
+come out, and tak the door on your back. I hae owre meikle regard for
+you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here."
+
+"Consider," said Sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion,
+"that this is the season of December; and where would ye hae me to gang
+in sic a night?"
+
+"A grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. My jo,
+ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely, Sauners Paton, I'm positive, and
+for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge
+out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.--Hae ye stoppit the mill?"
+
+The mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no
+better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that
+turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel.
+
+"Noo," said he, "to pleasure you, Kate, I hae stoppit the mill, and to
+pleasure me, I hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain
+wi' you, frae my ain house I'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't
+since ye will hae't, I hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at
+hame I will bide;--na, what's mair, Kate, it's a reason that I'll no
+tell to you."
+
+"Dear pity me, Sauners Paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o'
+late an unco reasonable man. But Leddy Stuart's quadrooped bird they ca'
+a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do
+reason; but reason here or reason there, I'll ne'er consent to let you
+stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and
+lock the door."
+
+To this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short
+silence, he said,--
+
+"Kate, my queen, I'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as
+weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' Dunrod; but some providing
+should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. The sun has
+been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a
+creel wi' some vivers prepared."
+
+"Noo, that's like yoursel, Sauners Paton," replied his wife; "and surely
+my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable."
+
+At these words Jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "I hope,
+miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll
+conform to her kind wishes." By which I discernt, that he had purposely
+egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of
+me.
+
+"O, aye," replied the miller; "I could na but be consenting, poor queen,
+to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way
+that I well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a
+watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready;
+therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation
+here."
+
+The three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly
+mystery, I confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's
+ever-wakeful Sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing
+oblivion from all my troubles and fears.
+
+Considering the fatigue I had undergone for so many days and nights
+together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but
+the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to
+depart till he thought I was rested, soon after the moon rose came into
+the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. So I left my couch
+in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from
+the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned
+with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had
+provided for himself.
+
+Having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder
+of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path
+along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by
+the hand, and bade me farewell,--saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten
+the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,--that the
+gudewife would make baith him and Johnnie Jamieson suffer in the body
+for the fright she had gotten. "For ye should ken," said he, "that the
+terror she was in was a' bred o' Johnnie's pawkerie. He knew that she
+was aye in a dread that I would be laid hands on ever since I signed the
+remonstrance to the laird; and Johnnie thought, that if he could get her
+to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the
+provision yours. So, Gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted,
+when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'."
+
+Being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of
+Inverkip, I went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my
+heart. The night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea
+glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then
+walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose
+perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little
+while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had
+not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief
+for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the
+treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the
+part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful
+auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost
+in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air
+breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then
+questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given
+no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught,
+but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart
+with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a
+softer sorrow.
+
+But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I
+met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning.
+Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place
+in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one
+William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest
+myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path
+that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted
+and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His
+cattle were on the stubble--the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown
+of the morning--the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been
+lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still
+there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I
+saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and
+unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a
+park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me.
+I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched
+him, but he was dead.
+
+The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered
+with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was
+warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.
+
+I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight of this woful murder;
+but I ran for help to the house; and just as I turned the corner of the
+barn, two soldiers met me, and I became their prisoner.
+
+One of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but
+the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it
+were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind.
+
+They took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and I could not
+speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and I thought
+it was a dream. The air I breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; I
+gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as
+the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of Kedar.
+
+Soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had
+been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as
+they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. They taunted me and plucked me
+by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more
+fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and I inwardly
+chided the slow anger of the mysterious Heavens for permitting the rage
+of those agents of the apostate James Sharp and his compeers, whom a
+mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority.
+
+But even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was
+whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a
+seraph, that the Lord in all things moveth according to His established
+laws; and I was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof I was
+a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the
+people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the
+deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and
+arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to
+return to their quarters in Irvine, I walked with them--their captive,
+it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at
+the proudness of my tread.
+
+There was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the
+avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or
+who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. Hundreds that sympathised
+with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who
+had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment.
+The crowd came pressing around as I was conducted up the gait to the
+tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children
+wondered whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. Some
+who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers
+grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely
+upon us.
+
+As I was ascending the tolbooth-stair, I heard a shriek; and I looked
+around, and beheld Michael, my first-born, a stripling then only twelve
+years old, amidst the crowd, stretching out his hands and crying, "O, my
+father, my father!"
+
+I halted for a moment, and the soldiers seemed to thaw with compassion;
+but my hands were tied,--I was a captive on the threshold of the
+dungeon, and I could only shut my eyes and bid the stern agents of the
+persecutors go on. Still the cry of my distracted child knelled in my
+ear, and my agony grew to such a pitch, that I flew forward up the
+steps, and, in the dismal vaults within, sought refuge from the misery
+of my child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+
+I was conducted into a straight and dark chamber, and the cord wherewith
+my hands were bound was untied, and a shackle put upon my right wrist;
+the flesh of my left was so galled with the cord, that the jailor was
+softened at the sight, and from the humanity of his own nature,
+refrained from placing the iron on it, lest the rust should fester the
+quick wound.
+
+Then I was left alone in the gloomy solitude of the prison-room, and the
+ponderous doors were shut upon me, and the harsh bolts driven with a
+horrid grating noise, that caused my very bones to dinle. But even in
+that dreadful hour an unspeakable consolation came with the freshness of
+a breathing of the airs of paradise to my soul. Methought a wonderful
+light shone around me, that I heard melodious voices bidding me be of
+good cheer, and that a vision of my saintly grandfather, in the glorious
+vestments of his heavenly attire, stood before me, and smiled upon me
+with that holy comeliness of countenance which has made his image in my
+remembrance ever that of the most venerable of men; so that, in the very
+depth of what I thought would have been the pit of despair, I had a
+delightful taste of those blessed experiences of divine aid, by which
+the holy martyrs were sustained in the hours of trial, and cheered
+amidst the torments in which they sealed the truth of their testimony.
+
+After the favour of that sweet and celestial encouragement, I laid
+myself down on a pallet in the corner of the room, and a gracious sleep
+descended upon my eyelids, and steeped the sense and memory of my griefs
+in forgetfulness. When I woke the day was far spent, and the light
+through the iron stainchers of the little window showed that the shadows
+of the twilight were darkening over the world. I raised myself on my
+elbow, and listened to the murmur of the multitude that I heard still
+lingering around the prison; and sometimes I thought that I discovered
+the voice of a friend.
+
+In that situation, and thinking of all those dear cares which filled my
+heart with tenderness and fear, and of the agonising grief of my little
+boy, the sound of whose cries still echoed in my bosom, I rose upon my
+knees and committed myself entirely to the custody of Him that can give
+the light of liberty to the captive even in the gloom of the dungeon.
+And when I had done so I again prepared to lay myself on the ground; but
+a rustle in the darkness of the room drew my attention, and in the same
+moment a kind hand was laid on mine.
+
+"Sarah Lochrig," said I, for I knew my wife's gentle pressure,--"How is
+it that you are with me in this doleful place? How found you entrance,
+and I not hear you come in?"
+
+But before she had time to make any answer, another's fond arms were
+round my neck, and my affectionate young Michael wept upon my shoulder.
+
+Bear with me, courteous reader, when I think of those things,--that wife
+and that child, and all that I loved so fondly, are no more! But it is
+not meet that I should yet tell how my spirit was turned into iron and
+my heart into stone. Therefore will I still endeavour to relate, as with
+the equanimity of one that writes but of indifferent things, what
+further ensued during the thirteen days of my captivity.
+
+Sarah Lochrig, with the mildness of her benign voice, when we had
+mingled a few tears, told me that, after I went to Galloway with Martha
+Swinton, she had been moved by our neighbours to come with our children
+into the town, as being safer for a lanerly woman and a family left
+without its head; and a providential thing it was that she had done so;
+for on the very night that my brother came off with the men of the
+parish to join us, as I have noted down in its proper place, a gang of
+dragoons plundered both his house and mine; and but that our treasures
+had been timeously removed, his family having also gone that day into
+Kilmarnock, the outrages might have been unspeakable.
+
+We then had some household discourse, anent what was to be done in the
+event of things coming to the worst with me; and it was an admiration to
+hear with what constancy of reason, and the gifts of a supported
+judgment, that Gospel-hearted woman spoke of what she would do with her
+children, if it was the Lord's pleasure to honour me with the crown of
+martyrdom.
+
+"But," said she, "I hae an assurance within that some great thing is yet
+in store for you, though the hope be clouded with a doubt that I'll no
+be spar't to see it, and therefore let us not despond at this time, but
+use the means that Providence may afford to effect your deliverance."
+
+While we were thus conversing together the doors of the prison-room were
+opened, and a man was let in who had a cruisie in the one hand and a
+basket in the other. He was lean and pale-faced, bordering on forty
+years, and of a melancholy complexion; his eye was quick, deep set, and
+a thought wild; his long hair was carefully combed smooth, and his
+apparel was singularly well composed for a person of his degree.
+
+Having set down the lamp on the floor, he came in a very reverential
+manner towards where I was sitting, with my right hand fettered to the
+ground, between Sarah Lochrig and Michael our son, and he said, with a
+remarkable and gentle simplicity of voice, in the Highland accent, that
+he had been requested by a righteous woman, Provost Reid's wife, to
+bring me a bottle of cordial wine and some little matters that I might
+require for bodily consolation.
+
+"It's that godly creature, Willie Sutherland, the hangman," said my
+wife. "Though Providence has dealt hardly with him, poor man, in this
+life, every body says he has gotten arles of a servitude in glory
+hereafter."
+
+When he had placed the basket at the knees of Michael, he retired to a
+corner of the room, and stood in the shadow, with his face turned
+towards the wall, saying, "I'm concern't that it's no in my power to
+leave you to yoursels till Mungo Robeson come back, for he has lockit me
+in, but I'll no hearken to what ye may say;" and there was a modesty of
+manner in the way that he said this, which made me think it not possible
+he could be of so base a vocation as the public executioner, and I
+whispered my opinion of him to Sarah Lochrig. It was, however, the case;
+and verily in the life and conduct of that simple and pious man there
+was a manifestation of the truth, that to him whom the Lord favours it
+signifieth not whatsoever his earthly condition may be.
+
+After I had partaken with my wife and son of some refreshment which they
+had brought with them, and tasted of the wine that Provost Reid's lady
+had sent, we heard the bolts of the door drawn, and the clanking of
+keys, at which Willie Sutherland came forward from the corner where he
+had stood during the whole time, and lifting the lamp from the floor,
+and wetting his fore-finger with spittle as he did so, he trimmed the
+wick, and said, "The time's come when a' persons not prisoners must
+depart forth the tolbooth for the night; but, Master Gilhaize, be none
+discomforted thereat, your wife and your little one will come back in
+the morning, and your lot is a lot of pleasure; for is it not written in
+the book of Ecclesiastes, fourth and eighth, 'There is one alone, and
+there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother?' and such
+an one am I."
+
+The inner door was thrown open, and Mungo Robeson, looking in, said, "I
+wae to molest you, but ye'll hae to come out, Mrs Gilhaize." So that
+night we were separated; and when Sarah Lochrig was gone, I could not
+but offer thanksgiving that my lines had fallen in so pleasant a place,
+compared with the fate of my poor brother, suffering among strangers in
+the doleful prison of Glasgow, under the ravenous eyes of the prelate of
+that city, then scarcely less hungry for the bodies of the faithful and
+the true, than even the apostate James Sharp himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+
+The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son
+were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in
+silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so
+refreshing, that after they were gone away I was enabled to consider my
+condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and
+anxiety wherewith I had previously been so greatly tossed. And calling
+to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which
+the cruel prelates were actuated, I saw, as it were written in a book,
+that for my part and conduct I was doomed to die. I felt not, however,
+the sense of guilt in my conscience; and I said to myself, that this
+sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of
+a family, I was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were
+possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first
+night of my imprisonment, I set myself to devise the means of working
+out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of
+hope.
+
+It seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of Willie Sutherland,
+instruments were given by which I might break through the walls of my
+prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I
+failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and
+told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won
+upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears
+of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an
+untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a
+leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low
+estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this temporal ignominy,
+He will, in His own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;--and
+though I may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it
+shall yet be seen of me, that I will abide by the integrity of my faith,
+and that, poor despised hangman as I am, I have a conscience that will
+not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine,
+or the King's judges decree."
+
+I was, as it were, rebuked by this proud religious declaration, and I
+gently inquired how it was that he came to fall into a condition so
+rejected of the world.
+
+"Deed, sir," said he, "my tale is easy told. My parents were very poor
+needful people in Strathnavar, and no able to keep me; and it happened
+that, being cast on the world, I became a herd, and year by year, having
+a desire to learn the Lowland tongue, I got in that way as far as
+Paisley, where I fell into extreme want and was almost famished; for the
+master that I served there being in debt, ran away, by which cause I
+lost my penny fee, and was obligated to beg my bread. At that time many
+worthy folk in the shire of Renfrew having suffered great molestation
+from witchcraft, divers malignant women, suspectit of that black art,
+were brought to judgment, and one of them being found guilty, was
+condemned to die. But no executioner being in the town, I was engaged,
+by the scriptural counsel of some honest men, who quoted to me the text,
+'Suffer not a witch to live,' to fulfil the sentence of the law. After
+that I bought a Question-book, having a mind to learn to read, that I
+might gain some knowledge of THE WORD. Finding, however, the people of
+Paisley scorn at my company, so that none would give me a lesson, I came
+about five years since to Irvine, where the folk are more charitable;
+and here I act the part of an executioner when there is any malefactor
+to put to death. But my Bible has instructed me, that I ought not to
+execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be
+condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to
+execute you, for I see you are a Christian man."
+
+I was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a
+strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that I should make use
+of his honesty to help me out of prison. So I spoke still more kindly to
+him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time I had in all
+likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little
+intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate Christian friend
+would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not
+permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long
+and as late as possible.
+
+The pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in
+his power, and that, as Mungo Robeson was a sober man, and aye wanted
+to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out
+my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night--"for," said he,
+piteously, "I hae nae family to care about."
+
+Accordingly, he so set himself, that Mungo Robeson consented to leave
+the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was
+so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and I were
+plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to
+her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her
+out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a
+habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility
+was omitted.
+
+In the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean
+of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget
+of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the
+head.
+
+This was all settled by the nineteenth of December; on the twenty-fourth
+of the month the Commissioners appointed to try the Covenanters in the
+prisons throughout the shire of Ayr were to open their court at Ayr, and
+I was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. On the
+night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, James
+Gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in
+going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a
+drink at the trough of the cross-well, opposite the tolbooth-stair foot.
+
+When the clock struck ten, the time appointed, I was ready dressed in my
+wife's apparel, having, in the course of the day, broken the chain of
+the shackle on my arm; and the door being opened by Willie Sutherland in
+the usual manner, I came out, holding a napkin to my face and weeping in
+sincerity very bitterly, with the thought of what might ensue to Sarah
+Lochrig, whom I left behind in my place.
+
+In reverence to my grief the honest man said nothing, but walked by my
+side till he had let me out at the outer stair-head door, where he
+parted from me, carrying the keys to Mungo Robeson's house, aneath the
+tolbooth, while I walked towards James Gottera's cart, and was presently
+in the inside of the hogget.
+
+With great presence of mind and a soldierly self-possession, that
+venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began
+to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so
+to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old
+woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such
+profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the
+tolbooth. To the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new
+name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"--words which so kindled the
+worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to
+such a degree that a crowd collected, which made me tremble. For the
+people sided with the zealous carlan, and spoke fiercely, threatening to
+gar James Gottera ride the stang for his sinfulness in so traducing
+persecuted Christians. What might have come to pass is hard to say, had
+not Providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to
+cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the Sea-gate to take fire, by
+which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed James
+Gottera to pass without farther molestation out at the town-end port.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+
+From the time of my evasion from the tolbooth, and during the
+controversy between James Gottera and the mob in the street, there was a
+whirlwind in my mind that made me incapable of reason. But when we had
+passed through the town-end port, and the cart had stopped at the
+minister's carse till I could throw off my female weeds and put on a
+sailor's garb, provided for the occasion, tongue nor pen cannot express
+the passion wherewith my yearning soul was then affected.
+
+The thought of having left Sarah Lochrig within bolts and bars, a ready
+victim to the tyranny which so thirsted for blood, lightened within me
+as the lightnings of heaven in a storm. I threw myself on the ground,--I
+grasped the earth,--I gathered myself as it were into a knot, and howled
+with horror at my own selfish baseness. I sprung up and cried, "I will
+save her yet!" and I would have run instanter to the town; but the
+honest man who was with me laid his grip firmly upon my arm, and said
+in a solemn manner,--
+
+"This is no Christian conduct, Ringan Gilhaize; the Lord has not
+forgotten to be gracious."
+
+I glowered upon him, as he has often since told me, with a shudder, and
+cried, "But I hae left Sarah Lochrig in their hands, and, like a coward,
+run away to save mysel."
+
+"Compose yoursel, Ringan, and let us reason together," was his discreet
+reply. "It's vera true ye hae come away and left your wife as it were an
+hostage in the prison, but the persecutors and oppressors will respek
+the courageous affection of a loving wife, and Providence will put it in
+their hearts to spare her."
+
+"And if they do not, what shall I then be? and what's to become of my
+babies?--Lord, Lord, thou hast tried me beyond my strength!"
+
+And I again threw myself on the earth, and cried that it might open and
+swallow me; for, thinking but of myself, I was becoming unworthy to
+live.
+
+The considerate man stood over me in compassionate silence for a season,
+and allowed me to rave in my frenzy till I had exhausted myself.
+
+"Ringan," said he at last, "ye were aye respekit as a thoughtful and
+discreet character, and I'll no blame you for this sorrow; but I entreat
+you to collek yersel, and think what's best to be done, for what avails
+in trouble the cry of alas, alas! or the shedding of many tears? Your
+wife is in prison, but for a fault that will wring compassion even frae
+the brazen heart of the remorseless James Sharp, and bring back the
+blood of humanity to the mansworn breast of Charles Stuart. But though
+it were not so, they daurna harm a hair of her head; for there are
+things, man, that the cruellest dread to do for fear o' the world, even
+when they hae lost the fear o' God. I count her far safer, Ringan, frae
+the rage of the persecutors, where she lies in prison aneath their bolts
+and bars, than were she free in her own house; for it obligates them to
+deal wi' her openly and afore mankind, whose goodwill the worst of
+princes and prelates are from an inward power forced to respek; whereas,
+were she sitting lanerly and defenceless, wi' naebody near but only your
+four helpless wee birds, there's no saying what the gleds might do.
+Therefore be counselled, my frien, and dinna gi'e yoursel up utterly to
+despair; but, like a man, for whom the Lord has already done great
+things, mak use of the means which, in this jeopardy of a' that's sae
+dear to you, he has so graciously put in your power."
+
+I felt myself in a measure heartened by this exhortation, and rising
+from the ground completed the change I had begun in my apparel; but I
+was still unable to speak,--which he observing, said,--
+
+"Hae ye considered the airt ye ought now to take, for it canna be that
+ye'll think of biding in this neighbourhood!"
+
+"No; not in this land," I exclaimed; "would that I might not even in
+this life!"
+
+"Whisht! Ringan Gilhaize, that's a sinful wish for a Christian," said a
+compassionate voice at my side, which made us both start; and on looking
+round we saw a man who, during the earnestest of our controversy, had
+approached close to us unobserved.
+
+It was that Gospel-teacher, my fellow-sufferer, Mr Witherspoon; and his
+sudden apparition at that time was a blessed accident, which did more to
+draw my thoughts from the anguish of my affections than any thing it was
+possible for James Gottera to have said.
+
+He was then travelling in the cloud of night to the town, having, after
+I parted from him in Lanerkshire, endured many hardships and perils, and
+his intent was to pass to his friends, in order to raise a trifle of
+money, to transport himself for a season into Ireland.
+
+But James Gottera, on hearing this, interposed his opinion, and said a
+rumour was abroad that in all ports and towns of embarkation orders were
+given to stay the departure of passengers, so that to a surety he would
+be taken if he attempted to quit the kingdom.
+
+By this time my mind had returned into something like a state of
+sobriety; so I told him how it had been concerted between me and Sarah
+Lochrig that I should pass over to the wee Cumbrae, there to wait till
+the destroyers had passed by; for it was thought not possible that such
+an inordinate thirst for blood, as had followed upon our discomfiture at
+Rullion-green, could be of a long continuance; and I beseeched him to
+come with me, telling him that I was provided with a small purse of
+money in case need should require it, but in the charitable hearts of
+the pious we might count on a richer store.
+
+Accordingly, we agreed to join our fortunes again; and having parted
+from James Gottera at Kilwinning, we went on our way together, and my
+heart was refreshed by the kind admonitions and sweet converse of my
+companion, though ever and anon the thought of my wife in prison, and
+our defenceless lambs, shot like a fiery arrow through my bosom. But man
+is by nature a sordid creature, and the piercing December blast, the
+threatening sky, and the frequent shower, soon knit up my thoughts with
+the care of my worthless self: maybe there was in that the tempering
+hand of a beneficent Providence; for when I have at divers times since
+considered how much the anguish of my inner sufferings exceeded the
+bodily molestation, I could not but confess, though it was with a
+humbled sense of my own selfishness, that it was well for me, in such a
+time, to be so respited from the upbraidings of my tortured affections.
+
+But, not to dwell on the specialities of my own feelings on that
+memorable night, let it suffice, that after walking some four or five
+miles towards Pencorse ferry, where we meant to pass to the island, I
+became less and less attentive to the edifying discourse of Mr
+Witherspoon, and his nature also yielding to the influences of the time,
+we travelled along the bleak and sandy shore between Ardrossan and
+Kilbride hill without the interchange of conversation. The wind came
+wild and gurly from the sea,--the waves broke heavily on the shore,--and
+the moon, swiftly wading the cloud, threw over the dreary scene a
+wandering and ghastly light. Often to the blast we were obligated to
+turn our backs, and, the rain being in our faces, we little heeded each
+other.
+
+In that state, so like sullenness, we had journeyed onward, it might be
+better than a mile, when, happening to observe something lying on the
+shore, as if it had been cast out by the sea, I cried, under a sense of
+fear,--
+
+"Stop, Mr Witherspoon; what's that?"
+
+In the same moment he uttered a dreadful sound of horror, and, on
+looking round, I saw we were three in company.
+
+"In the name of Heaven," exclaimed Mr Witherspoon, "who and what are you
+that walk with us?"
+
+But instanter our fears and the mystery of the appearance were
+dispelled, for it was my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+
+"Weel, Ringan," said my brother, "we have met again in this world; it's
+a blessing I never looked for;" and he held out his two hands to take
+hold of mine, but the broken links of the shackle still round my wrist
+made him cry out,--
+
+"What's this?--Whare hae ye come fra? But I need na inquire."
+
+"I have broken out of the tolbooth o' Irvine," said I, "and I am fleeing
+here with Mr Witherspoon."
+
+"I, too," replied my brother, mournfully, "hae escaped from the hands of
+the persecutors."
+
+We then entered into some conversation concerning what had happened to
+us respectively, from the fatal twenty-eighth of November, when our
+power and host were scattered on Rullion-green, wherein Mr Witherspoon,
+with me, rehearsed to him the accidents herein set forth, with the
+circumstantials of some things that befel the godly man after I left him
+with the corpse of the baby in his arms; but which being in some points
+less of an adventurous nature than had happened to myself, I shall be
+pardoned by the courteous reader for not enlarging upon it at greater
+length. I should, however, here note, that Mr Witherspoon was not so
+severely dealt with as I was; for though an outcast and a fugitive, yet
+he was not a prisoner; on the contrary, under the kindly cover of the
+Lady Auchterfardel, whose excellent and truly covenanted husband was a
+sore sufferer by the fines of the year 1662, he received great
+hospitality for the space of sixteen days, and was saved between two
+feather beds, on the top of which the laird's aged mother, a bed-rid
+woman, was laid, when some of Drummond's men searched the house on an
+information against him.
+
+But disconsolatory as it was to hear of such treatment of a
+Gospel-minister, though lightened by the reflection of the saintly
+constancy that was yet to be found in the land, and among persons too of
+the Lady of Auchterfardel's degree, and severe as the trials were, both
+of body and mind, which I had myself undergone, yet were they all as
+nothing compared to the hardships of my brother, a man of a temperate
+sobriety of manner, bearing all changes with a serene countenance and a
+placable mind, while feeling them in the uttermost depths of his
+capacious affections.
+
+"On the night of the battle," said he, "it would not be easy of me to
+tell which way I went, or what ensued, till I found myself with three
+destitute companions on the skirts of the town of Falkirk. By that time
+the morning was beginning to dawn, and we perceived not that we had
+approached so nigh unto any bigget land; as the day, however, broke, the
+steeple caught our eye, and we halted to consider what we ought to do.
+And as we were then standing in a field diffident to enter the town, a
+young woman came from a house that stands a little way off the road,
+close to Graham's dyke, driving a cow to grass with a long staff, which
+I the more remarked as such, because it was of the Indian cane, and
+virled with silver, and headed with ivory.
+
+"'Sirs,' said Menie Adams, for that was the damsel's name, 'I see what
+ye are; but I'll no speir; howsever, be ruled by me, and gang na near
+the town of Falkirk this morning, for atwish the hours of dark and dawn
+there has been a congregationing o' horses and men, and other sediments
+o' war, that I hae a notion there's owre meikle o' the King's power in
+the place for any Covenanter to enter in, save under the peril o'
+penalties. But come wi' me, and I'll go back wi' you, and in our
+hay-loft you may scog yoursels till the gloaming.'
+
+"Who could have thought," said my brother, "that in such discourse from
+a young woman, not passing four-and-twenty years of age, and of a
+pleasant aspect, any guilty stratagem of blood was hidden!"
+
+He and his friends never questioned her truth, but went with her, and
+she conducted them to her father's house, and lodged them in the
+hay-loft.
+
+It seems that Menie Adams was, however, at the time betrothed to the
+prelatic curate that had been laid upon the parish, and that, in
+consequence, aneath her courtesy, she had concealed a very treacherous
+and wicked intent. For no sooner had she got my brother and his three
+companions into the hay-loft, than she hies herself away to the town,
+and, in the hope of pleasing her prelatic lover, informs the captain of
+the troop there of the birds she had ensnared.
+
+As soon as the false woman had thus committed the sin of perfidy, she
+went to the curate to brag how she had done a service to his cause; but
+he, though of the prelatic germination, being yet a person who had some
+reverence for truth and the gentle mercies of humanity, was so disturbed
+by her unwomanly disposition, that he bade her depart from his presence
+for ever, and ran with all possible speed to waken the poor men whom she
+had so betrayed.
+
+On his way to the house he saw a party of the soldiers, whom their
+officer, as in duty bound, was sending to seize the unsuspecting
+sleepers, and running on before them, he just got forward in time to
+give the alarm. My brother and one of them, Esau Wardrop, the wife's
+brother of James Gottera, who had been so instrumental in my evasion,
+were providentially enabled to get out and flee; but the other two were
+taken by the soldiers and carried to prison.
+
+The base conduct of that Menie Adams, as we some years after heard, did
+not go long unvisited by the displeasure of Heaven, for, some scent of
+her guilt taking wind, the whole town, in a sense, grew wud against her,
+and she was mobbet, and the wells pumped upon her by the enraged
+multitude; and she never recovered from the handling that she therein
+suffered.
+
+My brother and Esau Wardrop, on getting into the open fields, made all
+the speed they could, like the panting hart when pursued by the hunter,
+and distrusting the people of that part of the country, they travelled
+all day, not venturing to approach any reeking house. Towards gloaming,
+however, being hungry and faint, the craving of nature overcame their
+fears, and they went up to a house where they saw a light burning.
+
+As they approached the door they faltered a little in their resolution,
+for they heard the dissonance of riot and revelry within. Their need,
+however, was great, and the importunities of hunger would not be
+pacified, so they knocked, and the door was soon opened by a soldier,
+the party within being a horde of Dalziel's men, living at free quarters
+in the house of that excellent Christian and much-persecuted man, the
+Laird of Ringlewood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+
+The moment that the man who came to the door saw, by the glimpse of the
+light, that both my brother and Esau Wardrop had swords at their sides,
+he uttered a cry of alarm, thinking the house was surrounded, at which
+all the riotous soldiers within flew to their arms, while the man who
+opened the door seized my brother by the throat and harl't him in. The
+panic, however, was but of short duration; for my brother soon expounded
+that they were two perishing men who came to surrender themselves; so
+the door was again opened and Esau Wardrop commanded to come in.
+
+"It's but a justice to say of those rampageous troopers," said my
+brother, "that, considering us as prisoners of war, they were free and
+kind enough, though they mocked at our cause, and derided the equipage
+of our warfare. But it was a humiliating sight to see in what manner
+they deported themselves towards the unfortunate family."
+
+Ringlewood himself, who had remonstrated against their insolence to his
+aged leddy, they had tied in his arm-chair and placed at the head of his
+own table, round which they sat carousing, and singing the roister
+ribaldry of camp songs. At first, when my brother was taken into this
+scene of military domination, he did not observe the laird; for in the
+uproar of the alarm the candles had been overset and broken, but new
+ones being sworn for and stuck into the necks of the bottles of the wine
+they were lavishly drinking, he discovered him lying as it were asleep
+where he sat, with his head averted, and his eyes shut on the iniquity
+of the scene of oppression with which he was oppressed.
+
+Some touch of contrition had led one of the soldiers to take the aged
+matron under his care; and on his intercession she was not placed at the
+table, but allowed to sit in a corner, where she mourned in silence,
+with her hands clasped together, and her head bent down over them upon
+her breast. The laird's grandson and heir, a stripling of some fifteen
+years or so, was obligated to be page and butler, for all the rest of
+the house had taken to the hills at the approach of the troopers.
+
+As the drinking continued the riot increased, and the rioters growing
+heated with their drink, they began to quarrel: fierce words brought
+angry answers, and threats were followed by blows. Then there was an
+interposition, and a shaking of hands, and a pledging of renewed
+friendship.
+
+But still the demon of the drink continued to grow stronger and stronger
+in their kindling blood, and the tumult was made perfect by one of the
+men, in the capering of his inebriety, rising from his seat, and taking
+the old leddy by the toupie to raise her head as he rudely placed his
+foul cup to her lips. This called up the ire of the fellow who had sworn
+to protect her, and he, not less intoxicated than the insulter, came
+staggering to defend her; a scuffle ensued, the insulter was cast with a
+swing away, and falling against the laird, who still remained as it were
+asleep, with his head on his shoulder, and his eyes shut, he overthrew
+the chair in which the old gentleman sat fastened, and they both fell to
+the ground.
+
+The soldier, frantic with wine and rage, was soon, like a tiger, on his
+adversary; the rest rose to separate them. Some took one side, some
+another; bottles were seized for weapons, and the table was overthrown
+in the hurricane. Their sergeant, who was as drunk as the worst of them,
+tried in vain to call them into order, but they heeded not his call,
+which so enraged him, that he swore they should shift their quarters,
+and with that seizing a burning brand from the chumla, he ran into a
+bedchamber that opened from the room where the riot was raging, and set
+fire to the curtains.
+
+My brother seeing the flames rising, and that the infuriated war-wolves
+thought only of themselves, ran to extricate Ringlewood from the cords
+with which he was tied; and calling to the leddy and her grandson to
+quit the burning house, every one was soon out of danger from the fire.
+
+The sense of the soldiers were not so overborne by their drink as to
+prevent them from seeing the dreadful extent of their outrage; but
+instead of trying to extinguish the flames, they marched away to seek
+quarters in some other place, cursing the sergeant for having so
+unhoused them in such a night.
+
+At first they thought of carrying my brother and Esau Wardrop with them
+as prisoners; but one of them said it would be as well to give the wyte
+of the burning, at headquarters, to the rebels; so they left them
+behind.
+
+Esau Wardrop, with the young laird and my grandfather, seeing it was in
+vain to stop the progress of the fire, did all that in them lay to
+rescue some of the furniture, while poor old Ringlewood and his aged and
+gentle lady, being both too infirm to lend any help, stood on the green,
+and saw the devouring element pass from room to room, till their ancient
+dwelling was utterly destroyed. Fortunately, however, the air was calm,
+and the out-houses escaping the ruinous contagion of the flames, there
+was still a beild left in the barn to which they could retire.
+
+In the meantime the light of the burning spread over the country; but
+the people knowing that soldiers were quartered in Ringlewood, stood
+aloof in the dread of firearms, thinking the conflagration might be
+caused by some contest of war; so that the mansion of a gentleman much
+beloved of all his neighbours was allowed to burn to the ground before
+their eyes, without any one venturing to come to help him, to so great a
+degree had distrust and the outrages of military riot at that epoch
+altered the hearts of men.
+
+My brother and Esau Wardrop staid with Ringlewood till the morning, and
+had, for the space of three or four hours, a restoring sleep. Fain would
+they have remained longer there, but the threat of the soldiers to
+accuse them as the incendiaries made Ringlewood urge them to depart;
+saying, that maybe a time would come when it would be in his power to
+thank them for their help in that dreadful night. But he was not long
+exposed to many sufferings; for the leddy on the day following, as in
+after-time we heard, was seized with her dead-ill, and departed this
+life in the course of three days; and the laird also, in less than a
+month, was laid in the kirk-yard, with his ancestors, by her side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+
+
+After leaving Ringlewood, the two fugitives, by divers journeyings and
+sore passages through moss and moor, crossed the Balloch ferry, and
+coming down the north side of the Clyde frith to Ardmore, they boated
+across to Greenock, where, in little more than an hour after their
+arrival, they were taken in Euphan Blair's public in Cartsdyke, and the
+same night marched off to Glasgow; of all which I have already given
+intimation in recording my own trials at Inverkip.
+
+But in that march, as my brother and Esau Wardrop were passing with
+their guard at the Inchinnan ferry, the soldiers heedlessly laying their
+firelocks all in a heap in the boat, the thought came into my brother's
+head, that maybe it might be turned to an advantage if he was to spoil
+the powder in the firelocks; so, as they were sitting in the boat, he,
+with seeming innocence, drew his hand several times through the water,
+and in lifting it took care to drop and sprinkle the powder-pans of the
+firelocks, in so much, that by the time they were ferried to the Renfrew
+side, they were spoiled for immediate use.
+
+"Do as I do," said he softly to Esau Wardrop, as they were stepping out,
+and with that he feigned some small expedient for tarrying in the boat,
+while the soldiers, taking their arms, leapt on shore. The ferryman also
+was out before them; and my brother seeing this, took up an oar,
+seemingly to help him to step out; but pretending at the time to
+stumble, he caught hold of Esau's shoulder, and pushing with, the oar,
+shoved off the boat in such a manner, that the rope was pulled out of
+the ferryman's hand, who was in a great consternation. The soldiers,
+however, laughed at seeing how the river's current was carrying away
+their prisoners; for my brother was in no hurry to make use of the oar
+to pull the boat back; on the contrary he pushed her farther and farther
+into the river, until one of the guards, beginning to suspect some
+stratagem, levelled his firelock, and threatened to shoot. Whereupon my
+brother and Esau quickened their exertions, and soon reached the
+opposite side of the river, while the soldiers were banning and tearing
+with rage to be so outwitted, and their firelocks rendered useless for
+the time.
+
+As soon as the fugitives were within wadeable reach of the bank, they
+jumpit out of the boat and ran, and were not long within the scope of
+their adversaries' fire.
+
+By this time the sun was far in the west, and they knew little of the
+country about where they were; but, before embarking, the ferryman had
+pointed out to them the abbey towers of Paisley, and they knew that, for
+a long period, many of the humane inhabitants of that town had been
+among the faithfullest of Scottishmen to the cause of the Kirk and
+Covenant; and therefore they thought that, under the distraction of
+their circumstances maybe it would be their wisest course to direct
+their steps in the dusk of evening towards the town, and they threw
+aside their arms, that they might pass as simple wayfaring men.
+
+Accordingly, having loitered in the way thither, they reached Paisley
+about the heel of the twilight, and searching their way into the heart
+of the town, they found a respectable public near the Cross, into which
+they entered, and ordered some consideration of vivers for supper, just
+as if they had been on market business. In so doing nothing particular
+was remarked of them; and my brother, by way of an entertainment before
+bed-time, told his companion of my grandfather's adventure in Paisley,
+the circumstantials whereof are already written in this book; drawing
+out of what had come to pass with him cheering aspirations of happier
+days for themselves.
+
+While they were thus speaking, one of the town-council, Deacon Fulton,
+came in to have a cap and a crack with any stranger that might be in the
+house. This deacon was a man who well represented and was a good swatch
+of the plain honesty and strict principles which have long governed
+within that ancient borough of regality. He seeing them, and being
+withal a man of shrewd discernment, eyed them very sharply, and maybe
+guessing what they were and where they had come from entered into a
+discreet conversation with them anent the troubles of the time. In this
+he showed the pawkrie, that so well becomes those who sit in council,
+with a spicerie of that wholesome virtue and friendly sympathy of which
+all the poor fugitives from the Pentland raid stood in so great need.
+For, without pretending to jealouse any thing of what they were, he
+spoke of that business as the crack of the day, and told them of many of
+the afflicting things which had been perpetrated after the dispersion of
+the Covenanters, saying,--
+
+"It's a thing to be deplored in all time coming, that the poor,
+misguided folk, concern't in that rash wark, didna rather take refuge in
+the towns, and amang their brethren and fellow-subjects, than flee to
+the hills, where they are hunted down wi' dog and gun, as beasts o' an
+ill kind. Really every body's wae for their folly; though to be sure, in
+a government sense, their fault's past pardon. It's no indeed a thing o'
+toleration, that subjects are to rise against rulers."
+
+"True," said my brother, "unless rulers fall against subjects."
+
+The worthy magistrate looked a thought seriously at him; no in reproof
+for what he had said, or might say, but in an admonitory manner,
+saying,--
+
+"Ye're owre douce a like man, I think, to hae been either art or part in
+this headstrong Reformation, unless ye had some great cause to provoke
+you; and I doubt na ye hae discretion enough no to contest without need
+points o' doctrine; at least for me, I'm laith to enter on ony sort o'
+polemtic, for it's a Gude's truth, I'm nae deacon at it."
+
+My brother discerning by his manner that he saw through them, would have
+refrain't at the time from further discourse; but Esau Wardrop was,
+though a man of few words, yet of such austerity of faith, that he could
+not abide to have it thought he was in any time or place afraid for
+himself to bear his testimony, even when manifestly uncalled on to do;
+so he here broke in upon the considerate and worthy counsellor, and
+said,--
+
+"That a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations,
+conditions, and circumstances, 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 God. 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 passed 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
+compassionately 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 spunk 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' prone to do
+evil."
+
+By this sort of petitionary 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 rehearse.
+
+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, passing 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 pass, 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
+Cumbrae, 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 incumbent, 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
+space 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 pronouncing 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 bloody 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 God 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 massacre 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 passage 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.
+
+"The time of weeping, Michael," said I, "is past, and the time of
+warring will soon come. It is not in man to bear always aggression, nor
+can it be required of him ever to endure contumely."
+
+"What has befallen Bell?" said his mother to him; but instead of making
+her any answer, he uttered a dreadful sound, like the howl of madness,
+and hastily quitted the house.
+
+Sarah Lochrig, who was a woman of a serene reason, and mild and gracious
+in her nature, looked at me with a silent sadness, that told all the
+anguish with which the horror that she guessed had darted into her soul;
+and then, with an energy that I never saw in her before, folded her own
+two daughters to her bosom, as if she was in terror for them, and bathed
+their necks with tears.
+
+While we were in this state my brother himself came in. He was now a man
+well stricken in years, but of a hale appearance, and usually of an open
+and manly countenance. Nor on this occasion did he appear greatly
+altered; but there was a fire in his eye, and a severity in his aspect,
+such as I'd never seen before, yet withal a fortitude that showed how
+strong the self-possession was, which kept the tempest within him from
+breaking out in word or gesture.
+
+"Ringan," said he, "we have met with a misfortune. It's the will of
+Providence, and we maun bear it. But surely in the anger that is caused
+by provocation, our Creator tells us to resent. From this hour, all
+obligation, obedience, allegiance, all whatsoever that as a subject I
+did owe to Charles Stuart is at an end. I am his foe; and the Lord put
+strength into my arm to revenge the ruin of my bairn!"
+
+There was in the utterance of these words a solemnity at first
+terrifying to hear; but his voice in the last clause of the sentence
+faltered, and he took off his bonnet and held it over his face, and wept
+bitterly.
+
+I could make him no answer for some time; but I took hold of his hand,
+and when he had a little mastered his grief, I said, "Brother, we are
+children of the same parents, and the wrongs of one are the wrongs of
+both. But let us not be hasty."
+
+He took the bonnet from his face, and looked at me sternly for a little
+while, and then he said,--
+
+"Ringan Gilhaize, till you have felt what I feel, you ne'er can know
+that the speed o' lightning is slow to the wishes and the will of
+revenge."
+
+At that moment his daughter Bell was brought in, led by my son Michael.
+Her father, at the sight of her, clasped his hands wildly above his
+head, and rushed out of the house. My wife went towards her, but stopped
+and fell back into my arms at the sight of her demented look. My
+daughters gazed, and held up their trembling hands.
+
+"Speak to her," said Michael to his sisters; "she'll maybe heed you;"
+and he added, "Bell, it's Mary and Peggy," and dropping her hand, he
+went to lead Mary to her, while she stood like a statue on the spot.
+
+"Dear Bell," said I, as I moved myself gently from the arms of my
+afflicted wife, "come wi' me to the open air;" and I took her by the
+hand which poor Michael had dropped, and led her out to the green, but
+still she looked the same demented creature.
+
+Her father, who had by this time again overcome his distress, seeing us
+on the green, came towards us, while my wife and daughters also came
+out; but Michael could no longer endure the sight of the rifled rose
+that he had cherished for the ornament of his bosom, and he remained to
+hide his grief in the house.
+
+"Her mind's gone, Ringan," said my brother, "and she'll ne'er be better
+in this world!" Nor was she; but she lived many months after, and in all
+the time never shed a tear, nor breathed a sigh, nor spoke a word; where
+she was led she went; where she was left, she stood. At last she became
+so weak that she could not stand; and one day, as I was sitting at her
+bedside, I observed that she lay unusually still, and touching her hand,
+found that all her sorrows were over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX
+
+
+From the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom held
+any communion with me; but I observed that with Michael he had much
+business, and though I asked no questions, I needed not to be told that
+there was a judgment and a doom in what they did. I was therefore
+fearful that some rash step would be taken at the burial of Bell; for it
+was understood that all the neighbours, far and near, intended to be
+present to testify their pity for her fate. So I spoke to Mr Witherspoon
+concerning my fears, and by his exhortations the body was borne to the
+kirk-yard in a solemn and peaceable manner.
+
+But just as the coffin was laid in the grave, and before a spadeful of
+earth was thrown, a boy came running crying, "Sharp's kill't!--the
+apostate's dead!" which made every one turn round and pause; and while
+we were thus standing, a horseman came riding by, who confirmed the
+tidings, that a band of men whom his persecutions had made desperate,
+had executed justice on the apostate as he was travelling in his
+carriage with his daughter on Magus-moor. While the stranger was telling
+the news, the corpse lay in the grave unburied; and dreadful to tell!
+when he had made an end of his tale, there was a shout of joy and
+exultation set up by all present, except by Michael and my brother. They
+stood unmoved, and I thought--do I them any wrong?--that they looked
+disconsolate and disappointed.
+
+But though the judgment on James Sharp was a cause of satisfaction to
+all covenanted hearts, many were not yet so torn by the persecution as
+entirely to applaud the deed. I shall not therefore enter upon the
+particulars of what was done anent those who dealt his doom, for they
+were not of our neighbourhood.
+
+The crime, however, of listening peacefully in the fields to the truths
+of the Gospel became, in the sight of the persecutors, every day more
+and more heinous, and they gave themselves up to the conscience-soothing
+tyranny of legal ordinances, as if the enactment and execution of bloody
+laws, contrary to those of God, and against the unoffending privileges
+of our nature, were not wickedness of as dark a stain as the murderer's
+use of his secret knife. Edict and proclamation against field-preachings
+and conventicles came following each other, and the latest was the
+fiercest and fellest of all which had preceded. But the cause of truth,
+and the right of communion with the Lord, was not to be given up: "It is
+not for glory," we said in the words of those brave Scottish barons that
+redeemed, with King Robert the Bruce, their native land from the
+thraldom of the English Edward, "nor is it for riches, neither is it for
+honour, but it is for liberty alone we contend, which no true man will
+lose but with his life;" and therefore it was that we would not yield
+obedience to the tyranny, which was revived with new strength by the
+death of James Sharp, in revenge for his doom, but sought, in despite of
+decrees and statutes, to hear THE WORD where we believed it was best
+spoken.
+
+The laws of God, which are above all human authority, require that we
+should worship him in truth and in holiness, and we resolved to do so to
+the uttermost, and prepared ourselves with arms to resist whoever might
+be sent to molest us in the performance of that the greatest duty. But
+in so exercising the divine right of resistance, we were not called upon
+to harm those whom we knew to be our adversaries. Belting ourselves for
+defence, not for war, we went singly to our places of secret meeting in
+the glens and on the moors, and when the holy exercise was done, we
+returned to our homes as peacefully as we went thither.
+
+Many a time I have since thought, that surely in no other age or land
+was ever such a solemn celebration of the Sabbath as in those days. The
+very dangers with which we were environed exalted the devout heart;
+verily it was a grand sight to see the fearless religious man moving
+from his house in the grey of the morning, with the Bible in his hand,
+and his sword for a staff, walking towards the hills for many a weary
+mile, hoping the preacher would be there, and praying as he went that
+there might be no molestation.
+
+Often and often on those occasions has the Lord been pleased to shelter
+his worshippers from their persecutors by covering them with the mantle
+of His tempest; and many a time at the dead of night, when the winds
+were soughing around, and the moon was bowling through the clouds, we
+have stood on the heath of the hills and the sound of our psalms has
+been mingled with the roaring of the gathering waters.
+
+The calamities which drove us thus to worship in the wilderness, and
+amidst the storm, rose to their full tide on the back of the death of
+the arch-apostate James Sharp; for all the religious people in the realm
+were in a manner regarded by the government as participators in the
+method of his punishment. And Claverhouse, whom I have now to speak of,
+got that special commission on which he rode so wickedly, to put to the
+sword whomsoever he found with arms at any preaching in the fields; so
+that we had no choice in seeking to obtain the consolations of religion,
+which we then stood so much in need of, but to congregate in such
+numbers as would deter the soldiers from venturing to attack us. This it
+was which caused the second rising, and led to the fatal day of
+Bothwell-brigg, whereof it is needful that I should particularly speak,
+not only on account of the great stress that was thereon laid by the
+persecutors, in making out of it a method of fiery ordeal to afflict the
+covenanted, but also because it was the overflowing fountain-head of the
+deluge that made me desolate. And herein, courteous reader, should aught
+of a fiercer feeling than belongs to the sacred sternness of truth and
+justice escape from my historical pen, thou wilt surely pardon the same,
+if there be any of the gracious ruth of Christian gentleness in thy
+bosom; for now I have to tell of things that have made the annals of the
+land as red as crimson and filled my house with the blackness of ashes
+and universal death.
+
+For a long period there had been, from the causes and circumstances
+premised, sore difficulties in the assembling of congregations, and the
+sacrament of the Supper had not been dispensed in many parts of the
+shire of Ayr from the time of the Highland host; so that there was a
+great longing in the hearts of the covenanted to partake once again of
+that holy refreshment; and shortly after the seed-time it began to be
+concerted, that early in the summer a day should be set apart, and a
+place fixed for the celebration of the same. About the time of the
+interment of my brother's desolated daughter, and the judgment of the
+death executed on James Sharp, it was settled that the moors of
+Loudon-hill should be the place of meeting, and that the first Sabbath
+of June should be the day. But what ministers would be there was not
+settled; for who could tell which, in those times, would be spared from
+prison?
+
+It was, however, forethought and foreseen, that the assemblage of
+communicants would be very considerable; for, in order that there might
+be the less risk of molestation, a wish that it should be so was put
+forth among us, to the end that the King's forces might swither to
+disperse us. Accordingly, with my disconsolate brother and son, I went
+to be present at that congregation, and we carried our arms with us, as
+we were then in the habit of doing on all occasions of public testimony
+by worship.
+
+In the meantime a rent had been made in the Covenant, partly by the
+over-zeal of certain young preachers, who, not feeling, as we did, that
+the duty of presbyterians went no farther than defence and resistance,
+strove, with all the pith of an effectual eloquence, to exasperate the
+minds of their hearers into hostility against those in authority; and it
+happened that several of those who had executed the judgment on James
+Sharp, seeing no hope of pardon for what they had done, leagued
+themselves with this party, in the hope of thereby making head against
+their pursuers.
+
+I have been the more strict in setting down these circumstantials,
+because in the bloody afterings of that meeting they were altogether
+lost sight of; and also because the implacable rage with which
+Claverhouse persecuted the Covenanters has been extenuated by some
+discreet historians, on the plea of his being an honourable officer,
+deduced from his soldierly worth elsewhere; whereas the truth is, that
+his cruelties in the shire of Ayr, and other of our western parts, were
+less the fruit of his instructions, wide and severe as they were, than
+of his own mortified vanity and malignant revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI
+
+
+It was in the cool of the evening, on Saturday, the last day of May,
+when my brother came over to my house, where, with Michael, I had
+prepared myself to go with him to Loudon-hill. Our intent was to walk
+that night to Kilmarnock, and abide till the morning with our brother
+Jacob's widow, not having seen her for a long time.
+
+We had in the course of that day heard something of the publication of
+"The Declaration and Testimony," which, through the vehemence of the
+preachers before spoken of, had been rashly counselled at Ruglen, the
+twenty-ninth of the month; but there was no particulars, and what we did
+hear was like, as all such things are, greatly magnified beyond the
+truth. We, however, were grieved by the tidings; for we feared some
+cause of tribulation would be thereby engendered detrimental to the
+religious purposes of our journey.
+
+This sentiment pressing heavily on our hearts, we parted from my family
+with many misgivings, and the bodements of further sorrows. But the
+outward expression of what we all felt was the less remarkable, on
+account of what so lately had before happened in my brother's house. Nor
+indeed did I think at the time, that the foretaste of what was ordained
+so speedily to come to a head was at all so lively in his spirit, or
+that of my son, as it was in mine, till, in passing over the top of the
+Gowan-brae, he looked round on the lands of Quharist, and said,--
+
+"I care nae, Ringan, if I ne'er come back; for though we hae lang dwelt
+in affection together yon'er, thae that were most precious to me are now
+both aneath the sod,"--alluding to his wife who had been several years
+dead,--and poor Bell, that lovely rose which the ruthless spoiler had so
+trampled into the earth.
+
+"I feel," said Michael, "as if I were going to a foreign land, there is
+sic a farewell sadness upon me."
+
+But we strove to overcome this, and walked leisurely on the high road
+towards Kilmarnock, trying to discourse of indifferent things; and as
+the gloaming faded, and the night began to look forth, from her
+watch-tower in the heavens, with all her eyes of beautiful light, we
+communed of the friends that we trusted were in glory, and marvelled if
+it could be that they saw us after death, or ever revisited the persons
+and the scenes that they loved in life. Rebellion or treason, or any
+sense of thoughts and things that were not holy, had no portion in our
+conversation: we were going to celebrate the redemption of fallen man;
+and we were mourning for friends no more; our discourse was of eternal
+things, and the mysteries of the stars and the lights of that world
+which is above the firmament.
+
+When we reached Kilmarnock we found that Jacob's widow had, with several
+other godly women, set out towards the place of meeting, to sojourn with
+a relation that night, in order that they might be the abler to gather
+the manna of the word in the morning. We therefore resolved not to halt
+there, but to go forward to the appointed place, and rest upon the spot.
+This accordingly doing, we came to the eastern side of Loudon-hill, the
+trysted place, shortly after the first scad of the dawn.
+
+Many were there before us, both men and women and little children, and
+horses intermingled, some slumbering, and some communing with one
+another; and as the morning brightened, it was a hallowed sight to
+behold from that rising ground the blameless persecuted coming with
+sedate steps to worship their Maker on the mountain.
+
+The Reverend Mr Thomas Douglas, who was to open the action, arrived
+about the rising of the sun with several other ministers, and behind
+them four aged men belonging to Strathaven bearing the elements.
+
+A pious lady, whose name I never heard, owing to what ensued, spread
+with her own hands a damask tablecloth on the ground, and the bread and
+wine were placed upon it with more reverence than ever was in kirk.
+
+Mr Douglas having mounted upon a rock nigh to where this was done, was
+about to give out the psalm, when we observed several country lads, that
+were stationed as watchers afar off, coming with great haste in; and
+they brought word, that Claverhouse and his dragoons were coming to
+disperse us, bringing with them the Reverend Mr King, a preacher of the
+gospel at Hamilton, and others that they had made prisoners, tied with
+cords two and two.
+
+The tidings for a moment caused panic and consternation; but as the men
+were armed, and resolved to resist, it was thought, in consideration of
+the women and children, that we ought to go forward, and prevent the
+adversaries from advancing. Accordingly, to the number of forty
+horsemen, and maybe near to two hundred foot, we drew ourselves apart
+from the congregation, and marched to meet Claverhouse, thinking,
+perhaps, on seeing us so numerous, that he would not come on,--while Mr
+Douglas proceeded with the worship, the piety of none with him being
+abated by this grievous visitation.
+
+Mr William Clelland, with Mr Hamilton, who had come with Mr Douglas,
+were our leaders, and we met Claverhouse on the moor of Drumclog.
+
+The dragoons were the first to halt, and Claverhouse, having ordered his
+prisoners to be drawn aside, was the first who gave the word to fire.
+This was without any parley or request to know whether we came with
+hostile intent or no. Clelland, on seeing the dragoons make ready, cried
+to us all to den ourselves among the heather; by which forethought the
+shot flew harmless. Then we started up, and every one, with the best aim
+he could, fired at the dragoons as they were loading their carabines.
+Several men and horses were killed, and many wounded. Claverhouse seeing
+this, commanded his men to charge upon us; but the ground was rough, the
+heather deep, and the moss broken where peats had been dug, and the
+horses floundered, and several threw their riders, and fell themselves.
+
+We had now loaded again, and the second fire was more deadly than the
+first. Our horsemen also seeing how the dragoons were scattered, fell in
+the confusion as it were man for man upon them. Claverhouse raged and
+commanded, but no one now could or would obey. In that extremity his
+horse was killed, and, being thrown down, I ran forward to seize him, if
+I could, prisoner; but he still held his sword in his hand, and rising
+as I came up, used it manfully, and with one stroke almost hewed my
+right arm from my shoulder. As he fled I attempted for a moment to
+follow, but staggered and fell. He looked back as he escaped, and I
+cried--"Blood for blood;" and it has been so, as I shall hereafter in
+the sequel relate.
+
+When the day was won, we found we numbered among the slain on the side
+of the vanquished nearly twenty of the dragoons: on our side we lost but
+one man, John Morton--a ripe saint; but several were wounded; and John
+Weir and William Daniel died of their wounds. Such was the day of
+Drumclog.
+
+Being wounded, I was carried to a neighbouring farm, attended by my
+brother and son, and there put upon a cart and sent home to Quharist, as
+it was thought I would be best attended there. They then returned to the
+rest of the host, who, seeing themselves thus brought into open war,
+resolved forthwith to proceed to Glasgow, and to raise again the banner
+of the Covenant.
+
+But Claverhouse had fled thither, burning with the thought of being so
+shorn in his military pride by raw and undisciplined countrymen, whom,
+if we had been bred soldiers, maybe he would have honoured, but being
+what we were, though our honour was the greater, he hated us with the
+deadly aversion that is begotten of vanity chastised; for that it was
+which incited him to ravage the West Country with such remorselessness,
+and which, when our men were next day repulsed at Glasgow with the loss
+of lives, made him hinder the removal of the bodies from the streets,
+till it was said the butchers' dogs began to prey upon them.
+
+But not to insist on matters of hearsay, nor to dwell at any greater
+length on those afflicting events, I must refer the courteous reader to
+the history of the times for what followed, it being enough for me to
+state here that as soon as the news spread of the battle and the
+victory, the persecuted ran flocking in from all quarters, by which the
+rope of sand, that the Lord permitted Monmouth to break at
+Bothwell-brigg, was soon formed. My brother and my son were both there,
+and there my gallant Michael lies. My brother, then verging on
+threescore, being among the prisoners, was, after sore sufferings in the
+Greyfriars church-yard of Edinburgh, sent on board a vessel as a
+bondsman to the plantations in America. His wrongs, however, were
+happily soon over; for the ship in which he was embarked perished among
+the Orkney islands, and he, with two hundred other sufferers, received
+the crown of martyrdom from the waves.
+
+O Charles Stuart, king of Scotland! and thou, James Sharp!--false and
+cruel men--But ye are called to your account; and what avails it now to
+the childless father to rail upon your memory?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII
+
+
+Before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale of
+my own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, to
+note here a very singular example of the spirit of piety which reigned
+in the hearts of the Covenanters, especially as I shall have to show
+that such was the cruel and implacable nature of the Persecution, that
+time had not its wonted influence to soften in any degree its rigour.
+Thirteen years had passed from the time of the Pentland raid; and surely
+the manner in which the country had suffered for that rising might, in
+so long a course of years, have subdued the animosity with which we were
+pursued; especially, as during the Earl of Tweeddale's administration
+the bonds of peace had been accepted. But Lauderdale, now at the head of
+the councils, was rapacious for money; and therefore all offences, if I
+may employ that courtly term, by which our endeavours to taste of the
+truth were designated,--all old offences, as I was saying, were renewed
+against us as recent crimes, and an innocent charity to the remains of
+those who had suffered for the Pentland raid was made a reason, after
+the battle of Bothwell-brigg, to revive the persecution of those who had
+been out in that affair.
+
+The matter particularly referred to arose out of the following
+circumstances:
+
+The number of honest and pious men who were executed in different
+places, and who had their heads and their right hands with which they
+signed the Covenant at Lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of towns
+and over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great. And it was very
+grievous, and a sore thing to the friends and acquaintances of those
+martyrs, when they went to Glasgow, or Kilmarnock, or Irvine, or Ayr, on
+their farm business, to tryst or market, to see the remains of persons,
+whom they so loved and respected in life, bleaching in the winds and the
+rains of Heaven. It was, indeed, a matter of great heart-sadness, to
+behold such animosity carried beyond the grave; and few they were who
+could withstand the sight of the orphans that came thither, pointing out
+to one another their fathers' bones, and weeping as they did so, and
+vowing, with an innocent indignation, that they would avenge their
+martyrdom.
+
+Well do I remember the great sorrow that arose one market-day in Irvine,
+some five or six years after the Pentland raid, when Mrs M'Coul came,
+with her four weans and her aged gudemother, to look at the relics of
+her husband, who was martyred for his part in that rising. The bones
+were standing, with those of another martyr of that time, on a shelf
+which had been put up for the purpose, below the first wicket-hole in
+the steeple, just above the door. The two women were very decent in
+their apparel, rather more so than the common country wives. The
+gudemother, in particular, had a cast of gentility both in her look and
+garments; and I have heard the cause of it expounded, from her having
+been the daughter of one of the Reformation preachers in the
+Gospel-spreading epoch of John Knox. She had a crimson satin plaid over
+her head, and she wore a black silk apron and a grey camlet gown. With
+the one hand she held the plaid close to her neck, and the youngest
+child, a lassie of seven years or so, had hold of her by the fore-finger
+of the other.
+
+Mrs M'Coul was more of a robust fabric, and she was without any plaid,
+soberly dressed in the weeds of a widow, with a clean cambric
+handkerchief very snodly prined over her breast. The children were
+likewise beinly apparelled, and the two sons were buirdly and brave
+laddies, the one about nine, and the other maybe eleven years old.
+
+It would seem that this had been the first of their pilgrimages of
+sorrow; for they stood some time in a row at the foot of the tolbooth
+stair, looking up at the remains, and wondering, with tears in their
+eyes, which were those they had come to see.
+
+Their appearance drew around them many onlookers, both of the country
+folk about the Cross and inhabitants of the town; but every one
+respected their sorrow, and none ventured to disturb them with any
+questions; for all saw that they were kith or kin to the godly men who
+had testified to the truth and the Covenant in death.
+
+It happened, however, that I had occasion to pass by, and some of the
+town's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, but
+loud enough to be heard, that I was one of the persecuted; whereupon Mrs
+M'Coul turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure,--
+
+"Can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' John M'Coul, that
+was executed for the covenanting at Lanerk?"
+
+I knew the remains well, for they had been pointed out to me and I had
+seen them very often, but really the sight of the two women and the
+fatherless bairns so overcame me that I was unable to answer.
+
+"It's the head and the hand beside it, that has but twa fingers left, on
+the Kirkgate end o' the shelf!" replied a person in the crowd, whom I
+knew at once by his voice to be Willy Sutherland the hangman, although I
+had not seen him from the night of my evasion. And here let me not
+forget to set down the Christian worth and constancy of that simple and
+godly creature, who, rather than be instrumental in the guilty judgment
+by which John M'Coul and his fellow-sufferer were doomed to die, did
+himself almost endure martyrdom, and yet never swerved in his purpose,
+nor was abated in his integrity, in so much, that when questioned
+thereafter anent the same by the Earl of Eglinton, and his Lordship,
+being moved by the simplicity of his piety, said, "Poor man, you did
+well in not doing what they would have had you to do."
+
+"My Lord," replied Willy, "you are speaking treason! and yet you
+persecute to the uttermost, which shows that you go against the light of
+your conscience."
+
+"Do you say so to me, after I kept you from being hanged?" said his
+Lordship.
+
+"Keep me from being drowned, and I will still tell you the verity." The
+which honesty in that poor man begat for him a compassionate regard that
+the dignities of many great and many noble in that time could never
+command.
+
+When the sorrowful M'Couls had indulged themselves in their melancholy
+contemplation, they went away, followed by the multitude with silence
+and sympathy, till they had mounted upon the cart which they had brought
+with them into the town. But from that time every one began to speak of
+the impiety of leaving the bones so wofully exposed; and after the
+skirmish at Drumclog, where Robin M'Coul, the eldest of the two
+striplings above spoken of, happened to be, when Mr John Welsh, with
+the Carrick men that went to Bothwell-brigg, was sent into Glasgow to
+bury the heads and hands of the martyrs there, Robin M'Coul came with a
+party of his friends to Irvine to bury his father's bones. I was not
+myself present at the interment, being, as I have narrated, confined to
+my bed by reason of my wound. But I was told by the neighbours, that it
+was a very solemn and affecting scene. The grieved lad carried the
+relics of his father in a small box in his hands, covered with a white
+towel; and the godly inhabitants of the town, young and old, and of all
+denominations, to the number of several hundreds, followed him to the
+grave where the body was lying; and Willy Sutherland, moved by a simple
+sorrow, was the last of all; and he walked, as I was told, alone,
+behind, with his bonnet in his hand; for, from his calling, he counted
+himself not on an equality with other men. But it is time that I should
+return from this digression to the main account of my narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII
+
+
+Being wounded, as I have rehearsed, at Drumclog, and carried to my own
+house, Sarah Lochrig, while she grieved with a mother's grief for the
+loss of our first-born and the mournful fate of my honest brother,
+advanced my cure more by her loving ministrations to my aching mind,
+than by the medicaments that were applied to the bodily wound, in so
+much that something like a dawn of comfort was vouchsafed to me.
+
+Our parish was singularly allowed to remain unmolested when, after the
+woful day of Bothwell-brigg, Claverhouse came to ravage the shire of
+Ayr, and to take revenge for the discomfiture which he had suffered, in
+his endeavour to disturb the worship and sacrament at Loudon-hill.
+Still, however, at times clouds overcame my spirit; and one night my
+daughter Margaret had a remarkable dream, which taught us to expect some
+particular visitation.
+
+It was surely a mysterious reservation for the greater calamity which
+ensued, that while the vial of wrath was pouring out around us, my house
+should have been allowed to remain so unmolested. Often indeed when in
+our nightly worship I returned thanks for a blessing so wonderful in
+that time of general woe, has a strange fear fallen upon me and I have
+trembled in thought, as if the thing for which I sent up the incense of
+my thanks to heaven, was a device of the Enemy of man, to make me think
+myself more deserving of favour than the thousands of covenanted
+brethren who then, in Scotland, were drinking of the bitterness of the
+suffering. But in proportion as I was then spared, the heavier
+afterwards was my trial.
+
+Among the prisoners taken at Bothwell-brigg were many persons from our
+parish and neighbourhood, who, after their unheard-of sufferings among
+the tombs and graves of the Greyfriars church-yard at Edinburgh, were
+allowed to return home. Though in this there was a show of clemency, it
+was yet but a more subtle method of the tyranny to reach new victims.
+For those honest men were not long home till grievous circuit-courts
+were set agoing, to bring to trial not only all those who were at
+Bothwell, or approved of that rising, but likewise those who had been at
+the Pentland raid; and the better to ensure condemnation and punishment,
+sixteen persons were cited from every parish to bear witness as to who,
+among their neighbours, had been out at Bothwell, or had harboured any
+of those who were there. The wicked curates made themselves, in this
+grievous matter, engines of espionage, by giving in the names of those,
+their parishioners, whom they knew could bear the best testimony.
+
+Thus it was, that many who had escaped from the slaughter--from the
+horrors of the Greyfriars church-yard--and from the drowning in the
+Orkneys,--and, like myself, had resumed their quiet country labour, were
+marked out for destruction. For the witnesses cited to Ayr against us
+were persons who had been released from the Greyfriars church-yard, as I
+have said, and who, being honest men, could not, when put to their
+oaths, but bear witness to the truth of the matters charged against us.
+And nothing surely could better show the devilish spirit with which
+those in authority were at that time actuated, nor the unchristian
+nature of the prelacy, than that the prisoners should thus have been set
+free to be made the accusers of their neighbours; and that the curates,
+men professing to be ministers of the Gospel, should have been such fit
+instruments for such unheard-of machinations. But to hasten forward to
+the fate and issue of this self-consuming tyranny, I shall leave all
+generalities, and proceed with the events of my own case; and, in doing
+so, I shall endeavour what is in me to inscribe the particulars with a
+steady hand; for I dare no longer now trust myself with looking to the
+right or to the left of the field of my matter. I shall, however, try to
+narrate things just as they happened, leaving the courteous reader to
+judge what passed at the time in the suffocating throbs wherewith my
+heart was then affected.
+
+It was the last day of February, of the year following Bothwell-brigg,
+that, in consequence of these subtle and wicked devices, I was taken up.
+I had, from my wound, been in an ailing state for many months, and could
+then do little in the field; but the weather for the season was mild,
+and I had walked out in the tranquillity of a sunny afternoon to give my
+son Joseph some instructions in the method of ploughing; for, though he
+was then but in his thirteenth year, he was a by-common stripling in
+capacity and sense. He was indeed a goodly plant; and I had hoped, in my
+old age, to have sat beneath the shelter of his branches; but the axe of
+the feller was untimely laid to the root, and it was too soon, with all
+the blossoms of the fairest promise, cast down into the dust. But my
+task now is of vengeance and justice, not of sorrowing, and I must more
+sternly grasp the iron pen.
+
+A party of soldiers, who had been that afternoon sent out to bring in
+certain persons (among whom I was one) in a list malignantly transmitted
+to the Archbishop of Glasgow, by Andrew Dornoch, the prelatic usurper of
+our minister's place, as I was leaving the field where my son was
+ploughing, saw me from the road, and ordered me to halt till they came
+up, or they would fire at me.
+
+It would have been unavailing of me, in the state I then was, to have
+attempted to flee, so I halted; and, after some entreaty with the
+soldiers, got permission from them to have my horse and cart yoket, as I
+was not very well, and so to be carried to Ayr. And here I should note
+down that, although there was in general a coarse spirit among the
+King's forces, yet in these men there was a touch of common humanity.
+This was no doubt partly owing to their having been some months
+quartered in Irvine, where they became naturally softened by the
+friendly spirit of the place. It was not, however, ordained that men so
+merciful should be permitted to remain long there.
+
+As it was an understood thing that the object of the trials to which the
+Covenanters were in this manner subjected was chiefly to raise money and
+forfeitures for the rapacious Duke of Lauderdale, then in the rule and
+power of the council at Edinburgh, my being carried away prisoner to Ayr
+awakened less grief and consternation in my family than might have been
+expected from the event. Through the humane permission of my guard,
+having a little time to confer with Sarah Lochrig before going away, it
+was settled between us that she should gather together what money she
+could procure, either by loan or by selling our corn and cattle, in
+order to provide for the payment of the fine that we counted would be
+laid upon us. I was then taken to the tolbooth of Ayr, where many other
+covenanted brethren were lying to await the proceedings of the
+circuit-court, which was to be opened by the Lord Kelburne from Glasgow,
+on the second day after I had been carried thither.
+
+Among the prisoners were several who knew me well, and who condoled as
+Christians with me for the loss I had sustained at Bothwell; so, but for
+the denial of the fresh and heavenly air, and the freedom of the fields,
+the time of our captivity might have been a season of much solace: for
+they were all devout men, and the tolbooth, instead of resounding with
+the imprecations of malefactors, became melodious with the voice of
+psalms and of holy communion, and the sweet intercourse of spirits that
+delighted in one another for the constancy with which they had borne
+their testimony.
+
+When the Lord Kelburne arrived, on the first day that the court opened,
+I was summoned to respond to the offences laid to my charge, if any
+charge of offence it may be called, wherein the purpose of the court was
+seemingly to search out opinions that might serve as matter to justify
+the infliction of the fines,--the whole end and intent of those circuits
+not being to award justice, but to find the means of extorting money. In
+some respects, however, I was more mercifully dealt by than many of my
+fellow-sufferers; but in order to show how, even in my case, the laws
+were perverted, I will here set down a brief record of my examination or
+trial, as it was called.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV
+
+
+The council-room was full of people when I was taken thither, and the
+Lord Kelburne, who sat at the head of the table, was abetted in the
+proceedings by Murray, an advocate from Edinburgh. They were sitting at
+a wide round table, within a fence which prevented the spectators from
+pressing in upon them. There were many papers and letters folded up in
+bundles lying before them, and a candle burning, and wax for
+sigillation. Besides Lord Kelburne and his counsellor, there were divers
+gentlemen seated at the table, and two clerks to make notations.
+
+Lord Kelburne, in his appearance, was a mild-looking man, and for his
+years his hair was very hoary; for though he was seemingly not passing
+fifty, it was in a manner quite blanched. In speech he was moderate, in
+disposition indulgent, and verily towards me he acted in his harsh duty
+with much gentleness.
+
+But Murray had a doure aspect for his years, and there was a smile among
+his features not pleasant to behold, breeding rather distrust and dread
+than winning confidence or affection, which are the natural fruit of a
+countenance rightly gladdened. He looked at me from aneath his brows as
+if I had been a malefactor, and turning to the Lord Kelburne, said,--
+
+"He has the true fanatical yellow look."
+
+This was a base observe; for naturally I was of a fresh complexion, but
+my long illness, and the close air of the prison, had made me pale.
+
+After some more impertinences of that sort, he then said,--
+
+"Ringan Gilhaize, you were at the battle of Bothwell-brigg."
+
+"I was not," said I.
+
+"You do not mean to say so, surely?"
+
+"I have said it," was my answer.
+
+Whereupon one of the clerks whispered to him that there were three of
+the name in the list.
+
+"O!" cried he, "I crave your pardon, Ringan; there are several persons
+of your name; and though you were not at Bothwell yourself, maybe ye ken
+those of your name who were there,--Do you?"
+
+"I did know two," was my calm answer; "one was my brother, and the other
+my son."
+
+All present remained very silent as I made this answer; and the Lord
+Kelburne bending forward, leant his cheek on his hand as he rested his
+elbow on the table, and looked very earnestly at me. Murray resumed,--
+
+"And pray now, Ringan, tell us what has become of the two rebels?"
+
+"They were covenanted Christians," said I; "my son lies buried with
+those that were slain on that sore occasion."
+
+"But your brother; he was of course younger than you?"
+
+"No; he was older."
+
+"Well, well, no matter as to that; but where is he?"
+
+"I believe he is with his Maker; but his body lies among the rocks at
+the bottom of the Orkney seas."
+
+The steadiness of the Lord Kelburne's countenance saddened into the look
+of compassion, and he said to Murray,--
+
+"There is no use in asking him any more questions about them; proceed
+with the ordinary interrogatories."
+
+There was a murmur of satisfaction towards his Lordship at this; and
+Murray said,--
+
+"And so you say that those in the late rebellion at Bothwell were not
+rebels?"
+
+"I said, sir, that my son and my brother were covenanted Christians."
+
+This I delivered with a firm voice, which seemed to produce some effect
+on the Lord Kelburne, who threw himself back in his chair, and crossing
+his arms over his breast, looked still more eagerly towards me.
+
+"Do you mean then to deny," said Murray, "that the late rebellion was
+not a rebellion?"
+
+"It would be hard, sir, to say what it was; for the causes thereto
+leading," replied I, "were provocations concerning things of God, and to
+those who were for that reason religiously there, I do not think, in a
+right sense, it can be called rebellion. Those who were there for
+carnal motives, and I doubt not there were many such, I fancy every
+honest man may say it was with them rebellion."
+
+"I must deal more closely with him," said Murray to his Lordship; but
+his Lordship, before allowing him to put any more questions, said
+himself to me,--
+
+"But you know, to state the thing plainly, that the misguided people who
+were at Bothwell had banded themselves against the laws of the realm,
+whether from religious or carnal motives is not the business we are here
+to sift, that point is necessarily remitted to God and their
+consciences."
+
+Murray added, "It is most unreasonable to suppose that every subject is
+free to determine of what is lawful to be obeyed. The thought is
+ridiculous. It would destroy the end of all laws which are for the
+advantage of communities, and which speak the sense of the generality,
+touching the matter and things to which they refer."
+
+"My Lord," said I, addressing myself to Lord Kelburne, "it surely will
+ne'er be denied that every subject is free to exercise his discretion
+with respek to his ain conduct; and your Lordship kens vera weel that it
+is the duty of subjects to know the laws of the land; and your Lordship
+likewise knows that God has given laws to all rulers as well as
+subjects, and both may and ought to know His laws. Now if I, knowing
+both the laws of God and the laws of the land, find the one contrary to
+the other, undoubtedly God's laws ought to hae the preference in my
+obedience."
+
+His Lordship looked somewhat satisfied with this answer; but Murray said
+to him,--
+
+"I will pose him with this question. If presbyterian government were
+established, as it was in the year 1648, and some ministers were not
+free to comply with it, and a law were made that none should hear them
+out o' doors, would you judge it reasonable that such ministers or their
+people should be at liberty to act in contempt of that law."
+
+And he looked mightily content with himself for this subtlety; but I
+said,--
+
+"Really, sir, I canna see a reason why hearkening to a preaching in the
+fields should be a greater guilt than doing the same thing indoors."
+
+"If I were of your principles," said the advocate, "and thought in my
+conscience that the laws of the land were contrary to the laws of God,
+and that I could not conform to them, I would judge it my duty rather to
+go out of the nation and live elsewhere, than disturb the peace of the
+land."
+
+"That were to suppose two things," said I; "first, that rulers may make
+laws contrary to the laws of God, and that when such laws are once made,
+they ought to be submitted to. But I think, sir, that rulers being under
+the law of God act wickedly and in rebellion to Him, when they make
+enactments contrary to His declared will; and surely it can ne'er be
+required that we should allow wickedness to be done."
+
+"I am not sure," said Murray to his Lordship, "that I do right in
+continuing this irrelevant conversation."
+
+"I am interested in the honest man's defence," replied Lord Kelburne;
+"and as 'tis in a matter of conscience, let us hear what makes it so."
+
+"Well, then," resumed the advocate, "what can you say to the barbarous
+murder of Archbishop Sharp?--You will not contend that murder is not
+contrary to the law of God?"
+
+"I ne'er contended," said I, "that any sin was permitted by the law of
+God--far less murder, which is expressly forbidden in the Ten Commands."
+
+"Then ye acknowledge the murder of the Archbishop to have been murder?"
+
+"That's between those that did it and God."
+
+"Hooly, hooly, friend!" cried Murray; "that, Ringan, winna do; was it or
+was it not murder?"
+
+"Can I tell, who was not there?"
+
+"Then to satisfy your conscience on that score, Ringan, I would ask you,
+if a gang of ruffians slay a defenceless man, do or do they not commit
+murder?"
+
+"I can easily answer that."
+
+Lord Kelburne again bent eagerly forward, and rested his cheek again on
+his hand, placing his elbow on the table, while I continued,--
+
+"A gang of ruffians coming in wantonness, or for plunder, upon a
+defenceless man, and putting him to death, there can be no doubt is
+murder; but it has not yet been called murder to kill an enemy in
+battle; and therefore, if the captain of a host go to war without arms,
+and thereby be defenceless, it cannot be said that those of the adverse
+party, who may happen to slay him, do any murder."
+
+"Do you mean to justify the manner of the death of the Archbishop?"
+exclaimed the advocate, starting back and spreading out his arms in
+wonderment.
+
+"'Deed no, sir," replied I, a little nettled at the construction he
+would put upon what I said; "but I will say, even here, what Sir Davie
+Lindsay o' the Mount said on the similar event o' Cardinal Beaton's
+death,--
+
+   'As for this Cardinal, I grant
+   He was the man we might well want;
+             God will forgive it soon:
+   But of a truth, the sooth to say,
+   Although the loon be well away,
+             The fact was foully done.'"
+
+There was a rustle of gratification among all in the court as I said the
+rhyme, and Lord Kelburne smiled; but Murray, somewhat out of humour,
+said,--
+
+"I fancy, my Lord, we must consider this as an admission that the
+killing of the Archbishop was murder."
+
+"I fear," said his Lordship, "that neither of the two questions have
+been so directly put as to justify me to pronounce any decision, though
+I am willing to put the most favourable construction on what has
+passed." And then his Lordship, looking to me, added,--
+
+"Do you consider the late rebellion, being contrary to the King's
+authority, rebellion?"
+
+"Contrary to the King's right authority," replied I, "it was not
+rebellion; but contrary to an authority beyond the right taken by him,
+despite the law of God, it was rebellion."
+
+"Wherefore, honest man," rejoined his Lordship kindly, "would you make a
+distinction that may bring harm on your own head? Is not the King's
+authority instituted by law and prerogative, and knowing that, cannot ye
+say that those who rise in arms against it are rebels?"
+
+"My Lord," said I, "you have my answer; for in truth and in conscience I
+can give none other."
+
+There was a pause for a short space, and one of the clerks looking to
+Lord Kelburne, his Lordship said, with a plain reluctance, "It must even
+be so; write down that he is not clear the late rebellion should be
+called a rebellion;" and casting his eyes entreatingly towards me, he
+added, "But I think you acknowledge that the assassination of Archbishop
+Sharp was a murder?"
+
+"My Lord," said I, "your questions are propounded as tests and
+therefore, as an honest man, I cannot suffer that my answers should be
+scant, lest I might be thought to waver in faith and was backward in my
+testimony. No, my Lord, I will not call the killing of Sharp murder; for
+on my conscience, I do verily think he deserved the death: First,
+because of his apostacy; second, because of the laws of which he was the
+instigator, whereby the laws of God have been contravened; and, third,
+for the woes that those laws have brought upon the land, the which
+stirred the hearts of the people against him. Above all, I think his
+death was no murder, because he was so strong in his legalities, that he
+could not be brought to punishment by those to whom he had caused the
+greatest wrong;" and I thought, in saying these words, of my brother's
+desolated daughter--of his own sad death in the stormy seas of the
+Orkneys--and of my brave and gallant Michael, that was lying in his
+shroudless grave in the cold clay of Bothwell.
+
+Lord Kelburne was troubled at my answer, and was about to remonstrate;
+but seeing the tear start into my eye as those things came into my mind,
+he said nothing, but nodding to the clerk, he bade him write down that I
+would not acknowledge the killing of the Archbishop a murder. He then
+rose and adjourned the court, remanding me to prison, saying that he
+would send me word what would be the extent of my punishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV
+
+
+The same night it was intimated to me that I was fined in five hundred
+marks, and that bonds were required to be given for the payment; upon
+the granting of which, in consideration of my ill-health, the Lord
+Kelburne had consented I should be set free.
+
+This was, in many respects, a more lenient sentence than I had expected;
+and in the hope that perhaps Sarah Lochrig might have been able to
+provide the money, so as to render the granting of the bonds and the
+procuring of cautioners unnecessary, I sent over a man on horseback to
+tell her the news, and the man in returning brought my son Joseph
+behind him, sent by his mother to urge me to give the bonds at once, as
+she had not been able to raise so much money; and the more to incite me,
+if there had been need for incitement, she had willed Joseph to tell me
+that a party of Claverhouse's dragoons had been quartered on the house
+that morning, to live there till the fine was paid.
+
+Of the character of those freebooters I needed no certificate. They had
+filled every other place wherever they had been quartered with shame and
+never-ceasing sorrow, and therefore I was indeed roused to hear that my
+defenceless daughters were in their power, so I lost no time in sending
+my son to entreat two of his mother's relations, who were bein merchants
+in Ayr, to join me in the bond,--a thing which they did in the most
+compassionate manner;--and, the better to expedite the business, I got
+it to be permitted by the Lord Kelburne that the bonds should be sent
+the same day to Irvine, where I hoped to be able next morning to
+discharge them. All this was happily concerted and brought to a pleasant
+issue before sunset;--at which time I was discharged from the tolbooth,
+carrying with me many pious wishes from those who were there, and who
+had not been so gently dealt by.
+
+It was my intent to have proceeded home the same night, but my son was
+very tired with the many errands he had run that day, and by his long
+ride in the morning; moreover, I was myself in need of repose, for my
+anxiety had brought on a disturbance in my blood, and my limbs shook,
+and I was altogether unable to undertake any journey. I was therefore
+too easily entreated of Archibald Lochrig, my wife's cousin, and one of
+my cautioners, to stop in his house that evening. But next morning,
+being much refreshed with a pleasant sleep and the fallacious cheering
+of happy dreams, I left Ayr, with my son, before the break of day, and
+we travelled with light feet, for our hearts were lifted up with hope.
+
+Though my youth was long past, and many things had happened to sadden my
+spirit, I yet felt on that occasion an unaccountable sense of kindliness
+and joy. The flame of life was as it were renewed, and brightened in the
+pure and breezy air of the morning, and a bounding gladness rose in my
+bosom as my eye expatiated around in the freedom of the spacious fields.
+On the left-hand the living sea seemed as if the pulses of its moving
+waters were in unison with the throbbings of my spirit; and, like jocund
+maidens disporting themselves in the flowing tide, the gentle waves,
+lifting their heads, and spreading out their arms and raising their
+white bosoms to the rising sun, came as it were happily to the smooth
+sands of the sparkling shore. The grace of enjoyment brightened and
+blithened all things. There was a cheerfulness in the songs of the
+little birds that enchanted the young heart of my blooming boy to break
+forth into singing, and his carol was gayer than the melody of the lark.
+But that morning was the last time that either of us could ever after
+know pleasure any more in this world.
+
+Eager to be home, and that I might share with Sarah Lochrig and our
+children the joy of thankfulness for my deliverance, I had resolved to
+call, in passing through Irvine, at the clerk's chamber, to inquire if
+the bonds had been sent from Ayr, that my cautioners might be as soon as
+possible discharged. But we had been so early a-foot that we reached the
+town while the inhabitants were yet all asleep, so that we thought it
+would be as well to go straight home; and accordingly we passed down the
+gait and through the town-end port without seeing any person in the
+street, save only the town-herd, as he was going with his horn to sound
+for the cows to be sent out to go with him to the moor.
+
+The sight of a town in the peacefulness of the morning slumbers, and of
+a simple man going forth to lead the quiet cattle to pasture filled my
+mind with softer thoughts than I had long known, and I said to my son,--
+
+"Surely those who would molest the peace of the poor hae ne'er rightly
+tasted the blessing of beholding the confidence with which they trust
+themselves in the watches of the night, and amidst the perils of their
+barren lot." And I felt my heart thaw again into charity with all men,
+and I was thankful for the delight.
+
+As I was thus tasting again the luxury of gentle thoughts, a band of
+five dragoons came along the road, and Joseph said to me that they were
+the same who had been quartered in our house. I looked at them as they
+passed by, but they turned their heads aside.
+
+"I wonder," said my son, "that they did na speak to me: I thought they
+had a black look."
+
+"No doubt, Joseph," was my answer, "the men are no lost to a' sense of
+shame. They canna but be rebuked at the sight of a man that, maybe
+against their will, poor fellows, they were sent to oppress."
+
+"I dinna like them the day, father, they're unco like ill-doers," said
+the thoughtful and observing stripling.
+
+But my spirit was at the time full of good-will towards all men, and I
+reasoned with him against giving way to unkind thoughts, expounding, to
+the best of my ability, the nature of Gospel-charity, and the
+heavenlyness of good-will, saying to him,--
+
+"The nature of charity's like the light o' the sun, by which all things
+are cherished. It is the brightness of the soul, and the glorious
+quality which proves our celestial descent. Our other feelings are
+common to a' creatures, but the feeling of charity is divine. It's the
+only thing in which man partakes of the nature of God."
+
+Discoursing in this scriptural manner, we reached the Gowan-brae. My
+heart beat high with gladness. My son bounded forward to tell his mother
+and sisters of my coming. On gaining the brow of the hill he leapt from
+the ground with a frantic cry and clasped his hands. I ran towards
+him--but I remember no more--though at times something crosses my mind,
+and I have wild visions of roofless walls, and a crowd of weeping women
+and silent men digging among ashes, and a beautiful body, all dropping
+wet, brought on a deal from the mill-dam, and of men, as it was carried
+by, seizing me by the arms and tying my hands,--and then I fancy myself
+in a house fastened to a chair;--and sometimes I think I was lifted out
+and placed to beek in the sun and to taste the fresh air. But what these
+things import I dare only guess, for no one has ever told me what became
+of my benign Sarah Lochrig and our two blooming daughters;--all is
+phantasma that I recollect of the day of my return home. I said my soul
+was iron, and my heart converted into stone. O that they were indeed so!
+But sorrowing is a vain thing, and my task must not stand still.
+
+When I left Ayr the leaves were green, and the fields gay, and the
+waters glad; and when the yellow leaf rustled on the ground, and the
+waters were drumly, and the river roaring, I was somehow, I know not by
+what means, in the kirk-yard, and a film fell from the eyes of my
+reason, and I looked around, and my little boy had hold of me by the
+hand, and I said to him, "Joseph, what's yon sae big and green in our
+lair?" and he gazed in my face, and the tears came into his eyes, and he
+replied,--
+
+"Father, they are a' in the same grave." I took my hand out of his;--I
+walked slowly to the green tomb;--I knelt down, and I caused my son to
+kneel beside me, and I vowed enmity for ever against Charles Stuart and
+all of his line; and I prayed, in the words of the Psalmist, that when
+he was judged he might be condemned. Then we rose; but my son said to
+me,--
+
+"Father, I canna wish his condemnation; but I'll fight by your side till
+we have harlt him down from his bloody throne."
+
+And I felt that I had forgotten I was a Christian, and I again knelt
+down and prayed, but it was for the sin I had done in the vengeance of
+the latter clause. "Nevertheless, Lord," I then cried, "as Thou Thyself
+didst take the sceptre from Saul, and gave the crown to David, make me
+an instrument to work out the purposes of Thy dreadful justice, which in
+time will come to be."
+
+Then I rose again, and went towards the place where my home had been;
+but when I saw the ruins I ran back to the kirk-yard, and threw myself
+on the grave, and cried to the earth to open and receive me.
+
+But the Lord had heard my prayer, and while I lay there he sent down his
+consoling angel, and the whirlwind of my spirit was calmed, and I
+remembered the promise of my son to fight by my side, and I rose to
+prepare myself for the warfare.
+
+While I was lying on the ground several of the neighbours had heard my
+wild cries, and came into the kirk-yard; but by that time the course of
+the tempest had been staid, and they stood apart with my son, who told
+them I was come again to myself, and they thought they ought not to
+disturb me; when, however, they saw me rise, they drew near and spoke
+kindly to me, and Zachariah Smylie invited me to go back with him to his
+house; for it was with him that I had been sheltered during the frenzy.
+But I said,--
+
+"No: I will neither taste meat nor drink, nor seek to rest myself, till
+I have again a sword." And I entreated him to give me a little money,
+that, with my son, we might go into Irvine and provide ourselves with
+weapons.
+
+The worthy man looked very sorrowful to hear me so speak, and some of
+the others, that were standing by, began to reason with me, and to
+represent the peril of any enterprise at that time. But I pointed to the
+grave, and said,--
+
+"Friens, do you ken what's in yon place, and do ye counsel me to peace?"
+At which words they turned aside and shook their heads; and Zachariah
+Smylie went and brought me a purse of money, which having put into my
+bosom, I took my son by the hand, and bidding them all farewell, we
+walked to the town silently together, and I thought of my brother's
+words in his grief, that the speed of lightning was slow to the wishes
+of revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI
+
+
+On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a
+dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without
+hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,--a method
+of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at
+that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the
+soldiers, ever from the time that Claverhouse came to disarm the people;
+and when I had bought the two blades we went to Bailie Girvan's shop,
+which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any
+questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm
+heart to the Covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and
+hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms
+to suspected persons.
+
+Being thus provided with two swords, we went into James Glassop's
+public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly
+sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that
+it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, I sent out
+my son to buy a Bible, and while he was absent I fell asleep.
+
+On awaking from my slumber I felt greatly composed and refreshed. I
+reflected on the events of the day, and the terrible truths that had
+broken in upon me, and I was not moved with the same stings of
+desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my
+brain; so I began to consider of the purpose whereon I was bowne, and
+that I had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt I should direct
+my steps. But I was not the less determined to proceed, and I said to my
+son, who was sitting very thoughtful with THE BOOK lying on the table
+before him,--
+
+"Open the Bible, and see what the Lord instructs us to do at this time."
+And he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the
+nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah,--
+
+"O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth,
+and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?"
+
+So I rose, and bidding my son close the Book, and bring it with him, we
+went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope
+about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long
+been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many
+persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought;
+but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the
+door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in Irvine was
+abiding.
+
+When he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned
+to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had
+assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one
+voice,--That Mr Cargill, and a numerous party of the Cameronians, had
+passed that afternoon through Galston, and it was thought they meditated
+some disturbance on the skirts of Kilmarnock, which made the commander
+of the King's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those
+then in Irvine.
+
+As soon as I heard the news, I resolved to go that night to Kilmarnock,
+and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother Jacob, by whose
+instrumentality I thought we might hear where the Cameronians then were.
+For, although I approved not of their separation from the general
+presbyterian kirk of Scotland, nor was altogether content with their
+declaration published at Sanquhar, there was yet one clause which, to
+my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that
+there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, I shall
+here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:--
+
+"Although we be for government and governors such as the Word of God and
+our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to
+us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning
+(or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these
+years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown
+of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years
+since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;"
+and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared,
+that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate,
+or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being
+under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do
+declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his
+practices, as enemies to our Lord."
+
+Accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of
+the Cameronians were so near, I resolved, on receiving the soldier's
+information, and on account of that recited clause of the Sanquhar
+declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging
+battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice,
+and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me,
+abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical Stuarts. With
+my son, therefore, I went toward Kilmarnock, in the hope and with the
+intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though I
+had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months
+before, than I have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in
+silence.
+
+The night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my
+thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's
+door, without the interchange of a word in all the way.
+
+"Wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the
+death of aunty."
+
+I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a
+stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long
+the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our
+friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in
+staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with
+my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me
+of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that
+the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any
+of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of
+the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.
+
+But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against
+us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it
+was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of
+promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light
+in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a
+public, and bespoke a bed for the night.
+
+While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me
+of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do
+us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the
+mistress said,--
+
+"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in
+upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in
+a change-house."
+
+So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we
+retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner;
+and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the
+worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not
+many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed,
+when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds,
+in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire.
+Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and
+blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them;
+and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they
+spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of
+the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful
+thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I
+could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons
+that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned.
+As for the Cameronians they were at war with the house of Stuart, and
+having disowned King Charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all
+of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. So I was none
+troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed
+into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all
+the Covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the
+hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of
+us in the depths of perdition, that I could no longer hear them without
+rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV
+
+
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV
+
+
+The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go
+forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with
+implements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with the
+remainder, joined together in prayer.
+
+By the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished,
+and then lots were cast to see whom the Lord would appoint to affix the
+declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of
+the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose me
+for one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back to
+the house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knew
+in the fit time would be prepared. Nor was it long till the same was
+brought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.
+
+Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother's
+house, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the Canongate,
+some six doors lower down than St Mary's Wynd, just after passing the
+flesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the court
+was at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to
+the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And it
+happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent
+forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had
+escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all
+who dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on the
+cheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring
+with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of
+town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause
+observance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for my
+health being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordial
+of fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk of
+the evening.
+
+He accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, I made
+bold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle with
+the multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in the
+afternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with their
+pageantries, while the Duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airs
+and the delights of sonorous harmony. And it happened on the third time
+I went thither, that a cry rose of the Duke coming from the garden to
+the palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him.
+
+As he advanced, I saw several persons presenting petitions into his
+hands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the Lord Perth, whom I
+knew again by his voice; and I was directed, as by a thought of
+inspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration,
+which I always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd of
+petitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across the
+road leading from the Canongate to the Abbey kirk-yard, and between the
+garden yett and the yett that opened into the front court of the palace.
+As the Duke returned out of the garden, I gave him the paper; but
+instead of handing it to the Lord Perth, as I had hoped he would do, he
+held it in his own hand, by which I perceived that if he had noticed by
+whom it was presented, and looked at it before he went into the palace,
+I would speedily be seized on the spot, unless I could accomplish my
+escape.
+
+But how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around was
+very great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from the
+enclosure--one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the other
+into the Canongate. I therefore calmly put my trust in Him who alone
+could save me, and remained, as it were, an indifferent spectator,
+following the Duke with an anxious eye.
+
+Having passed from the garden into the court, the multitude followed him
+with great eagerness, and I also went in with them, and walked very
+deliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner,
+where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to the
+King's park from the Cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. I
+then mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returned
+to the house of Mrs Brownlee.
+
+Scarcely was I well in, when Heron, her son, came flying to her with a
+report that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened the
+Duke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and I was much
+grieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to the
+torture on my account; but the Lord had mercifully ordained it
+otherwise.
+
+In the course of the night Heron Brownlee, after closing his shop, came
+again and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person in
+the multitude had given the Duke a dreadful paper, which had caused
+great consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at that
+late hour with the Duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of the
+same paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both in
+Nithsdale and the shire of Ayr. The alarm, indeed, raged to such a
+degree among all those who knew in their consciences how they merited
+the doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many were
+withered as with a pestilent vapour.
+
+Yet, though terrified at the vengeance declared against their guilt,
+neither the Duke nor the Privy Council were to be deterred from their
+malignant work. The curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead of
+changing the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded,
+they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, That
+whosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put to
+death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; and
+the soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but were
+instructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to the
+sword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women were
+ordered to be drowned. But my pen sickens with the recital of horrors,
+and I shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarking
+that these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the Stuarts; for
+scarcely were they well published when the Duke hastened to London, and
+soon after his man-sworn brother, Charles, the great author of all our
+woes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and the
+Duke proclaimed King in his stead. What change we obtained by the
+calamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI
+
+
+As soon as it was known abroad that Charles the Second was dead, the
+Covenanters who had taken refuge in Holland from the Persecution
+assembled to consult what ought then to be done; for the papist James
+Stuart, on the death of his brother, had caused himself to be proclaimed
+King of Scotland, without taking those oaths by which alone he could be
+entitled to assume the Scottish crown.
+
+At the head of this congregation was the Earl of Argyle, who, some years
+before, had incurred the aversion of the tyrant to such a degree that,
+by certain of those fit tools for any crime, then in dismal abundance
+about the court of Holyrood, he had procured his condemnation as a
+traitor, and would have brought him to the scaffold, had the Earl not
+fortunately effected his escape. And it was resolved by that
+congregation that the principal personages then present should form
+themselves into a Council, to concert the requisite measures for the
+deliverance of their native land; the immediate issue of which was,
+that a descent should be made by Argyle among his vassals, in order to
+draw together a sufficient host to enable them to wage war against the
+Usurper, for so they lawfully and rightly denominated James Stuart.
+
+The first hint that I gleaned of this design was through the means of
+Mrs Brownlee. She was invited one afternoon by the gentlewoman of the
+Lady Sophia Lindsay, the Earl's daughter-in-law, to view certain
+articles of female bravery which had been sent from Holland by his
+Lordship to her mistress; and, as her custom was, she, on her return
+home, descanted at large of all that she had seen and heard.
+
+The receipt, at that juncture, of such gear from the Earl of Argyle, by
+such a Judith of courage and wisdom as the Lady Sophia Lindsay, seemed
+to me very remarkable, and I could not but jealouse that there was some
+thing about it like the occultation of a graver correspondence. I
+therefore began to question Mrs Brownlee how the paraphernalia had come,
+and what the Earl, according to the last accounts, was doing; which led
+her to expatiate on many things, though vague and desultory, that were
+yet in concordance with what I had overheard the Lord Perth say to the
+Earl of Aberdeen in the Bishop's house. In the end, I gathered that the
+presents were brought over by the skipper of a sloop, one Roderick
+Macfarlane, whom I forthwith determined to see, in order to pick from
+him what intelligence I could, without being at the time well aware in
+what manner the same would prove useful; I felt myself, however, stirred
+from within to do so; and I had hitherto, in all that concerned my
+avenging vow, obeyed every instinctive impulse.
+
+Accordingly, next morning I went early to the shore of Leith, and soon
+found the vessel and Roderick Macfarlane, to whom I addressed myself,
+inquiring, as if I intended to go thither, when he was likely to depart
+again for Amsterdam.
+
+While I was speaking to him, I observed something in his mien above his
+condition; and that his hands were fair and delicate, unlike those of
+men inured to maritime labour. He perceived that I was particular in my
+inspection, and his countenance became troubled, and he looked as if he
+wist not what to do.
+
+"Fear no ill," said I to him; "I am one in the jaws of jeopardy; in
+sooth I have no intent to pass into Holland, but only to learn whether
+there be any hope that the Earl of Argyle and those with him will try to
+help their covenanted brethren at home."
+
+On hearing me speak so openly the countenance of the man brightened, and
+after eyeing me with a sharp scrutiny, he invited me to come down into
+the body of the bark, where we had some frank communion, his confidence
+being won by the plain tale of who I was and what I had endured. The
+Lord indeed was pleased, throughout that period of fears and
+tribulation, marvellously to endow the persecuted with a singular and
+sympathetic instinct, whereby they were enabled at once to discern their
+friends; for the dangers and difficulties, to which we were subject in
+our intercourse, afforded no time for those testimonies and experiences
+that in ordinary occasions are required to open the hearts of men to one
+another.
+
+After some general discourse, Roderick Macfarlane told me, that his
+vessel, though seemingly only for traffic, had been hired by a certain
+Madam Smith, in Amsterdam, and was manned by Highlanders of a degree
+above the common, for the purpose of opening a correspondence between
+Argyle and his friends in Scotland. Whereupon I proffered myself to
+assist in establishing a communication with the heads and leaders of the
+Covenanters in the West Country, and particularly with Mr Renwick and
+his associates, the Cameronians, who, though grievously scattered and
+hunted, were yet able to do great things in the way of conveying
+letters, or of intercepting the emissaries and agents of the Privy
+Council that might be employed to contravene the Earl's projects.
+
+Thus it was that I came to be concerned in Argyle's unfortunate
+expedition--if that can be called unfortunate, which, though in itself a
+failure, yet ministered to make the scattered children of the Covenant
+again co-operate for the achievement of their common freedom. Doubtless
+the expedition was undertaken before the persecuted were sufficiently
+ripened to be of any effective service. The Earl counted overmuch on the
+spirit which the Persecution had raised; he thought that the weight of
+the tyranny had compressed us all into one body. But, alas! it had been
+so great, that it had not only bruised, but broken us asunder into many
+pieces; and time, and care, and much persuasion, were all requisite to
+solder the fragments together.
+
+As the spring advanced, being, in the manner related, engaged in
+furthering the purposes of the exiled Covenanters, I prepared, through
+the instrumentality of divers friends, many in the West Country to be in
+readiness to join the Earl's standard of deliverance. It is not however
+to be disguised, that the work went on but slowly, and that the people
+heard of the intended descent with something like an actionless
+wonderment, in consequence of those by whom it had been planned not
+sending forth any declaration of their views and intents. And this
+indisposition, especially among the Cameronians, became a settled
+reluctance, when, after the Earl had reached Campbelton, he published
+that purposeless proclamation, wherein, though the wrongs and woes of
+the kingdom were pithily recited, the nature of the redress proposed was
+in no manner manifest. It was plain indeed, by many signs, that the
+Lord's time was not yet come for the work to thrive.
+
+The divisions in Argyle's councils were greater even than those among
+the different orders into which the Covenanters had been long split--the
+very Cameronians might have been sooner persuaded to refrain from
+insisting on points of doctrine and opinion, at least till the adversary
+was overthrown, than those who were with the ill-fated Earl to act with
+union among themselves. In a word, all about the expedition was
+confusion and perplexity, and the omens and auguries of ruin showed how
+much it wanted the favour that is better than the strength of numbers,
+or the wisdom of mighty men. But to proceed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII
+
+
+Sir John Cochrane, one of those who were with Argyle, had, by some
+espial of his own, a correspondence with divers of the Covenanters in
+the shire of Ayr; and he was so heartened by their representations of
+the spirit among them, that he urged, and overcame the Earl, to let him
+make a trial on that coast before waiting till the Highlanders were
+roused. Accordingly, with the three ships and the men they had brought
+from Holland, he went toward Largs, famed in old time for a great battle
+fought there; but, on arriving opposite to the shore, he found it
+guarded by the powers and forces of the government, in so much, that he
+was fain to direct his course farther up the river; and weighing anchor
+sailed for Greenock.
+
+It happened at this juncture, after conferring with several of weight
+among the Cameronians, that I went to Greenock for the purpose of taking
+shipping for any place where I was likely to find Argyle, in order to
+represent to him, that, unless there was a clear account of what he and
+others with him proposed to do, he could expect no cooperation from the
+societies; and I reached the town just as the three ships were coming in
+sight.
+
+I had not well alighted from my horse at Dugal M'Vicar the smith's
+public,--the best house it is in the town, and slated. It stands beside
+an oak-tree on the open shore, below the Mansion-house-brae, above the
+place where the mariners boil their tar-pots. As I was saying, I had not
+well alighted there, when a squadron of certain time-serving and
+prelatic-inclined inheritors of the shire of Renfrew, under the command
+of Houston of that Ilk, came galloping to the town as if they would have
+devoured Argyle, host, and ships and all; and they rode straight to the
+minister's glebe, where, behind the kirk-yard dyke, they set themselves
+in battle array with drawn swords, the vessels having in the meanwhile
+come to anchor fornent the kirk.
+
+Like the men of the town I went to be an onlooker, at a distance, of
+what might ensue; and a sore heart it was to me, to see and to hear that
+the Greenock folk stood so much in dread of their superior, Sir John
+Shaw, that they durst not, for fear of his black-hole, venture to say
+that day whether they were papists, prelates, or presbyterians, he
+himself not being in the way to direct them.
+
+Shortly after the ships had cast anchor, Major Fullarton, with a party
+of some ten or twelve men, landed at the burn-foot, near the kirk, and
+having shown a signal for parley, Houston and his men went to him, and
+began to chafe and chide him for invading the country.
+
+"We are no invaders," said the Major, "we have come to our native land
+to preserve the protestant religion; and I am grieved that such brave
+gentlemen, as ye appear to be, should be seen in the cause of a papist
+tyrant and usurper."
+
+"Ye lee," cried Houston, and fired his pistol at the Major, the like did
+his men; but they were so well and quickly answered in the same
+language, that they soon were obligated to flee like drift to the brow
+of a hill, called Kilblain-brae, where they again showed face.
+
+Those on board the ships seeing what was thus doing on the land, pointed
+their great guns to the airt where the cavaliers had rallied, and fired
+them with such effect, that the stoure and stones brattled about the
+lugs of the heritors, which so terrified them all that they scampered
+off; and, it is said, some drew not bridle till they were in Paisley
+with whole skins, though at some cost of leather.
+
+When these tyrant tools were thus discomfited, Sir John Cochrane came on
+shore, and tried in vain to prevail on the inhabitants to join in
+defence of religion and liberty. So he sent for the baron-bailie, who
+was the ruling power of the town in the absence of their great Sir John,
+and ordered him to provide forthwith two hundred bolls of meal for the
+ships. But the bailie, a shrewd and gausie man, made so many
+difficulties in the gathering of the meal, to waste time till help would
+come, that the knight was glad to content himself with little more than
+a fifth part of his demand.
+
+Meanwhile I had made my errand known to Sir John Cochrane, and when he
+went off with the meal-sacks to the ships I went with him, and we sailed
+the same night to the castle of Allengreg, where Argyle himself then
+was.
+
+Whatever doubts and fears I had of the success of the expedition, were
+all wofully confirmed, when I saw how things were about that unfortunate
+nobleman. The controversies in our councils at the Pentland raid were
+more than renewed among those who were around Argyle; and it was plain
+to me that the sense of ruin was upon his spirit; for, after I had told
+him the purport of my mission, he said to me in a mournful manner,--
+
+"I can discern no party in this country that desire to be relieved;
+there are some hidden ones, no doubt, but only my poor friends here in
+Argyle seem willing to be free. God hath so ordered it, and it must be
+for the best. I submit myself to His will."
+
+I felt the truth of what he said, that the tyranny had indeed bred
+distrust among us, and that the patience of men was so worn out that
+very many were inclined to submit from mere weariness of spirit;--but I
+added, to hearten him, if one of my condition may say so proud a thing
+of so great a person, That were the distinct ends of his intents made
+more clearly manifest, maybe the dispersed hearts of the Covenanters
+would yet be knit together. "Some think, my Lord, ye're for the Duke of
+Monmouth to be king, but that will ne'er do,--the rightful heirs canna
+be set aside. James Stuart may be, and should be put down; but,
+according to the customs registered, as I hae read in the ancient
+chronicles of this realm, when our nation in olden times cut off a king
+for his misdeeds, the next lawful heir was aye raised to the throne."
+
+To this the Earl made no answer, but continued some time thoughtful, and
+then said,--
+
+"It rests not all with me,--those who are with me, as you may well note,
+take over much upon them, and will not be controlled. They are like the
+waves, raised and driven wheresoever any blast of rumour wiseth them to
+go. I gave a letter of trust to one of their emissaries, and, like the
+raven, he has never returned. If, however, I could get to Inverary, I
+doubt not yet that something might be done; for I should then be in the
+midst of some that would reverence Argyle."
+
+But why need I dwell on these melancholious incidents? Next day the Earl
+resolved to make the attempt to reach Inverary, and I went with him; but
+after the castle of Arkinglass, in the way thither, had been taken, he
+was obligated, by the appearance of two English frigates which had been
+sent in pursuit of the expedition, to return to Allengreg; for the main
+stores and ammunition brought from Holland were lodged in that castle;
+the ships also were lying there; all which, in a manner, were at stake,
+and no garrison adequate to defend the same from so great a power.
+
+On returning to Allengreg, Argyle saw it would be a golden achievement
+if, in that juncture, he could master the frigates; so he ordered his
+force, which amounted to about a thousand men, to man the ships and four
+prizes which he had, together with about thirty cowan boats belonging to
+his vassals, and to attack the frigates. But in this also he was
+disappointed, for those who were with him, and wedded to the purpose of
+going to the Lowlands, mutinied against the scheme, as too hazardous,
+and obliged him to give up the attempt, and to leave the castle with a
+weak and incapable garrison.
+
+Accordingly, reluctant, but yielding to these blind counsels, after
+quitting Allengreg, we marched for the Lowlands, and at the head of the
+Gareloch, where we halted, the garrison which had been left at Allengreg
+joined us with the disastrous intelligence that, finding themselves
+unable to withstand the frigates, they had abandoned all.
+
+I was near to Argyle when the news of this was brought to him, and I
+observed that he said nothing; but his cheek faded, and he hastily wrung
+his hands.
+
+Having crossed the river Leven a short way above Dumbarton, without
+suffering any material molestation, we halted for the night; but as we
+were setting our watches a party of the government force appeared, so
+that, instead of getting any rest after our heavy march, we were
+obligated to think of again moving.
+
+The Earl would fain have fought with that force, his numbers being
+superior, but he was again overruled; so that all we could do was,
+during the night, leaving our camp-fires burning for a delusion, to make
+what haste we could toward Glasgow.
+
+In this the uncountenanced fortunes of the expedition were again seen.
+Our guides in the dark misled us; so that, instead of being taken to
+Glasgow, we were, after grievous traversing in the moors, landed on the
+banks of the Clyde near Kilpatrick, where the whole force broke up, Sir
+John Cochrane, being fey for the West Country, persuading many to go
+with him over the water, in order to make for the shire of Ayr.
+
+The Earl, seeing himself thus deserted, and but few besides those of his
+own kin left with him, rode about a mile on towards Glasgow, with the
+intent of taking some rest in the house of one who had been his servant;
+but on reaching the door it was shut in his face and barred, and
+admission peremptorily refused. He said nothing, but turned round to us
+with a smile of such resigned sadness that it brought tears into every
+eye.
+
+Seeing that his fate was come to such extremity, I proposed to exchange
+clothes with him, that he might the better escape, and to conduct him to
+the West Country, where, if any chance were yet left, it was to be found
+there, as Sir John Cochrane had represented. Whereupon he sent his
+kinsmen to make the best of their way back to the Highlands, to try what
+could be done among his clan; and, having accepted a portion of my
+apparel, he went to the ferry-boat with Major Fullarton, and we crossed
+the water together.
+
+On landing at the Renfrew side the Earl went forward alone, a little
+before the Major and me; but on reaching the ford at Inchinnan he was
+stopped by two soldiers, who laid hands upon him, one on each side, and
+in the grappling one of them, the Earl fell to the ground. In a moment,
+however, his Lordship started up, and got rid of them by presenting his
+pistols. But five others at the same instant came in sight, and fired
+and ran in at him, and knocked him down with their swords. "Alas!
+unfortunate Argyle," I heard him cry as he fell; and the soldiers were
+so astonished at having so rudely treated so great a man, that they
+stood still with awe and dropped their swords, and some of them shed
+tears of sorrow for his fate.
+
+Seeing what had thus happened, Major Fullarton and I fled and hid
+ourselves behind a hedge, for we saw another party of troopers coming
+towards the spot,--we heard afterwards that it was Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, with some of the Renfrewshire heritors, by whom the Earl was
+conducted a prisoner to Glasgow. But of the dismal indignities, and the
+degradations to which he was subjected, and of his doleful martyrdom,
+the courteous reader may well spare me the sad recital, as they are
+recorded in all true British histories, and he will accept for the same
+those sweet but mournful lines which Argyle indited in the dungeon:--
+
+   Thou, passenger, that shalt have so much time
+   To view my grave, and ask what was my crime;
+   No stain of error, no black vice's brand,
+   Was that which chased me from my native land.
+   Love to my country--twice sentenced to die--
+   Constrain'd my hands forgotten arms to try.
+   More by friends' fraud my fall proceeded hath
+   Than foes, though now they thrice decreed my death.
+   On my attempt though Providence did frown,
+   His oppress'd people God at length shall own;
+   Another hand, by more successful speed,
+   Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head.
+   Though my head fall, that is no tragic story,
+   Since, going hence, I enter endless glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII
+
+
+The news of the fall of Argyle was as gladdening wine to the cruel
+spirit of James Stuart. It was treated by him as victory was of old
+among the conquering Romans, and he ordained medals of brass and of
+silver to be made, to commemorate, as a glorious triumph, the deed that
+was a crime. But he was not content with such harmless monuments of
+insensate exultation; he considered the blow as final to the
+presbyterian cause, and openly set himself to effect the
+re-establishment of the idolatrous abominations of the mass and monkrie.
+
+The Lord Perth and his brother, the Lord Melford, and a black catalogue
+of others, whose names, for the fame of Scotland, I would fain expunge
+with the waters of oblivion, considering Religion as a thing of royal
+regulation, professed themselves papists, and got, as the price of their
+apostacy and perdition, certain places of profit in the government.
+Clouds of the papistical locust were then allured into the land, to eat
+it up leaf and blade again. Schools to teach children the deceits, and
+the frauds, and the sins of the jesuits, were established even in the
+palace of Holyrood-house; and the chapel, which had been cleansed in the
+time of Queen Mary, was again defiled with the pageantries of idolatry.
+
+But the godly people of Edinburgh called to mind the pious bravery of
+their forefathers, and all that they had done in the Reformation; and
+they rose, as it were with one accord, and demolished the schools, and
+purified the chapel, even to desolation, and forced the papist priest to
+abjure his own idols. The old abhorrence of the abominations was
+revived; for now it was clearly seen what King Charles and his brother
+had been seeking, in the relentless persecution which they had so long
+sanctioned; and many in consequence, who had supported and obeyed the
+prelatic apostasy as a thing but of innocent forms, trembled at the
+share which they had taken in the guilt of that aggression, and their
+dismay was unspeakable.
+
+The tyrant, however, soon saw that he had over-counted the degree of the
+humiliation of the land; and being disturbed by the union which his open
+papistry was causing among all denominations of protestants, he changed
+his mood, and from force resorting to fraud, publishing a general
+toleration,--a device of policy which greatly disheartened the prelatic
+faction; for they saw that they had only laboured to strengthen a
+prerogative, the first effectual exercise of which was directed against
+themselves, every one discerning that the indulgence was framed to give
+head-rope to the papists. But the Covenanters made use of it to advance
+the cause of the Gospel, as I shall now proceed to rehearse, as well as
+how through it I was enabled to perform my avenging vow.
+
+Among the exiled Covenanters who returned with Argyle, and with whom I
+became acquainted while with him, was Thomas Ardmillan, when, after my
+escape at the time when the Earl was taken, I fell in again with at
+Kirkintilloch, as I was making the best of my way into the East Country,
+and we went together to Arbroath, where he embarked for Holland.
+
+Being then minded to return back to Edinburgh, and to abide again with
+Mrs Brownlee, in whose house I had found a safe asylum, and a convenient
+place of espial, after seeing him on board the vessel, I also took
+shipping, and returned to Leith under an assurance that I should hear of
+him from time to time. It was not, however, until the indulgence was
+proclaimed that I heard from him, about which era he wrote to me a most
+scriptural letter, by the reverend Mr Patrick Warner, who had received a
+call from the magistrates and inhabitants of the covenanted town of
+Irvine, to take upon him the ministry of their parish.
+
+Mr Warner having accepted the call, on arriving at Leith sent to Mrs
+Brownlee's this letter, with a request that, if I was alive and there,
+he would be glad to see me in his lodging before departing to the West
+Country.
+
+As the fragrance of Mr Warner's sufferings was sweet among all the true
+and faithful, I was much regaled with this invitation, and went
+forthwith to Leith, where I found him in a house that is clad with
+oyster-shells, in the Tod's-hole Close. He was sitting in a fair chamber
+therein, with that worthy bailie that afterwards was next year, at the
+time of the Revolution, Mr Cornelius Neilsone, and his no less excellent
+compeer on the same great occasion, Mr George Samsone, both persons of
+godly repute. Mr Cheyne, the town-clerk, was likewise present, a most
+discreet character, but being a lawyer by trade, and come of an
+episcopal stock, he was rather a thought, it was said, inclined to the
+prelatic sect. Divers others, douce and religious characters, were also
+there, especially Mr Jaddua Fyfe, a merchant of women's gear, then in
+much renown for his suavity. Mr Warner was relating to them many
+consolatory things of the worth and piety of the Prince and Princess of
+Orange, to whom the eyes of all the protestants, especially of the
+presbyterians, were at that time directed.
+
+"Aye, aye," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doot, nae doot, but the Prince is
+a man of a sweet-smelling odour,--that's in the way of character;--and
+the Princess; aye, aye, it is well known, that she's a pure snowdrop,
+and a lily o' the valley in the Lord's garden,--that's in the way of
+piety."
+
+"They're the heirs presumptive to the crown," subjoined Mr Cheyne.
+
+"They're weel entitled to the reverence and respect of us a'," added Mr
+Cornelius Neilsone.
+
+"When I first got the call from Irvine," resumed Mr Warner, "that
+excellent lady, and precious vessel of godliness, the Countess of
+Sutherland, being then at the Hague, sought my allowance to let the
+Princess know of my acceptance of the call, and to inquire if her
+Highness had any commands for Scotland; and the Princess in a most
+gracious manner signified to her that the best thing I, and those who
+were like me, could do for her, was to be earnest in praying that she
+might be kept firm and faithful in the reformed religion, adding many
+tender things of her sincere sympathy for the poor persecuted people of
+Scotland, and recommending that I should wait on the Prince before
+taking my departure. I was not, however, forward to thrust myself into
+such honour; but at last yielding to the exhortations of my friends, I
+went to the house of Mynheer Bentinck, and gave him my name for an
+audience; and one morning, about eight of the clock, his servant called
+for me and took me to his house, and he himself conveyed me into the
+presence of the Prince, where, leaving me with him, we had a most
+weighty and edifying conversation."
+
+"Aye, aye," interposed Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "it was a great thing to converse
+wi' a prince; and how did he behave himself,--that's in the way o'
+manners?"
+
+"Ye need na debate, Mr Fyfe, about that," replied Mr Samsone, "the
+Prince kens what it's to be civil, especially to his friends;" and I
+thought, in saying these words, that Mr Samsone looked particular
+towards me.
+
+"And what passed?" said the town-clerk, in a way as if he pawkily
+jealoused something. Mr Warner, however, in his placid and minister-like
+manner, responded,--
+
+"I told his Highness how I had received the call from Irvine, and
+thought it my duty to inquire if there was any thing wherein I could
+serve him in Scotland.
+
+"To this the Prince replied in a benign manner--"
+
+"Aye, aye," ejaculated Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doubt it was in a benignant
+manner, and in a cordial manner. Aye, aye, he has nae his ill-wand to
+seek when a customer's afore the counter,--that's in the way o'
+business."
+
+"'I understand,' said his Highness," continued Mr Warner, "'you are
+called home upon the toleration lately granted; but I can assure you,
+that toleration is not granted for any kindness to your party, but to
+favour the papists, and to divide you among yourselves; yet I think you
+may be so wise as to take good of it, and prevent the evil designed,
+and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves when
+you have liberty to see and meet more freely.'
+
+"To which," said Mr Warner, "I answered, that I heartily wished it might
+prove so, and that nothing would be wanting on my part to make it so;
+and I added, the presbyterians in Scotland, Great Sir, are looked upon
+as a very despicable party; but those who do so measure them by the
+appearance at Pentland and Bothwell, as if the whole power of the
+presbyterians had been drawn out there; but I can assure your Highness
+that such are greatly mistaken; for many firm presbyterians were not
+satisfied as to the grounds and manner of those risings, and did not
+join; and others were borne down by the Persecution. In verity I am
+persuaded, that if Scotland were left free, of three parts of the people
+two would be found presbyterians. We are indeed a poor persecuted party,
+and have none under God to look to for our help and relief but your
+Highness, on account of that relation you and the Princess have to the
+crown."
+
+"That was going a great length, Mr Warner," said Mr Cheyne, the
+town-clerk.
+
+"No a bit, no a bit," cried I; and Mr Jaddua Fyfe gave me an approving
+gloom, while Mr Warner quietly continued,--
+
+"I then urged many things, hoping that the Lord would incline his
+Highness' heart to espouse His interest in Scotland, and befriend the
+persecuted presbyterians. To which the Prince replied--"
+
+"Aye, aye, I like to hear what his Highness said, that's in the way of
+counselling," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe.
+
+"The Prince," replied Mr Warner, "then spoke to me earnestly, saying,--
+
+"'I have been educated a presbyterian, and I hope so to continue; and I
+assure you, if ever it be in my power, I shall make the presbyterian
+church-government the established church-government of Scotland, and of
+this you may assure your friends, as in prudence you find it
+convenient.'"
+
+Discerning the weight and intimation that were in these words, I said,
+when Mr Warner had made an end, that it was a great thing to know the
+sentiment of the Prince; for by all signs the time could not be far off
+when we would maybe require to put his assurance and promise to the
+test. At which words of mine there were many exchanges of gathered brows
+and significant nods, and Mr Jaddua Fyfe, to whom I was sitting next,
+slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution,
+that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and I gave inward
+thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning to
+kithe among us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX
+
+
+Besides Mr Warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign
+countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that King
+James would to a surety be set aside, on account of his malversations in
+the kingly office in England, and the even-down course he was pursuing
+there, as in Scotland, to abolish all property that the subjects had in
+the ancient laws and charters of the realm. But the thing came to no
+definite head till that jesuit-contrived device for cutting out the
+protestant heirs to the crown was brought to maturity, by palming a
+man-child upon the nation as the lawful son of the Tyrant and his
+papistical wife.
+
+In the meantime, I had not been idle in disseminating throughout the
+land, by the means of the Cameronians, a faithful account of what Mr
+Warner had related of the pious character and presbyterian dispositions
+of the Prince of Orange; and through a correspondence that I opened with
+Thomas Ardmillan, Mynheer Bentinck was kept so informed of the growing
+affection for his master in Scotland, as soon emboldened the Prince,
+with what he heard of the inclinations of the English people, to prepare
+a great host and navy for the deliverance of the kingdoms. In the midst
+of these human means and stratagems, the bright right hand of Providence
+was shiningly visible; for, by the news of the Prince's preparations, it
+smote the councils of King James with confusion and a fatal distraction.
+
+Though he had so alienated the Scottish lieges, that none but the basest
+of men among us acknowledged his authority, yet he summoned all his
+forces into England, leaving his power to be upheld here by those only
+who were vile enough to wish for the continuance of slavery. Thus was
+the way cleared for the advent of the deliverer; and the faithful nobles
+and gentry of Scotland, as the army was removed, came flocking into
+Edinburgh, and the Privy Council, which had been so little slack in any
+crime, durst not molest them, though the purpose of their being there
+was a treason which the members could not but all well know. Every
+thing, in a word, was now moving onward to a great event; all in the
+land was as when the thaw comes, and the ice is breaking, and the snows
+melting, and the waters flowing, and the rivers are bursting their
+frozen fetters, and the sceptre of winter is broken, and the wreck of
+his domination is drifting and perishing away.
+
+To keep the Privy Council in the confusion of the darkness of ignorance,
+I concerted with many of the Cameronians that they should spread
+themselves along the highways, and intercept the government expresses
+and emissaries, to the end that neither the King's faction in England
+nor in Scotland might know aught of the undertakings of each other; and
+when Thomas Ardmillan sent me, from Mynheer Bentinck, the Prince's
+declaration for Scotland, I hastened into the West Country, that I might
+exhort the covenanted there to be in readiness, and from the tolbooth
+stair of Irvine, yea, on the very step where my heart was so pierced by
+the cries of my son, I was the first in Scotland to publish that
+glorious pledge of our deliverance. On the same day, at the same hour,
+the like was done by others of our friends at Glasgow and at Ayr; and
+there was shouting, and joy, and thanksgiving, and the magnificent voice
+of freedom resounded throughout the land, and ennobled all hearts again
+with bravery.
+
+When the news of the Prince's landing at Torbay arrived, we felt that
+liberty was come; but long oppression had made many distrustful, and
+from day to day rumours were spread by the despairing members of the
+prelatic sect, the breathings of their wishes, that made us doubt
+whether we ought to band ourselves into any array for warfare. In this
+state of swithering and incertitude we continued for some time, till I
+began to grow fearful lest the zeal which had been so rekindled would
+sink and go out if not stirred again in some effectual manner; so I
+conferred with Quintin Fullarton, who in all these providences had been
+art and part with me, from the day of the meeting with Mr Renwick near
+Laswade; and as the Privy Council, when it was known the Prince had been
+invited over, had directed beacons to be raised on the tops of many
+mountains, to be fired as signals of alarm for the King's party when the
+Dutch fleet should be seen approaching the coast, we devised, as a mean
+for calling forth the strength and spirit of the Covenanters, that we
+should avail ourselves of their preparations.
+
+Accordingly we instructed four alert young men, of the Cameronian
+societies, severally and unknown to each other, to be in attendance on
+the night of the tenth of December, at the beacons on the hills of
+Knockdolian, Lowthers, Blacklarg, and Bencairn, that they might fire the
+same if need or signal should so require, Quintin Fullarton having
+undertaken to kindle the one on Mistylaw himself.
+
+The night was dark, but it was ordained that the air should be moist and
+heavy, and in that state when the light of flame spreads farthest.
+Meanwhile fearful reports from Ireland of papistical intents to maintain
+the cause of King James made the fancies of men awake and full of
+anxieties. The prelatic curates were also so heartened by those rumours
+and tidings, that they began to recover from the dismay with which the
+news of the Prince's landing had overwhelmed them, and to shoot out
+again the horns of antichristian arrogance. But when, about three hours
+after sunset, the beacon on the Mistylaw was fired, and when hill after
+hill was lighted up, the whole country was filled with such
+consternation and panic, that I was myself smitten with the dread of
+some terrible consequences. Horsemen passed furiously in all
+directions--bells were rung, and drums beat--mothers were seen flying
+with their children they knew not whither--cries and lamentations echoed
+on every side. The skies were kindled with a red glare, and none could
+tell where the signal was first shown. Some said the Irish had landed
+and were burning the towns in the south, and no one knew where to flee
+from the unknown and invisible enemy.
+
+In the meantime, our Covenanters of the West assembled at their
+trysting-place, to the number of more than six thousand armed men, ready
+and girded for battle; and this appearance was an assurance that no
+power was then in all the Lowlands able to gainsay such a force; and
+next day, when it was discovered that the alarm had no real cause, it
+was determined that the prelatic priests should be openly discarded from
+their parishes. Our vengeance, however, was not meted upon them by the
+measure of our sufferings, but by the treatment which our own pastors
+had borne; and, considering how many of them had acted as spies and
+accusers against us, it is surprising, that of two hundred, who were
+banished from the parishes, few received any cause of complaint; even
+the poor feckless thing, Andrew Dornock, was decently expelled from the
+manse of Quharist, on promising he would never return.
+
+This riddance of the malignants was the first fruit of the expulsion of
+James Stuart from the throne; but it was not long till we were menaced
+with new and even greater sufferings than we had yet endured. For though
+the tyrant had fled, he had left Claverhouse, under the title of
+Viscount Dundee, behind him; and in the fearless activity of that proud
+and cruel warrior, there was an engine sufficient to have restored him
+to his absolute throne, as I shall now proceed to rehearse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC
+
+
+The true and faithful of the West, by the event recorded in the
+foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power
+and numbers, stood in no reverence of any force that the remnants of the
+Tyrant's sect and faction could afford to send against them. I therefore
+resolved to return to Edinburgh; for the longing of my grandfather's
+spirit to see the current and course of public events flowing from their
+fountain-head, was upon me, and I had not yet so satisfied the yearnings
+of justice as to be able to look again on the ashes of my house and the
+tomb of Sarah Lochrig and her daughters. Accordingly, soon after the
+turn of the year I went thither, where I found all things in uncertainty
+and commotion.
+
+Claverhouse, or, as he was now titled, Lord Dundee, with that scorn of
+public opinion and defect of all principle, save only a canine fidelity,
+a dog's love, to his papistical master, domineered with his dragoons, as
+if he himself had been regnant monarch of Scotland; and it was plain and
+probable, that unless he was soon bridled, he would speedily act upon
+the wider stage of the kingdom the same Mahound-like part that he had
+played in the prenticeship of his cruelties of the shire of Ayr. The
+peril, indeed, from his courage and activity, was made to me very
+evident, by a conversation that I had with one David Middleton, who had
+come from England on some business of the Jacobites there, in connection
+with Dundee.
+
+Providence led me to fall in with this person one morning, as we were
+standing among a crowd of other onlookers, seeing Claverhouse reviewing
+his men in the front court of Holyrood-house. I happened to remark, for
+in sooth it must be so owned, that the Viscount had a brave though a
+proud look, and that his voice had the manliness of one ordained to
+command.
+
+"Yes," replied David Middleton, "he is a born soldier, and if the King
+is to be restored, he is the man that will do it. When his Majesty was
+at Rochester, before going to France, I was there with my master, and
+being called in to mend the fire, I heard Dundee and my Lord, then with
+the King, discoursing concerning the royal affairs.
+
+"'The question,' said Lord Dundee to his Majesty, 'is, whether you shall
+stay in England or go to France? My opinion, sir, is, that you should
+stay in England, make your stand here, and summon your subjects to your
+allegiance. 'Tis true, you have disbanded your army, but give me leave,
+and I will undertake to get ten thousand men of it together, and march
+through all England with your standard at their head, and drive the
+Dutch before you;' and," added David Middleton, "let him have time, and
+I doubt not, that, even without the King's leave, he will do as much."
+
+Whether the man in this did brag of a knowledge that he had not, the
+story seemed so likely, that it could scarcely be questioned; so I
+consulted with my faithful friend and companion, Quintin Fullarton, and
+other men of weight among the Cameronians; and we agreed, that those of
+the societies who were scattered along the borders to intercept the
+correspondence between the English and Scottish Jacobites, should be
+called into Edinburgh to daunt the rampageous insolence of Claverhouse.
+
+This was done accordingly; and from the day that they began to appear in
+the streets, the bravery of those who were with him seemed to slacken.
+But still he carried himself as boldly as ever, and persuaded the Duke
+of Gordon, then governor of the castle, not to surrender, nor obey any
+mandate from the Convention of the States, by whom, in that interregnum,
+the rule of the kingdom was exercised. Still, however, the Cameronians
+were coming in, and their numbers became so manifest, that the dragoons
+were backward to show themselves. But their commander affected not to
+value us, till one day a singular thing took place, which, in its
+issues, ended the overawing influence of his presence in Edinburgh.
+
+I happened to be standing with Quintin Fullarton, and some four or five
+other Cameronians, at an entry-mouth forenent the Canongate-cross, when
+Claverhouse, and that tool of tyranny, Sir George Mackenzie the
+advocate, were coming up from the palace; and as they passed, the
+Viscount looked hard at me, and said to Sir George,--
+
+"I have somewhere seen that doure cur before."
+
+Sir George turned round also to look, and I said,--
+
+"It's true, Claverhouse--we met at Drumclog;" and I touched my arm that
+he had wounded there, adding, "and the blood shed that day has not yet
+been paid for."
+
+At these words he made a rush upon me with his sword, but my friends
+were nimbler with theirs; and Sir George Mackenzie interposing, drew him
+off, and they went away together.
+
+The affair, however, ended not here. Sir George, with the subtlety of a
+lawyer, tried to turn it to some account, and making a great ado of it,
+as a design to assassinate Lord Dundee and himself, tried to get the
+Convention to order all strangers to remove from the town. This,
+however, was refused; so that Claverhouse, seeing how the spirit of the
+times was going among the members, and the boldness with which the
+presbyterians and the Covenanters were daily bearding his arrogance,
+withdrew with his dragoons from the city and made for Stirling.
+
+In this retreat from Edinburgh he blew the trumpet of civil war; but in
+less than two hours from the signal, a regiment of eight hundred
+Cameronians was arrayed in the High-street. The son of Argyle, who had
+taken his seat in the Convention as a peer, soon after gathered three
+hundred of the Campbells, and the safety of Scotland now seemed to be
+secured by the arrival of Mackay with three Scotch regiments, then in
+the Dutch service, and which the Prince of Orange had brought with him
+to Torbay.
+
+By the retreat of Claverhouse the Jacobite party in Edinburgh were so
+disheartened, and any endeavour which they afterwards made to rally was
+so crazed with consternation, that it was plain the sceptre had departed
+from their master. The capacity as well as the power for any effectual
+action was indeed evidently taken from them, and the ploughshare was
+driven over the ruins of their cause on the ever-memorable eleventh day
+of April, when William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen.
+
+But though thus the oppressor was cast down from his throne, and though
+thus, in Scotland, the chief agents in the work of deliverance were the
+outlawed Cameronians, as instructed by me, the victory could not be
+complete, nor the trophies hung up in the hall, while the Tyrant
+possessed an instrument of such edge and temper as Claverhouse. As for
+myself, I felt that while the homicide lived the debt of justice and of
+blood due to my martyred family could never be satisfied; and I heard of
+his passing from Stirling into the Highlands, and the wonders he was
+working for the Jacobite cause there, as if nothing had yet been
+achieved toward the fulfilment of my avenging vow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI
+
+
+When Claverhouse left Stirling, he had but sixty horse. In little more
+than a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. He obtained
+reinforcements from Ireland. The Macdonalds, and the Camerons, and the
+Gordons, were all his. A vassal of the Marquis of Athol had declared for
+him even in the castle of Blair, and defended it against the clan of his
+master. An event still more strange was produced by the spell of his
+presence,--the clansmen of Athol deserted their chief, and joined his
+standard. He kindled the hills in his cause, and all the life of the
+North was gathering around him.
+
+Mackay, with the Covenanters, the regiments from Holland, and the
+Cameronians, went from Perth to oppose his entrance into the Lowlands.
+The minds of men were suspended. Should he defeat Mackay, it was plain
+that the crown would soon be restored to James Stuart, and the woes of
+Scotland come again.
+
+In that dismal juncture I was alone; for Quintin Fullarton, with all the
+Cameronians, was with Mackay.
+
+I was an old man, verging on threescore.
+
+I went to and fro in the streets of Edinburgh all day long, inquiring of
+every stranger the news; and every answer that I got was some new
+triumph of Dundee.
+
+No sleep came to my burning pillow, or if indeed my eyelids for very
+weariness fell down, it was only that I might suffer the stings of
+anxiety in some sharper form; for my dreams were of flames kindling
+around me, through which I saw behind the proud and exulting visage of
+Dundee.
+
+Sometimes in the depths of the night I rushed into the street, and I
+listened with greedy ears, thinking I heard the trampling of dragoons
+and the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when I saw three
+or four persons speaking together, I ran towards them, and broke in upon
+their discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer me
+with pity.
+
+But the haste and frenzy of this alarm suddenly changed: I felt that I
+was a chosen instrument; I thought that the ruin which had fallen on me
+and mine was assuredly some great mystery of Providence: I remembered
+the prophecy of my grandfather, that a task was in store for me, though
+I knew not what it was; I forgot my old age and my infirmities; I
+hastened to my chamber; I put money in my purse; I spoke to no one; I
+bought a carabine; and I set out alone to reinforce Mackay.
+
+As I passed down the street, and out at the West-port, I saw the people
+stop and look at me with silence and wonder. As I went along the road,
+several that were passing inquired where I was going so fast? but I
+waived my hand and hurried by.
+
+I reached the Queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. I
+embarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side I had fallen
+asleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumber
+unmolested. When I awoke I felt myself refreshed. I leapt on shore, and
+went again impatiently on.
+
+But my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when I reached Kinross I
+bought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped it
+in the water, and it was a savoury repast.
+
+As I approached the Brigg of Earn I felt age in my limbs, and though the
+spirit was willing, the body could not; and I sat down, and I mourned
+that I was so frail and so feeble. But a marvellous vigour was soon
+again given to me, and I rose refreshed from my resting-place on the
+wall of the bridge, and the same night I reached Perth. I stopped in a
+stabler's till the morning. At break of day, having hired a horse from
+him, I hastened forward to Dunkeld, where he told me Mackay had encamped
+the day before, on his way to defend the Pass of Killicrankie.
+
+The road was thronged with women and children flocking into Perth in
+terror of the Highlanders, but I heeded them not. I had but one thought,
+and that was to reach the scene of war and Claverhouse.
+
+On arriving at the ferry of Inver, the field in front of the Bishop of
+Dunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. Mackay had
+marched towards Blair-Athol, to drive Dundee and the Highlanders, if
+possible, back into the glens and mosses of the North; for he had learnt
+that his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's.
+
+On hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, I halted at the
+ferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that I
+should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the
+meeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came to
+that turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into the
+Tay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soon
+after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink,
+slowly and heavily, as the chariots of Pharaoh laboured through the
+sands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the
+many-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn.
+
+On the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins of
+the ramparts of some ancient world; and I thought of the epochs when the
+days of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants were
+on the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and I felt as if I
+beheld the hand of the Lord in the cloud weighing the things of time in
+His scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again so
+great as that the cause of Claverhouse should be suffered to prevail.
+For my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughts
+as the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with a
+glorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII
+
+
+General Mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at
+the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary, and which the Highlanders call
+Fascali, because, as the name in their tongue signifies, no trees are
+growing thereon. This place is the threshold of the Pass of
+Killicrankie, through the dark and woody chasms of which the impatient
+waters of the Gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs.
+The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic
+forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity
+is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the
+minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had
+joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place.
+
+As the soldiers spread themselves over the green bosom of Fascali, and
+piled their arms and furled their banners, and laid their drums on the
+ground, and led their horses to the river, the General sent forward a
+scout through the Pass to discover the movements of Claverhouse, having
+heard that he was coming from the castle of Blair-Athol, to prevent his
+entrance into the Highlands.
+
+The officer sent to make the espial had not been gone above half an hour
+when he came back in great haste to tell that the Highlanders were on
+the brow of a hill above the house of Rinrorie, and that unless the Pass
+was immediately taken possession of, it would be mastered by Claverhouse
+that night.
+
+Mackay, at this news, ordered the trumpets to sound, and as the echoes
+multiplied and repeated the alarm, it was as if all the spirits of the
+hills called the men to arms. The soldiers looked around as they formed
+their ranks, listening with delight and wonder at the universal bravery,
+and I thought of the sight, which Elisha the prophet gave to the young
+man at Dothan, of the mountains covered with horses and chariots of fire
+for his defence against the host of the King of Syria; and I went
+forward with the confidence of assured victory.
+
+As we issued forth from the Pass into the wide country, extending
+towards Lude and Blair-Athol, we saw, as the officer had reported, the
+Highland hosts of Claverhouse arrayed along the lofty brow of the
+mountain, above the house of Rinrorie, their plaids waving in the breeze
+on the hill and their arms glittering to the sun.
+
+Mackay directed the troops, at crossing a raging brook called the
+Girnaig, to keep along a flat of land above the house of Rinrorie, and
+to form, in order of battle, on the field beyond the garden, and under
+the hill where the Highlanders were posted; the baggage and camp
+equipages he at the same time ordered down into a plain that lies
+between the bank on the crown of which the house stands and the river
+Gary. An ancient monumental stone in the middle of the lower plain
+shows, that in some elder age a battle had been fought there, and that
+some warrior of might and fame had fallen.
+
+In taking his ground on that elevated shelf of land, Mackay was minded
+to stretch his left wing to intercept the return of the Highlanders
+towards Blair, and, if possible, oblige them to enter the Pass of
+Killicrankie, by which he would have cut them off from their resources
+in the North, and so perhaps mastered them without any great slaughter.
+
+But Claverhouse discerned the intent of his movement, and before our
+covenanted host had formed their array, it was evident that he was
+preparing to descend; and as a foretaste of the vehemence wherewith the
+Highlanders were coming, we saw them rolling large stones to the brow of
+the hill.
+
+In the meantime the house of Rinrorie having been deserted by the
+family, the lady, with her children and maidens, had fled to Lude or
+Struan, Mackay ordered a party to take possession of it, and to post
+themselves at the windows which look up the hill. I was among those who
+went into the house, and my station was at the easternmost window, in a
+small chamber which is entered by two doors,--the one opening from the
+stair-head, and the other from the drawing-room. In this situation we
+could see but little of the distribution of the army or the positions
+that Mackay was taking, for our view was confined to the face of the
+hill whereon the Highlanders were busily preparing for their descent.
+But I saw Claverhouse on horseback riding to and fro, and plainly
+inflaming their valour with many a courageous gesture; and as he turned
+and winded his prancing war-horse, his breast-plate blazed to the
+setting sun like a beacon on the hill.
+
+When he had seemingly concluded his exhortation, the Highlanders stooped
+forward and hurled down the rocks which they had gathered for their
+forerunners; and while the stones came leaping and bounding with a noise
+like thunder, the men followed in thick and separate bands, and Mackay
+gave the signal to commence firing.
+
+We saw from the windows many of the Highlanders, at the first volley,
+stagger and fall, but the others came furiously down; and before the
+soldiers had time to stick their bayonets into their guns, the broad
+swords of the Clansmen hewed hundreds to the ground.
+
+Within a few minutes the battle was general between the two armies; but
+the smoke of the firing involved all the field, and we could see nothing
+from the windows. The echoes of the mountains raged with the din, and
+the sounds were multiplied by them in so many different places, that we
+could not tell where the fight was hottest. The whole country around
+resounded as with the uproar of a universal battle.
+
+I felt the passion of my spirit return; I could no longer restrain
+myself, nor remain where I was. Snatching up my carabine, I left my
+actionless post at the window, and hurried down stairs, and out of the
+house. I saw by the flashes through the smoke, that the firing was
+spreading down into the plain where the baggage was stationed, and by
+this I knew that there was some movement in the battle; but whether the
+Highlanders or the Covenanters were shifting their ground, I could not
+discover, for the valley was filled with smoke, and it was only at times
+that a sword, like a glance of lightning, could be seen in the cloud
+wherein the thunders and tempest of the conflict were raging.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII
+
+
+As I stood on the brow of the bank in front of Rinrorie-house, a gentle
+breathing of the evening air turned the smoke like the travelling mist
+of the hills, and opening it here and there, I had glimpses of the
+fighting. Sometimes I saw the Highlanders driving the Covenanters down
+the steep, and sometimes I beheld them in their turn on the ground
+endeavouring to protect their unbonneted heads with their targets, but
+to whom the victory was to be given I could discern no sign; and I said
+to myself the prize at hazard is the liberty of the land and the Lord;
+surely it shall not be permitted to the champion of bondage to prevail.
+
+A stronger breathing of the gale came rushing along, and the skirts of
+the smoke where the baggage stood were blown aside, and I beheld many of
+the Highlanders among the wagons plundering and tearing. Then I heard a
+great shouting on the right, and looking that way, I saw the children of
+the Covenant fleeing in remnants across the lower plain, and making
+toward the river. Presently I also saw Mackay with two regiments, all
+that kept the order of discipline, also in the plain. He had lost the
+battle. Claverhouse had won; and the scattered firing, which was
+continued by a few, was to my ears as the riveting of the shackles on
+the arms of poor Scotland for ever. My grief was unspeakable.
+
+I ran to and fro on the brow of the hill--and I stampt with my feet--and
+I beat my breast--and I rubbed my hands with the frenzy of despair--and
+I threw myself on the ground--and all the sufferings of which I have
+written returned upon me--and I started up and I cried aloud the
+blasphemy of the fool, "There is no God."
+
+But scarcely had the dreadful words escaped my profane lips, when I
+heard, as it were, thunders in the heavens, and the voice of an oracle
+crying in the ears of my soul, "The victory of this day is given into
+thy hands!" and strange wonder and awe fell upon me, and a mighty spirit
+entered into mine, and I felt as if I was in that moment clothed with
+the armour of divine might.
+
+I took up my carabine, which in these transports had fallen from my
+hand, and I went round the gable of the house into the garden--and I saw
+Claverhouse with several of his officers coming along the ground by
+which our hosts had marched to their position--and ever and anon turning
+round and exhorting his men to follow him. It was evident he was making
+for the Pass to intercept our scattered fugitives from escaping that
+way.
+
+The garden in which I then stood was surrounded by a low wall. A small
+goose-pool lay on the outside, between which and the garden I perceived
+that Claverhouse would pass.
+
+I prepared my flint and examined my fire-lock, and I walked towards the
+top of the garden with a firm step. The ground was buoyant to my tread,
+and the vigour of youth was renewed in my aged limbs: I thought that
+those for whom I had so mourned walked before me--that they smiled and
+beckoned me to come on, and that a glorious light shone around me.
+
+Claverhouse was coming forward--several officers were near him, but his
+men were still a little behind, and seemed inclined to go down the hill,
+and he chided at their reluctance. I rested my carabine on the
+garden-wall. I bent my knee and knelt upon the ground. I aimed and
+fired,--but when the smoke cleared away I beheld the oppressor still
+proudly on his war-horse.
+
+I loaded again, again I knelt, and again rested my carabine upon the
+wall, and fired a second time, and was again disappointed.
+
+Then I remembered that I had not implored the help of Heaven, and I
+prepared for the third time, and when all was ready, and Claverhouse was
+coming forward, I took off my bonnet, and kneeling with the gun in my
+hand, cried, "Lord, remember David and all his afflictions;" and having
+so prayed, I took aim as I knelt, and Claverhouse raising his arm in
+command, I fired. In the same moment I looked up, and there was a vision
+in the air as if all the angels of brightness, and the martyrs in their
+vestments of glory, were assembled on the walls and battlements of
+Heaven to witness the event,--and I started up and cried, "I have
+delivered my native land!" But in the same instant I remembered to whom
+the glory was due, and falling again on my knees, I raised my hands and
+bowed my head as I said, "Not mine, O Lord, but thine is the victory!"
+
+When the smoke rolled away I beheld Claverhouse in the arms of his
+officers, sinking from his horse, and the blood flowing from a wound
+between the breast-plate and the armpit. The same night he was summoned
+to the audit of his crimes.
+
+It was not observed by the officers from what quarter the summoning bolt
+of justice came, but thinking it was from the house, every window was
+instantly attacked, while I deliberately retired from the spot,--and,
+till the protection of the darkness enabled me to make my escape across
+the Gary, and over the hills in the direction I saw Mackay and the
+remnants of the flock taking, I concealed myself among the bushes and
+rocks that overhung the violent stream of the Girnaig.
+
+Thus was my avenging vow fulfilled,--and thus was my native land
+delivered from bondage. For a time yet there may be rumours and
+bloodshed, but they will prove as the wreck which the waves roll to the
+shore after a tempest. The fortunes of the papistical Stuarts are
+foundered for ever. Never again in this land shall any king, of his own
+caprice and prerogative, dare to violate the conscience of the people.
+
+QUHARIST, _5th November 1696._
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+   _Airt_, direction, point of the compass.
+
+   _almous_, alms.
+
+   _atwish_, betwixt.
+
+   _aught_, possession.
+
+   _aumrie_, store-cupboard.
+
+
+   _Bakie_, a large square wooden vessel.
+
+   _beek_, _v._ bathe; here, bask.
+
+   _bein_, well-to-do, comfortable.
+
+   _ben_, within.
+
+   _benweed_, ragwort.
+
+   _bield_, shelter.
+
+   _big_, _v._ build.
+
+   _bilf_, a blunt stroke (Jamieson).
+
+   _bir_, impetuosity.
+
+   _blate_, bashful.
+
+   _blether_, _v._ talk foolishly.
+
+   _blithemeat gift_, gift made to those present at a child's birth.
+
+   _bout-gait_, roundabout.
+
+   _bow_, arch, gateway.
+
+   _boyne_, tub.
+
+   _braird_, the first sprouting of grain.
+
+   _brattle_, _v._ clatter.
+
+   _brechan_, bracken.
+
+   _buirdly_, burly.
+
+   _bunker_, bench.
+
+   _busk_, adorn.
+
+   _but_, _but the house_, toward the outer apartment of a house.
+
+   _by ordinare_, out of the common.
+
+
+   _Ca'_, _v._ drive.
+
+   _callan_, _callant_, boy.
+
+   _camstrarie_, unmanageable, perverse.
+
+   _cantrip_, magical device.
+
+   _canty_, lively.
+
+   _cap_, a wooden bowl.
+
+   _carl_, fellow (_fem._) _carlin_.
+
+   _carry_, motion of the clouds.
+
+   _carse_, low-lying fertile land, generally adjacent to a river.
+
+   _causey_, street or paved road;
+     _crown of the causey_, middle of the street.
+
+   _change-house_, a small inn or ale-house.
+
+   _chap_, _v._ strike.
+
+   _chappin_, a quart measure.
+
+   _chimla_, _chumla_, chimney;
+     _chimla-lug_, fireside.
+
+   _churme_, murmur.
+
+   _clachan_, hamlet.
+
+   _clamper_, to make a noise with the feet in walking.
+
+   _claught_, snatched (_pret._ of _v._ _clatch_).
+
+   _clishmaclavers_, idle discourse.
+
+   _clok_, beetle.
+
+   _clout_, ragged cloth.
+
+   _Cluty_, _fam._ the "Old One."
+
+   _cod_, pillow, cushion.
+
+   _couthiness_, kindness.
+
+   _cowan-boat_, a fishing-boat.
+
+   _cranreuch_, hoar-frost.
+
+   _creel_, basket.
+
+   _crouse_, confident, _crack crouse_, to "talk big."
+
+   _cruisie_, _crusie_, a small iron lamp.
+
+   _cuif_ simpleton.
+
+   _cushy-doo_, cushat, dove.
+
+
+   _Dark_, _darg_, task.
+
+   _dauner_, _daunder_, stroll.
+
+   _dauty_, pet.
+
+   _dinle_, thrill.
+
+   _dirl_, _v._ clatter, thrill.
+
+   _doless_, void of energy.
+
+   _dominie_, schoolmaster.
+
+   _donsie_, unfortunate.
+
+   _door-cheek_, door-post.
+
+   _doure_, hard, harsh.
+
+   _dow_, _v._ can compass.
+
+   _dowie_, dull.
+
+   _dreich_, tedious.
+
+   _drumly_, turbid, troubled.
+
+   _duds_, rags.
+
+   _dunt_, to knock out by repeated blows.
+
+   _dwam_, seizure (sickness).
+
+   _dyke_, boundary wall.
+
+
+   _Ellwand_, yard-measure.
+
+   _erles_, _arles_, an earnest.
+
+   _ettle_, _v._ aim.
+
+   _excambio_, exchange ratified by law.
+
+   _eydent_, zealous, industrious.
+
+
+   _Fash_, _v._ vex.
+
+   _fek_, "_o' ony fek_," of any effect.
+
+   _fey_, infatuated.
+
+   _fisle_, _v._ rustle.
+
+   _flesher_, butcher.
+
+   _flit_, _v._ word in general use in Scotland for changing residence.
+
+   _flyte_, _v._ scold.
+
+   _foregather_, _v._ get into company together.
+
+   _fornent_, in front of.
+
+   _fyke_, bustle.
+
+
+   _Gait_, _gate_, way.
+
+   _gar_, compel.
+
+   _gardevine_, cellaret.
+
+   _garnel_, granary.
+
+   _gaud_, a bar of metal.
+
+   _gauntrees_, _gantrees_, a stand for a barrel.
+
+   _gawsie_, _gaucy_, jolly.
+
+   _geizen't_, drought-cracked.
+
+   _gett_, contemptuous term for progeny.
+
+   _gif_, if.
+
+   _gir_, _gird_, hoop.
+
+   _girn_, a snare.
+
+   _glaikit_, foolish.
+
+   _glebe_, land held _ex officio_ by a parish minister.
+
+   _gled_, hawk.
+
+   _gleg_, eager.
+
+   _glower_, _v._ glare.
+
+   _gludder_, the sound caused by a body falling among mire (Jamieson).
+
+   _gowk_, fool, _lit._ cuckoo.
+
+   _greet_, weep.
+
+   _grew_, _v._ shudder.
+
+   _grouff_, belly.
+
+   _gude-mother_, mother-in-law.
+
+   _gurl_, _n._ growl.
+
+   _gurly_, surly.
+
+
+   _Hack_, a rack for horses or cattle.
+
+   _haffet_, side-lock.
+
+   _Hallowe'en_, the eve of All Saints' Day.
+
+   _hap_, wrap.
+
+   _harl_, _v._ drag.
+
+   _hass_, throat.
+
+   _havers_, foolish or incoherent talk.
+
+   _hempy_, rogue.
+
+   _herry_, harry.
+
+   _hirkos_ (_Lat._ hircus), a he-goat.
+
+   _hirple_, limp.
+
+   _hirstle_, to shove oneself along by the hands in a seated posture.
+
+   _hobbleshow_, a difficulty.
+
+   _Hogmanæ_, the last day of the year.
+
+   _holm_, _howm_, low-lying level ground on the banks of a river.
+
+   _hooly_, cautiously.
+
+   _horse-setter_, job-master.
+
+   _howdy_, midwife.
+
+   _howf_, _n._ haunt.
+
+   _howk_, dig, burrow.
+
+   _hyte and fykie_, anxious and irritable.
+
+
+   _Jawp_, _v._ dash and rebound as water (Jamieson).
+
+   _jealouse_, suspect.
+
+   _jelly-flowers_, gilliflowers.
+
+   _jimp_, scarcely.
+
+   _jink_, chink (_corruption_).
+
+   _jo_, sweetheart.
+
+   _jow_, _v._ toll.
+
+
+   _Kail_, cabbage; soup made with the same.
+
+   _kell_, scurf on a child's head (Jamieson).
+
+   _kep_, catch.
+
+   _kist_, chest.
+
+   _kithe_, show, appear.
+
+
+   _Laigh_, low.
+
+   _lair_, lore.
+
+   _lanerly_, _alanerly_, alone, lonely.
+
+   _laverock_, lark.
+
+   _lawing_, reckoning.
+
+   _lift_, firmament.
+
+   _limmer_, "baggage" (term of depreciation).
+
+   _linn_, waterfall.
+
+   _lippy_, a bumper.
+
+   _litherly_, lazily.
+
+   _lone_, _loaning_, lane.
+
+   _loun_, serene.
+
+   _lounder_, swinging stroke (Jamieson).
+
+   _low_, _n._ flame.
+
+   _lum_, chimney.
+
+   _lug_, ear.
+
+   _luggie_, a small wooden vessel made of staves.
+
+
+   _Mailing_, farm.
+
+   _manse_, residence of a minister of the Gospel.
+
+   _midden_, refuse-heap.
+
+   _morphosings_, metamorphoses.
+
+   _moss_, a place where peat may be dug (Jamieson).
+
+   _mutchkin_, a measure equal to a pint.
+
+
+   _Napery_, household linen.
+
+   _neb_, beak of a bird.
+
+   _nieve_, fist.
+
+   _notour_, notorious.
+
+
+   _O'ercome_, burden of a song or discourse.
+
+   _outstropolous_, obstreperous.
+
+   _oxter_, arm-pit, also arm.
+
+
+   _Pawkie_, sly; _pawkrie_, slyness.
+
+   _peeseweep_, lapwing.
+
+   _pen-gun_, pop-gun;
+     _a pen-gun at a crack_, a "wunner to talk."
+
+   _pet-day_, term applied to a fair day when the weather is generally
+foul.
+
+   _pig_, earthenware vessel.
+
+   _plack_, small copper coin.
+
+   _play-marrow_, playmate.
+
+   _prin_, pin.
+
+   _puddock_, toad;
+     _puddock-stool bonnet_, toadstool or Tam o' Shanter cap.
+
+
+   _Rackses_, andirons.
+
+   _raised_, delirious.
+
+   _ree_, half-drunk.
+
+   _reek_, smoke.
+
+   _redde_, rede, counsel.
+
+   _rig_, ridge (of ploughed land).
+
+   _rones_, external waterducts of a building.
+
+   _rug_, _v._ pull roughly.
+
+   _runkle_, crumple.
+
+
+   _Scad_, gleam, reflection.
+
+   _schore_, a man of high rank.
+
+   _scog_, _v._ hide.
+
+   _scomfisht_, discomfited.
+
+   _scowther_, scorch.
+
+   _scrog_, a stunted shrub.
+
+   _shavling-gabbit_, shavling mouthed, a shavling being a carpenter's tool
+of the plane order. Having a mouth which emits sounds like those made in
+planing.
+
+   _sicker_, certain.
+
+   _siver_, sewer.
+
+   _skail_, _skayl_, disperse.
+
+   _skelf_, shelf.
+
+   _skirr_, scour.
+
+   _sklinter_, _v._ splinter.
+
+   _skreigh_, cry.
+
+   _sleekit_, deceitful.
+
+   _slocken_, slake.
+
+   _smeddam_, spirit.
+
+   _sneck_, bolt.
+
+   _snell_, keen.
+
+   _snod_, trim.
+
+   _snool_, subjugate by tyrannical means.
+
+   _sole_, sill.
+
+   _sorn_, to "sponge" upon;
+     used by Galt for to loiter.
+
+   _sosherie_, social intercourse.
+
+   _sough_, murmur.
+
+   _spae_, _v._ forecast.
+
+   _spean_, _v._ wean.
+
+   _speat_, flood.
+
+   _speer_, _speir_, inquire.
+
+   _spunk_, spark.
+
+   _staincher_, stanchion.
+
+   _stang_, a pole;
+     to "ride the stang" was to be subjected to a form of mob justice by
+which the patient was borne shoulder-high astride a pole.
+
+   _steek_, stitch, fasten.
+
+   _stock_ (bed-stock), the fore-part of a bed.
+
+   _stoure_, dust in motion.
+
+   _straemash_, disturbance.
+
+   _stravaig_, _v._ stroll.
+
+   _swanky_, strapping young countryman (Brockett).
+
+   _swatch_, sample.
+
+   _swee_, a chimney crane for suspending a pot over the fire (Jamieson).
+
+   _swither_, _v._ to be reluctant, hesitate;
+     _n_. reluctance, hesitation, indecision.
+
+   _syne_, then.
+
+
+   _Tack_, lease.
+
+   _taigle_, hinder, delay.
+
+   _tawnle_, bonfire.
+
+   _temming_, a coarse thin woollen cloth.
+
+   _tent_, heed.
+
+   _thacket_, thatched.
+
+   _thole_, endure.
+
+   _throng_, _adj._ busy.
+
+   _thumbikins_, thumbscrews.
+
+   _tirl at the pin_, old-fashioned mode of intimating desire of admission
+to a house.
+
+   _tod_, _tod lowrie_, fox.
+
+   _tolbooth_, a municipal building including a jail.
+
+   _toom_, empty.
+
+   _toop_, a ram.
+
+   _toupie_ (French), toupet.
+
+   _trance_, paved passage.
+
+   _trintle_, _v._ roll.
+
+   _trone_, a public weighing-machine standing in a market-place.
+
+
+   _Unco_, _adj._ extraordinary, remarkable;
+     _n._ remarkable object.
+
+
+   _Virl_, ring (as those which bind a fishing-rod);
+     frill.
+
+   _vivers_, provisions.
+
+   _vogie_, vain, complacent.
+
+
+   _Wae_, grieved.
+
+   _waff_, feeble, worn out.
+
+   _warrandice_, warrant.
+
+   _warsle_, wrestle.
+
+   _wastage_, a place of desolation (J.).
+
+   _wastrie_, waste.
+
+   _waught_, a large draught.
+
+   _wean_, child.
+
+   _whin_, furze.
+
+   _Whigamore_, sometimes derived from "whig," a word used in the West for
+urging on horses, and hence applied as a nickname to a political party.
+The expedition of the Covenanters under Eglinton to Edinburgh was known
+as the Whigamore Raid.
+
+   _whumple_, overturn, reverse.
+
+   _willease_, valise.
+
+   _willy-wa_, palaver, wheedle.
+
+   _wise, v._ entice, incline.
+
+   _wud_, wild.
+
+   _wuddy_, "gallows-looking";
+     widdy is the gallows.
+
+   _wyte_, blame.
+
+
+   _Yett_, gate.
+
+   _yird_, _n._ earth;
+     _v. a._ run to earth.
+
+
+
+_Colston & Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh._
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS WORTH READING
+
+   BEING A LIST OF THE
+   New and Forthcoming Publications
+
+   OF
+
+   GREENING & CO., LTD.
+   20 Cecil Court
+   Charing Cross Road
+
+   _OCTOBER 1899_    LONDON, W.C.
+
+
+GENERAL LITERATURE, CRITICISM, POETRY, ETC.
+
+     =_English Writers of To-Day:_= Being a Series of Monographs on living
+     Authors. Each volume is written by a competent authority, and each
+     subject is treated in an appreciative, yet critical, manner. The
+     following are the first volumes in the Series:--
+
+     =_Rudyard Kipling_=. The Man and His Work. Being an attempt at an
+     "Appreciation." By G. F. MONKSHOOD, Author of "Woman and The Wits,"
+     "My Lady Ruby," etc. Containing a portrait of Mr Kipling and an
+     autograph letter to the author in facsimile. Second Impression.
+     Crown 8vo, buckram, gilt lettered, top edge gilt, 5s. nett.
+
+=Daily Telegraph=.--"He writes fluently, and he has genuine enthusiasm for
+his subject, and an intimate acquaintance with his work. Moreover, the
+book has been submitted to Mr Kipling, whose characteristic letter to
+the author is set forth on the preface.... Of Kipling's heroes Mr
+Monkshood has a thorough understanding, and his remarks on them are
+worth quoting" (extract follows).
+
+=Globe=--"It has at the basis of it both knowledge and
+enthusiasm--knowledge of the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.
+This book may be accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's
+merits as a writer. We can well believe that it will have many
+interested and approving readers."
+
+=Scotsman=.--"This well-informed volume is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style. One way
+and another his book is full of interest, and those who wish to talk
+about Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted enthusiasm."
+
+
+VOLUMES OF E.W.O.T. (In preparation.)
+
+=_Thomas Hardy_=. By W. L. COURTNEY.
+
+=_George Meredith_=. By WALTER JERROLD.
+
+=_Bret Harte_=. By T. EDGAR PEMBERTON.
+
+=_Richard Le Gallienne_=. By C. RANGER GULL.
+
+=_Arthur Wing Pinero_=. By HAMILTON FYFFE.
+
+=_W. E. Henley_=, and the "NATIONAL OBSERVER" Group. By GEORGE GAMBLE.
+
+=_The Parnassian School in English_= POETRY. (ANDREW LANG, EDMUND GOSSE
+and ROBERT BRIDGES.) By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.
+
+=_Algernon Charles Swinburne_=. By G. F. MONKSHOOD.
+
+=_Realistic Writers of To-day_=. By JUSTIN HANNAFORD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =_The Wheel of Life_=. A Few Memories and Recollections (de omnibus
+     rebus). By CLEMENT SCOTT, Author of "Madonna Mia," "Poppyland,"
+     etc. With Portrait of the Author from the celebrated Painting by J.
+     MORDECAI. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt lettered,
+     gilt top, 2s.
+
+=Weekly Sun= (T. P. O'Connor) says:--A Book of the Week--"I have found
+this slight and unpretentious little volume bright, interesting reading.
+I have read nearly every line with pleasure."
+
+=Illustrated London News=.--"The story Mr Scott has to tell is full of
+varied interest, and is presented with warmth and buoyancy."
+
+=Punch=.--"What pleasant memories does not Clement Scott's little book,
+'The Wheel of Life,'revive! The writer's memory is good, his style easy,
+and above all, which is a great thing for reminiscences, chatty."
+
+=Referee=.--GEORGE R. SIMS (Dagonet) says:--"Deeply interesting are these
+last memories and recollections of the last days of Bohemia.... I picked
+up 'The Wheel of Life' at one in the morning, after a hard night's work,
+and flung myself, weary and worn, into an easy-chair, to glance at it
+while I smoked my last pipe. As I read, all my weariness departed, for I
+was young and light-hearted once again, and the friends of my young
+manhood had come trooping back from the shadows to make a merry night of
+it once more in London town. And when I put the book down, having read
+it from cover to cover, it was 'past three o'clock and a windy
+morning.'"
+
+     =_A Trip to Paradoxia_=, and other Humours of the Hour. Being
+     Contemporary Pictures of Social Fact and Political Fiction. By T.
+     H. S. ESCOTT, Author of "Personal Forces of the Period," "Social
+     Transformation of the Victorian Age," "Platform, Press, Politics,
+     and Play," Etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth. Gilt, 5s. nett.
+
+=Standard.=--"A book which is amusing from cover to cover. Bright epigrams
+abound in Mr Escott's satirical pictures of the modern world.... Those
+who know the inner aspects of politics and society will, undoubtedly, be
+the first to recognise the skill and adroitness with which he strikes at
+the weak places in a world of intrigue and fashion.... There is a great
+deal of very clever sword-play in Mr Escott's description of Dum-Dum
+(London), the capital of Paradoxia (England).
+
+=Court Circular.=--"It is brilliantly written, and will afford keen
+enjoyment to the discriminating taste. Its satire is keen-edged, but
+good-humoured enough to hurt no one; and its wit and (may we say?) its
+impudence should cause a run on it at the libraries."
+
+=M. A. P.=--"A sparkling piece of political and social satire. Mr Escott
+besprinkles his pages with biting epigram and humorous innuendo. It is a
+most amusing book."
+
+=Athenæum.=--"He constantly suggests real episodes and real persons. There
+are a good many rather pretty epigrams scattered through Mr Escott's
+pages."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A bright, witty, and amusing volume, which will entertain
+everybody who takes it up."
+
+=Newcastle Leader.=--"Messrs Greening are fortunate in being the
+publishers of a volume so humorous, so dexterous, written with such
+knowledge of men and affairs, and with such solidity and power of style
+as Mr T. H. S. Escott's 'A Trip to Paradoxia.'"
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"Mr T. H. S. Escott throws abundant humour blended with
+pungent sarcasm into his work, making his pictures very agreeable
+reading to all but the victim he has selected, and whose weaknesses he
+so skilfully lays bare. But the very clever manner in which the writer
+hits the foibles and follies of his fellows must create admiration and
+respect even from those who view his satire with a wintry smile. We like
+his writing, his power of discernment, and his high literary style."
+
+     =_People, Plays, and Places._= Being the Second Series of "The Wheel
+     of Life," Memories and Recollections of "People" I have met,
+     "Plays" I have seen, and "Places" I have visited. By CLEMENT SCOTT,
+     Author of "The Stage of Yesterday and The Stage of To-day,"
+     "Pictures of the World," "Thirty Years at the Play." Crown 8vo,
+     cloth gilt. (In preparation.) 5s.
+
+     =_"Sisters by the Sea."_= Seaside and Country Sketches. By CLEMENT
+     SCOTT, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+     Frontispiece and Vignette designed by GEORGE POWNALL. Long 12mo,
+     attractively bound in cloth, 1s.
+
+=Observer.=--"The little book is bright and readable, and will come like a
+breath of country air to many unfortunates who are tied by the leg to
+chair, stool, or counter."
+
+=Sheffield Telegraph.=--"Bright, breezy, and altogether readable.... East
+Anglia, Nelson's Land, etc., etc., are all dealt with, and touched
+lightly and daintily, as becomes a booklet meant to be slipped in the
+pocket and read easily to the pleasing accompaniment of the waves lazily
+lapping on the shingle by the shore."
+
+=Dundee Advertiser.=--"It is all delightful, and almost as good as a
+holiday. The city clerk, the jaded shopman, the weary milliner, the
+pessimistic dyspeptic, should each read the book. It will bring a
+suggestion of sea breezes, the plash of waves, and all the accessories
+of a holiday by the sea."
+
+     =_Some Famous Hamlets._= (SARAH BERNHARDT, HENRY IRVING, BEERBOHM
+     TREE, WILSON BARRETT and FORBES ROBERTSON.) By CLEMENT SCOTT.
+     Illustrated with portraits. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_Some Bible Stories Retold._= By "A CHURCHMAN." Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     3s. 6d.
+
+     =_Bye-Ways of Crime._= With some Stories from the Black Museum. By R.
+     J. POWER-BERREY. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"Decidedly you should read Mr Power-Berrey's interesting book,
+taking laugh and shudder as they come."
+
+=Sheffield Independent.=--"We do not remember to have ever seen a more
+popularly-written summary of the methods of thieves than this bright and
+chatty volume. It is the work of a writer who evidently has a most
+intimate knowledge of the criminal classes, and who can carry on a plain
+narrative briskly and forcibly. The book fascinates by its freshness and
+unusualness."
+
+=Literature.=--"It contains many interesting stories and new observations
+on the _modus operandi_ of swindlers."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A most interesting account of the dodges adopted by various
+criminals in effecting their purposes. The reader will find much that is
+instructive within its pages."
+
+=Liverpool Review.=--"This is no fanciful production, but a clear,
+dispassionate revelation of the dodges of the professional criminal.
+Illustrated by numerous pen and ink sketches, Mr Power-Berrey's
+excellent work is useful as well as interesting, for it will certainly
+not assist the common pilferer to have all his little tricks made public
+property in this lucid and easily rememberable style."
+
+     =_The Art of Elocution_= and Public Speaking. By ROSS FERGUSON. With
+     an Introduction by GEO. ALEXANDER. Dedicated by permission to Miss
+     ELLEN TERRY. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, strongly bound in cloth,
+     1s.
+
+=Australian Mail.=--"A useful little book. We can strongly recommend it to
+the chairmen of public companies."
+
+=Stage.=--"A carefully composed treatise, obviously written by one as
+having authority. Students will find it of great service."
+
+=People's Friend.=--"Contains many valuable hints, and deals with every
+branch of the elocutionist's art in a lucid and intelligible manner."
+
+=Literary World.=--"The essentials of elocution are dealt with in a
+thoroughly capable and practical way. The chapter on public speaking is
+particularly satisfactory."
+
+=Madame.=--"The work is pleasingly thorough. The instructions are most
+interesting, and are lucidly expressed, physiological details are
+carefully, yet not redundantly, dwelt on, so that the intending student
+may have some very real and definite idea of what he is learning about,
+and many valuable hints may be gleaned from the chapters on
+'Articulation and Modulation.' Not only for actors and orators will this
+little book be found of great service, but everyone may find pleasure
+and profit in reading it."
+
+     =_The Path of the Soul._= Being Essays on Continental Art and
+     Literature. By S. C. de SOISSONS, Author of "A Parisian in
+     America," etc. Illustrated with portraits, etc. Crown 8vo, cloth
+     gilt, 10s. 6d.
+
+     =_A History of Nursery Rhymes._= By PERCY B. GREEN. This interesting
+     Book is the result of many years research among nursery folklore of
+     all nations, and traces the origin of nursery rhymes from the
+     earliest times. Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s.
+
+     =_The Year Book of the Stage._= Being an annual record of criticisms
+     of all the important productions of the English Stage, with copious
+     Index and complete Caste of each Play recorded. A useful
+     compilation for students of the Drama. About 260 pages, strongly
+     bound in cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_In Quaint East Anglia._= Descriptive Sketches. By T. WEST CARNIE.
+     Illustrated by W. S. ROGERS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Observer.=--"That East Anglia exercises a very potent spell over those
+who once come under its influence is proved by the case of George
+Borrow, and all who share in the fascination will delight in this
+brightly written, companionable little volume."
+
+=Birmingham Argus.=--"Interesting matter entertainingly told."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"Mr Carnie's book is thoroughly charming."
+
+=Literature.=--"An aesthetic volume as pleasant to read as to look at."
+
+=Guardian.=--"Just the kind of book that would help a tourist in Norfolk
+and Suffolk to see what ought to be seen with the proper measure of
+enjoyment."
+
+=Graphic.=--"It is a prettily got up and readable little book."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"Will be welcomed by all who have come under the charm
+of East Anglia."
+
+     =_A Man Adrift._= Being Leaves from a Nomad's Portfolio. By BART
+     KENNEDY, Author of "Darab's Wine-Cup," "The Wandering Romanoff,"
+     etc. This very entertaining book is a narrative of adventures in
+     all parts of the world. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Woman and the Wits._= Epigrams on Woman, Love, and Beauty.
+     Collected and edited by G. F. MONKSHOOD, Author of "Rudyard
+     Kipling: The Man and His Work," "Lady Ruby," etc. Small 8vo, cloth
+     gilt extra, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. nett. Paper boards, rough edges,
+     2s. 6d. nett.
+
+     =_Weeds and Flowers._= Poems by WILLIAM LUTHER LONGSTAFF, Author of
+     "Passion and Reflection." Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt extra, gilt
+     top, 2s. 6d. nett.
+
+=Sun.=--"Mr Longstaff has real fire and passion in all of his work. He has
+a graceful touch and a tuneful ear. There is exquisite melody in his
+metre."
+
+=Echo.=--"The poetry of passion is no rarity to-day, yet scarcely since
+the date of Philip Bourke Marston's 'Song Tide' has such an arresting
+and whole-hearted example of this class of poetry been issued by any
+English author as the volume which Mr William Luther Longstaff entitles
+'Weeds and Flowers.' Passion, tumultuous and unabashed, sensuous rapture
+openly flaunting its shame, love in maddest surrender risking all,
+daring all, these are the dominant motives of Mr Longstaff's muse. So
+wild is the rush of his emotion--all storm and fire and blood--to such
+white heat does he forge his burning phrases, so subtly varied are the
+constantly recurring expressions of love's ecstasy, its despair, its
+bereavement, its appetite, its scorn, so happy sometimes are the
+unexpected metrical changes and experiments herein adopted, that the
+younger poet might suggest discreet comparisons with the earlier
+Swinburne."
+
+=Morning Herald.=--"The book contains _real_ poetry. There is always
+thought and force in the work. 'At the Gate' is not merely Swinburnian
+in metre; in all things it might well have come from that poet's pen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Greening's Masterpiece Library
+
+     =_Vathek._= An Eastern Romance. By GEO. BECKFORD. Edited with an
+     Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Full-page illustrations by W. S.
+     ROGERS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s 6d. A superb edition of this
+     most interesting and fascinating story.
+
+     =_Asmodeus_=; or, The Devil on Two Sticks. An Illustrated Edition of
+     the Celebrated Novel by LE SAGE, Author of "Gil Blas." Edited by
+     JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_Ringan Gilhaize._= A Tale of the Covenanters. By JOHN GALT. Edited
+     with an Introduction by Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_Rasselas_=, Prince of Abyssinia. A Tale of Adventure. By Dr
+     JOHNSON. Edited with an Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Full-page
+     illustrations by W. S. ROGERS. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_The Epicurean._= A Tale of Mystery and Adventure. By THOMAS MOORE.
+     Edited with an Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Illustrated. 8vo,
+     art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     _Several well known and popular works by great writers are in
+     active preparation for this artistic series of masterpieces._
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+NOVELS AT SIX SHILLINGS
+
+     =_An Obscure Apostle._= A Powerful and Dramatic Tale, translated from
+     the Polish of Mdme. ORZESZKO by S. C. de SOISSONS. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Son of Africa._= A Tale of Marvellous Adventures. By ANNA,
+     COMTESSE DE BRÉMONT, Author of "The Gentleman Digger," etc. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Mora_=: One Woman's History. An interesting novel by T. W. SPEIGHT,
+     Author of "The Crime in the Wood," "The Mysteries of Heron Dyke,"
+     etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Girl of the North._= A Tale of London and Canada. By HELEN
+     MILICITE. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Ashes Tell no Tales._= A Novel. By Mrs ALBERT S. BRADSHAW, Author
+     of "The Gates of Temptation," "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc.
+     Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Such is the Law._= An Interesting Story by MARIE M. SADLEIR, Author
+     of "An Uncanny Girl," "In Lightest London," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     6s.
+
+     =_Fetters of Fire._= A Dramatic Tale. By COMPTON READE, Author of
+     "Hard Lines," "Under which King," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Virtue of Necessity._= A Powerful Novel. By HERBERT ADAMS. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Cry in the Night._= An exciting Detective Story. By ARNOLD
+     GOLSWORTHY, Author of "Death and the Woman," "Hands in the
+     Darkness," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Social Upheaval._= An Unconventional Dramatic Satirical Tale. By
+     ISIDORE G. ASCHER, Author of "An Odd Man's Story," "The Doom of
+     Destiny," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.
+
+=Scotsman.=--"The plot is bold, even to audacity; its development is
+always interesting, picturesque, and, towards the close, deeply
+pathetic; and the purpose and method of the writer are alike admirable."
+
+=Eastern Morning News.=--"It is a clever book, splendidly written, and
+striking in its wonderful power, and keeping the reader interested....
+The author has not failed in his effort to prove the case. The awful
+truth of its pages is borne home upon us as we read chapter after
+chapter. The book should have a good effect in certain quarters. One of
+the best features is the dividing line drawn most plainly between
+Socialism and Anarchism. To its author we tender our thanks, and predict
+a large sale."
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"The hero is an interesting dreamer, absorbed in his
+schemes, which are his one weakness. To women, save when they can
+further the good of his cause, he is obdurate; in business, strong,
+energetic, and powerful. He is shown to us as the man with a master mind
+and one absorbing delusion, and as such is a pathetic figure. No one can
+dispute the prodigality and liveliness of the author's imagination; his
+plot teems with striking incidents."
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The story tells itself very clearly in three hundred
+pages of very pleasant and entertaining reading. The men and women we
+meet are not the men and women we really come across in this world. So
+much the better for us. But we are delighted to read about them, for all
+that; and we prophesy success for Mr Ascher's book, particularly as he
+has taken the precaution of telling us that he is 'only in fun.'"
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"A story in which there is not a dull page, nay,
+not even a dull line. The characters are well drawn, the incidents are
+novel and often astounding, and the language has a terseness and
+briskness that gives a character of vivacity to the story, so that the
+reader is never tired going on unravelling the tangled meshes of the
+intricate plot until he comes to the end. 'A Social Upheaval' is,
+indeed, a rattling good book."
+
+     =_A New Tale of the Terror._= A Powerful and Dramatic Story of the
+     French Revolution. By the Author of "The Hypocrite" and "Miss
+     Malevolent." (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+NOVELS AT THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE
+
+     =_Shams!_= A Social Satire. By----? This is a remarkable and
+     interesting story of Modern Life in London Society. It is a
+     powerful work, written with striking vividness. The plot is
+     fascinating, the incidents exciting, and the dialogue epigrammatic
+     and brilliant. "Shams" is written by one of the most popular
+     novelists of the day. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_Miss Malevolent._= A Realistic Study. By the Author of "The
+     Hypocrite." Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_A Comedy of Temptation_;= or, The Amateur Fiend. A Tale by TRISTRAM
+     COUTTS, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+     6d.
+
+     =_The Weird Well._= A Tale of To-day. By Mrs ALEC M'MILLAN, Author of
+     "The Evolution of Daphne," "So Runs my Dream," etc. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 3s, 6d.
+
+     =_Zoroastro._= An Historical Romance. By CRESWICK J. THOMPSON, Author
+     of "Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries," "The Mystery and Romance
+     of Alchemy and Pharmacy," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Temptation of Edith Watson._= By SYDNEY HALL. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Gentleman Digger._= Realistic Pictures of Life in Johannesburg.
+     By ANNA, COMTESSE de BRÉMONT, Author of "A Son of Africa," etc. New
+     Edition, revised to date, with a new Preface. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+     6d.
+
+     _The Sword of Fate._ An Interesting Novel. By HENRY HERMAN, Author
+     of "Eagle Joe," "Scarlet Fortune," etc., and Joint Author of the
+     "Silver King," "Claudian." Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The hand that wrote the 'Silver King' has by no means
+lost its cunning in painting broad effects of light and shadow. The
+description of life in Broadmoor is, we fancy, done from actual
+observation. It is quite new." And the critic of =Black and White= sums it
+up pithily as "a story which holds our attention and interests us right
+from the first chapter. The book is as exciting as even a story of
+sensation has any need to be." Speaking of the scene of Mr Herman's
+drama, the beautiful county of Devonshire, where the greater part of the
+story takes place, the =Manchester Courier= says: "The author's
+descriptive powers vividly portray the lovely spots by the winding
+Tamar, while the rich dialect of the district is so faithfully
+reproduced as to become not the least feature of an exciting tale."
+
+=The Weekly Mercury.=--"Mr Henry Herman has carefully studied the little
+weaknesses of the great army of readers. Like a celebrated and much
+advertised medicine, he invariably 'touches the spot,' and hence the
+popularity of his works. His latest novel, 'The Sword of Fate,' contains
+all the essentials of a popular story. It is well written, sufficiently
+dramatic, full of life and incident, and above all, right triumphs over
+wrong. We must, too, congratulate the author upon the omission of all
+that is disagreeable or likely to offend the susceptibilities of the
+most delicate minded. It is a clean and healthy novel, a credit to the
+writer, and a pleasure to the reader.... These are quite capable of
+affording anyone a pleasant evening's reading, a remark which does not
+apply to the great majority of the modern novels."
+
+     =_Seven Nights with Satan._= A Novel. By J. L. OWEN, Author of "The
+     Great Jekyll Diamond." Cover designed by W. S. ROGERS. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=St James's Gazette.=--"We have read the book from start to finish with
+unflagging interest--an interest, by the way, which derives nothing from
+the 'spice,' for though its title may be suggestive of Zolaism, there is
+not a single passage which is open to objection. The literary style is
+good."
+
+=Truth.=--"I much prefer the ghastly story 'Seven Nights with Satan,' a
+very clever study of degeneration."
+
+=London Morning.=--"The story told is a powerful one, evidently based upon
+close personal knowledge of the events, places, and persons which figure
+in it. A tragic note pervades it, but still there is lightness and wit
+in its manner which makes the book a very fascinating as well as
+eventful volume."
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"Mr J. L. Owen has given a title to his work which will
+cause many conjectures as to the nature of the story. Now, if we
+divulged what were the seven nights, we should be doing the author
+anything but a service--in fact, we should be giving the whole thing
+away; therefore, we will only state that the work is cleverly conceived,
+and carried out with great literary ability. There are numerous flashes
+of originality that lift the author above ordinary commonplace."
+
+     =_The Green Passion._= The Study of a Jealous Soul. A Powerful Novel.
+     By ANTHONY P. VERT. Cover designed by ALFRED PRAGA. Crown 8vo, art
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+Mr DOUGLAS SLADEN in =The Queen=.--"A remarkably clever book.... There is
+no disputing the ability with which the writer handles her subject. I
+say _her_ subject, because the minuteness of the touches, and the odd,
+forcible style in which this book is written, point to it being the work
+of a female hand. The book is an eminently readable one, and it is never
+dull for a minute."
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"It is a study of one of the worst passions which can
+ruin a lifetime and mar all human happiness--one of the worst, not
+because it is necessarily the strongest, but because of its singular
+effect in altering the complexion of things, transforming love into
+suspicion, and filling its victim with a petulant and unreasonable
+madness. All this Anthony Vert understands, and can describe with very
+uncommon power. The soul of a jealous woman is analysed with artistic
+completeness, and proved to be the petty, intolerant, half-insane thing
+it really is.... The plot is well conceived, and well carried out.
+Anthony Vert may be congratulated on having written a very clever
+novel."
+
+=The Monitor.=--"A wonderful piece of writing. The only modern parallel we
+can find is supplied in Mr F. C. Philip's 'As in a Looking Glass.'"
+
+=World.=--"As the study of a jealous soul, 'The Green Passion' is a
+success, and psychological students will be delighted with it.... The
+tragedy which forms the _dénouement_ to this story is of such a nature
+as to preclude our doing more than remotely alluding to it, for he (or
+is it she?) has portrayed an 'exceedingly risky situation.'"
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"In 'The Green Passion' the author traces with much
+ability, and not a little analytical insight, the progress of jealousy
+in the breast of a woman who is born with a very 'intense,' although not
+a very deep, nature.... There is in Mr Vert's work a certain tendency
+towards realism which has its due effect in making his characters real.
+They are no loosely-built fancies of the journalistic brain, but
+portraits--almost snapshot portraits--of men and women of to-day."
+
+     =_Outrageous Fortune._= Being the Confessions of Evelyn Gray,
+     Hospital Nurse. A story founded on fact, proving that truth is
+     stranger than fiction. (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Dolomite Cavern._= An Exciting Tale of Adventure. By W. PATRICK
+     KELLY, Author of "Schoolboys Three," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"Lovers of the sensational in fiction will find
+abundance of congenial entertainment in Mr W. P. Kelly's new story. In
+the way of accessories to startling situations all is fish that comes to
+this ingenious author's net. The wonders of primitive nature, the
+marvels of latter-day science, the extravagances of human passion--all
+these he dexterously uses for the purpose of involving his hero in
+perilous scrapes from which he no less dexterously extricates him by
+expedients which, however far-fetched they may appear to the
+unimaginative, are certainly not lacking in originality of device, or
+cleverness of construction.... This is a specimen incident--those which
+succeed it derive their special interest from the action of Rontgen
+rays, subterranean torrents, and devastating inundations. The book is
+very readable throughout, and ends happily. What more can the average
+novel reader wish for in holiday time?"
+
+=Observer.=--"A story full of exciting adventure."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"The plot is ingenious, and the style pleasant."
+
+=Literature.=--"'The Dolomite Cavern' has the great merit of being very
+well written. The plot is sensational and improbable enough, but with
+the aid of the author's bright literary manner it carries us on
+agreeably until the last chapter."
+
+=Critic.=--"It is a sensational novel with a dash of pseudo-scientific
+interest about it which is well calculated to attract the public. It is,
+moreover, well written and vigorous."
+
+=Manchester Guardian.=--"Mr Kelly's fluent, rapid style makes his story of
+mysteries readable and amusing. His Irish servant, one of the principal
+characters, speaks a genuine Irish dialect--almost as rare in fiction as
+the imitation is common."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"Truly thrilling and dramatic, Mr Kelly's book is a
+cleverly written and absorbing romance. It concludes with a tremendous
+scene, in which a life-and-death struggle with a madman in the midst of
+a raging flood is the leading feature."
+
+     =_Madonna Mia_=, and other Stories. By CLEMENT SCOTT, Author of
+     "Poppyland," "The Wheel of Life," "The Fate of Fenella,"
+     "Blossomland," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Punch.=--"'Madonna Mia' is genuinely interesting. All the stories are
+good; you are 'Scott free' to pick 'em where you like." (The Baron de B.
+W.)
+
+=Weekly Sun.=--"Shows Mr Scott's sturdy character painting and love of
+picturesque adventure."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"The book is characteristic of the work of its
+author--bright, brilliant, informing, and entertaining, and without a
+dull sentence in it."
+
+=St James's Gazette.=--"Full of grace and sentiment. The tales have each
+their individuality and interest, and we can recommend the whole as
+healthy refreshment for the idle or weary brain."
+
+=Pelican.=--"Full of living, breathing, human interest. Few writers
+possess the gift of bringing actual existence to their characters as
+does Mr Scott, and in the pages of his newest book you shall find tears
+and smiles, and all the emotions skilfully arranged and put in true
+literary fashion."
+
+=World.=--"Clement Scott is nothing if not sympathetic, and every one of
+the ten stories is not only thoroughly readable, but is instinct with
+sentiment; for Mr Scott still retains a wonderful enthusiasm, usually
+the attribute of youth. 'Drifting' is a very fresh and convincing
+narrative, founded, we understand, upon truth, and containing within a
+small compass the materials for a very stirring drama. 'A Cross of
+Heather,' too, is a charming romance, told with real pathos and
+feeling."
+
+     =_The Shadow on The Manse._= A Tale of Religion and the Stage. By
+     CAMPBELL RAE-BROWN, Author of "The Resurrection of His Grace,"
+     "Kissing-Cup's Race," etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Lady of the Leopard._= A Powerful and Fascinating Novel. By
+     CHAS. L'EPINE, Author of "The Devil in a Domino." Crown 8vo, art
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"A remarkable book.... We are plunged into a delicious
+and tantalising romance; incident follows incident like a panorama of
+exciting pictures. Fertility of imagination is everywhere apparent, and
+the _dénouement_ is artfully concealed till it bursts upon the reader
+with a suddenness that fairly takes away his breath."
+
+=Liverpool Mercury.=--"Lovers of the marvellous will enjoy it, for it is
+cleverly and dramatically written."
+
+=Dundee Advertiser.=--"Written with dramatic force and vigour."
+
+=North British Advertiser.=--"This is a weird and strange story that
+interests and fascinates the reader, with its occult fancies and
+marvellous experiences.... It may be added, in conclusion, that it is a
+book well worth reading, and will easily bear a second perusal."
+
+=Liverpool Post.=--"A very skilfully constructed story, mysterious and
+strange, with a natural explanation suggested of all the mystery which
+does not spoil one's enjoyment (here follows analysis of plot). This is
+the bare outline of the story up to a certain point; it is impossible to
+convey adequately an idea of the awe-inspiring characteristics of the
+story. Readers can safely be recommended to turn to the book itself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+HALF-CROWN NOVELS
+
+     =_In Monte Carlo._= A Tale by HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ, Author of "Quo
+     Vadis," "With Fire and Sword," etc., etc. Translated by S. C. de
+     SOISSONS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, with a new Portrait of the Author,
+     2s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Tragedy of The Lady Palmist._= By W. LUTHER LONGSTAFF, Author
+     of "Weeds and Flowers," etc. An exciting tale, descriptive of the
+     "Behind-the-Scenes of the Palmist's Bohemia." Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s.
+     6d.
+
+     =_My Lady Ruby, and Basileon, Chief of Police._= Two stories by G. F.
+     MONKSHOOD, Author of "Nightshades," "Rudyard Kipling: The Man and
+     His Work," "Woman and The Wits," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Hypocrite._= A Modern Realistic Novel of Oxford and London
+     Life. Fourth Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+_This book has been "boycotted" by Messrs Mudie and Messrs W. H. Smith &
+Son as being "unfit to circulate in their libraries," yet it has been
+praised by the press at being "a powerful sermon and a moral book."_
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"A book by an anonymous author always arouses a
+certain inquiry, and when the book is clever and original the interest
+becomes keen; and conjecture is rife, endowing the most unlikely people
+with authorship.... It is very brilliant, very forcible, very sad.... It
+is perfect in its way, in style clear, sharp and forcible, the dialogue
+epigrammatic and sparkling.... Enough has been said to show that 'The
+Hypocrite' is a striking and powerful piece of work, and that its author
+has established his claim to be considered a writer of originality and
+brilliance."
+
+=Daily Graphic.=--"A very moral book."
+
+=Court Circular.=--"The work is decidedly clever, full of ready wit,
+sparkling epigram, and cutting sarcasm."
+
+=Echo.=--"The story is thoroughly interesting, the wit and epigram of the
+writing are not to be denied, and altogether 'The Hypocrite' is so
+brilliant that it can only be fittingly compared with 'The Green
+Carnation' or 'The Babe B.A.'"
+
+=Liverpool Courier.=--"A genuinely clever book. Furthermore, it is a book
+with a wholesome moral vividly enforced."
+
+=Lady.=--"Whoever the author may be, he has the right literary method, his
+work is absolutely realistic, his style is fluent and distinctive, and
+he has the rare faculty of gripping the reader's attention at the outset
+and retaining it to the very last.... 'The Hypocrite' is something more
+than a remarkable novel--it is, in effect, a sermon, conveying a
+definite message to those who have the wit to understand it."
+
+=Morning Post.=--"It is entitled to be regarded as one of the clever books
+of the day. The writer shows artistic perception. He maintains
+throughout an atmosphere perfectly in harmony with the idea that has
+suggested his work."
+
+     =_The Wandering Romanoff._= A Romance. By BART KENNEDY, Author of "A
+     Man Adrift," "Darab's Wine-Cup," etc. New and Cheaper Edition,
+     crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_Dona Rufina._= A Nineteenth Century Romance. Being a Story of
+     Carlist Conspiracy. By HEBER DANIELS, Author of "Our Tenants."
+     Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Bookman.=--"A highly emotional, cleverly written story."
+
+=Lady.=--"A thrilling romance with a mediæval atmosphere, although the
+scene is laid in the Cotswolds in the year of grace 1898. The story is
+well constructed, and is a good example of the widely imaginative type
+of fiction that is so eagerly devoured by young people nowadays."
+
+=Lloyd's.=--"The author has woven a clever story out of strange
+materials.... The interest of the book only ceases when the end is
+reached."
+
+=Society.=--"Altogether a very intelligible and interesting story of
+intrigue and love. The author has put some excellent work into the
+book."
+
+=Eastern Morning News.=--"Readers will be fascinated by the stirring
+scenes, the swiftly moving panorama, the enacted tragedies, the wild,
+passionate, lawless loves depicted in the most sensational manner in
+this volume."
+
+=Englishman= (Calcutta).--"It is a lurid tale of Spanish plotters....
+Around this central figure the author weaves an effective story with
+more than considerable skill. He has achieved a brilliant success with
+the character of Rufina; it is a masterpiece in its own way, and
+invested with freshness, grace, and a magnetic personality."
+
+     =_Lord Jimmy._= A Story of Music-Hall Life. By GEORGE MARTYN. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"The book is both humorous and dramatic."
+
+=Pelican.=--"It is amusing and interesting--two very good qualities for a
+novel to possess."
+
+=Sheffield Telegraph.=--"The book is vivaciously written, several of the
+characters being human enough to look like studies from life."
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"The characters are skilfully depicted, and the
+whole book is amusing and interesting."
+
+=Glasgow Citizen.=--"'Decidedly clever' will be the verdict of the reader
+on closing this book."
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The author has a peculiar knowledge of the 'Halls' and
+those who frequent them; and especially, as it seems to us, of those
+Jewish persons who sometimes run them. And he has made good use of his
+knowledge here. But there is more than this in the book; for 'George
+Martyn' has considerable descriptive talent. His account, for instance,
+of the fight between the hero and the butcher is quite good. The story
+is straightforward, convincing, and full of human nature and promise."
+
+     =_The Lady of Criswold._= A Sensational Story. By LEONARD OUTRAM.
+     Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=North British Advertiser.=--"A thrilling tale of love and madness."
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"No one can complain of lack of sensation, it is full
+of startling episodes. The characters are drawn with a rapid and
+vigorous touch. The interest is well maintained."
+
+=Court Circular.=--"It reminds us forcibly of a story in real life that
+engrossed public attention many years ago. Whether this was in the
+author's mind we cannot say, but the book is deeply interesting, the
+characters well and strongly drawn, and we doubt not this tale will
+fascinate many a reader."
+
+=London Morning.=--"The story is cleverly constructed, is full of incident
+with more than a dash of tragedy, and holds the attention of the reader
+to the close. Dealing with modern life of the higher class, Mr Outram's
+story is consistent, and though it aims at romantic effect, is not
+strained or overdrawn."
+
+=Church Gazette.=--"We can heartily recommend 'The Lady of Criswold.' One
+likes to meet now and again a book which forsakes the eternal sex
+question, or the hairsplitting discussion of ethical or psychological
+problems, and treats us to simpler and more satisfying fare.... There
+are several good hours' reading in the book, and plenty of excitement of
+the dramatic order. Another good point is that it is healthy in tone."
+
+     =_The Gates of Temptation._= A Natural Novel by Mrs ALBERT S.
+     BRADSHAW, Author of "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"This is a story full of power and pathos, the strong
+dramatic interest of which is sustained from the opening chapter to the
+close."
+
+=Midland Mail.=--"The characters are vividly drawn. There are many
+pleasant and painful incidents in the book, which is interesting from
+beginning to end."
+
+=London Morning.=--"Mrs Albert Bradshaw has done such uniformly good work
+that we have grown to expect much from her. Her latest book is one which
+will enhance her reputation, and equally please new and old readers of
+her novels. It is called 'The Gates of Temptation,' and professes to be
+a natural novel. The story told is one of deep interest. There is no
+veneer in its presentation, no artificiality about it."
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"Mrs Bradshaw has written several good novels, and
+the outstanding feature of all of them has been her skilful development
+of plot, and her tasteful, pleasing style. In connection with the
+present story we are able to amply reiterate those praises. The plot
+again is well developed and logically carried out, while the language
+used by the authoress is always happy and well chosen, and never
+commonplace.... The story is a very powerful one indeed, and may be
+highly commended as a piece of painstaking fiction of the very highest
+kind."
+
+     =_The Resurrection of His Grace._= Being the very candid Confessions
+     of the Honourable BERTIE BEAUCLERC. A Sporting Novel. By CAMPBELL
+     RAE-BROWN, Author of "Richard Barlow," "Kissing Cup's Race," etc.
+     Second Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Gentlewoman.=--"Fantastic and impossible, but at the same time
+amusing.... The whole story is strongly dramatic."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"A grotesquely improbable story, but readers of
+sporting novels will find much amusement in it."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"The book is lightly and briskly written throughout. Its
+pleasant cynicism is always entertaining."
+
+=Star.=--"An ingeniously horrible story with a diabolically clever plot."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"A sporting romance which is indisputably cleverly
+written.... The book is full of interesting items of sporting life which
+are fascinating to lovers of the turf."
+
+=Edinburgh Evening News.=--"It has certainly an audacious idea for its
+central motive.... This bright idea is handled with no little skill, and
+the interest is kept up breathlessly until the tragic end of the
+experiment. The whole story has a racy flavour of the turf."
+
+=Sporting Life.=--"The character of the heartless _roue_, who tells his
+story, is very well sustained, and the rich _parvenu_, Peter Drewitt,
+the owner of the favourite that is very nearly nobbled by the
+unscrupulous Beauclerc, is cleverly drawn. Altogether it is an exciting
+and an uncommon tale, and is quite correct in all the sporting details."
+
+     _Anna Marsden's Experiment._ An interesting Novel. By ELLEN
+     WILLIAMS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"A good story cleverly told and worked out."
+
+=Echo.=--"A very natural and interesting tale is carefully set forth in
+Ellen Williams' clever little book."
+
+=Western Morning News.=--"It is a smartly written and deeply interesting
+story, well out of the beaten track of novelists."
+
+=Literary World.=--"The story is well told.... Four racy chapters take us
+thus far, and seven lively ones follow."
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"From this point the interest in the story is such that
+there is no putting the book down till the _dénouement_ is reached. The
+writing is smart, clever, and telling."
+
+=Critic.=--"A powerful story, unconventional as regards both subject and
+treatment. [Here the reviewer analyses the plot.] This situation is
+handled with extraordinary delicacy and skill, and the book is an
+admirable study of repressed emotions."
+
+=Monitor.=--"Miss Williams has here seized on an original concept, and
+given it fitting presentation. The 'experiment' is a novel one, and its
+working out is a deft piece of writing. The psychology of the work is
+faultless, and this study of a beautiful temperament, in a crude frame,
+has with it the verity of deep observation and acute insight.... We
+await with considerable confidence Miss Williams' next venture."
+
+=Sheffield Independent.=--"The writer has treated a delicate and unusual
+situation with delicacy and originality. The heroine's character is
+drawn with firmness and clearness, and the whole story is vivid and
+picturesque.... The history of the experiment is exceedingly well told.
+Keen insight into character, and cleverness in its delineation, as well
+as shrewd observation and intense sympathy, mark the writer's work,
+while the style is terse and clear, and the management of trying scenes
+extremely good."
+
+     =_Darab's Wine-Cup_=, and other Powerful and Vividly-Written Stories.
+     By BART KENNEDY, Author of "The Wandering Romanoff," etc. New and
+     cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"Will be welcomed as something fresh in the world
+of fiction."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"A volume characteristic of the author's splendid
+powers."
+
+=M. A. P.=--"Mr Kennedy writes powerfully, and can grip the reader's
+imagination, or whirl it off into the strangest domains of glamour and
+romance at will.... There is a future for this clever young man from
+Tipperary. He will do great things."
+
+=Outlook.=--"Mr Bart Kennedy is a young writer of singular imaginative
+gifts, and a style as individual as Mr Kipling's."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"The author has exceptional gifts, a strong and
+powerful individuality, a facile pen, rich imagination, and constructive
+ability of a high order. This volume ought to find a place on every
+library shelf."
+
+=Critic.=--"Of a highly imaginative order, and distinctly out of the
+ordinary run.... The author has a remarkable talent for imaginative and
+dramatic presentation. He sets before himself a higher standard of
+achievement than most young writers of fiction."
+
+=Cork Herald.=--"Gracefully written, easy and attractive in diction and
+style, the stories are as choice a collection as we have happened on for
+a long time. They are clever; they are varied; they are fascinating. We
+admit them into the sacred circle of the most beautiful that have been
+told by the most sympathetic and skilled writers.... Mr Kennedy has a
+style, and that is rare enough nowadays--as refreshing as it is rare."
+
+     ="_Fame, the Fiddler._"= A Story of Literary and Theatrical Life. By
+     S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD. Crown 8vo, cloth, new and cheaper edition,
+     2s. 6d.
+
+=Graphic.=--"The volume will please and amuse numberless people."
+
+=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"A pleasant, cheery story. Displays a rich vein of
+robust imagination."
+
+=Sun.=--"Interesting all through, and the inclination is towards finishing
+it at one sitting."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"An amusing and entertaining story of Bohemian life in
+London."
+
+=Standard.=--"There are many pleasant pages in 'Fame, the Fiddler,' which
+reminds us of 'Trilby,' with its pictures of Bohemian life, and its
+happy-go-lucky group of good-hearted, generous scribblers, artists, and
+playwrights. Some of the characters are so true to life that it is
+impossible not to recognise them. Among the best incidents in the volume
+must be mentioned the production of Pryor's play, and the account of
+poor Jimmy Lambert's death, which is as moving an incident as we have
+read for a long time. Altogether, 'Fame, the Fiddler' is a very human
+book, and an amusing one as well."
+
+=Catholic Times.=--"We read the volume through, and at the conclusion
+marvelled at the wonderful knowledge of life the author displays. For
+although the whole work is written In a light, humorous vein, underneath
+this current of humour there is really an astonishing amount of wisdom,
+and wisdom that is not displayed every day.... It is a vivid description
+of times gay and melancholy, that occur in many lives. Mr Fitz-Gerald
+has done his work well, so well that we loitered on many pages, and
+closed the book finally with a feeling that it is a faithful history of
+the journalist, the author, the theatrical individual, and the man who
+ekes out a living by playing the _rôle_ of all three."
+
+
+CHEAPER FICTION
+
+     =_Pelican Tails._= A Collection of smart, up-to-date Tales of Modern
+     Life, written, edited and selected by FRANK M. BOYD (Editor of "The
+     Pelican.") One of the most popular and entertaining volumes of
+     short stories that has ever been published. An ideal companion for
+     a railway journey or a spare hour or two. Crown 8vo, picture
+     wrapper designed and drawn by W. S. ROGERS, 1s. (In active
+     preparation.)
+
+     =_The Devil in a Domino._= A Psychological Mystery. By CHAS. L'EPINE,
+     Author of "The Lady of the Leopard," "Miracle Plays," etc. Cover
+     designed by C H. BEAUVAIS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Truth.=--"The story is written with remarkable literary skill, and,
+notwithstanding its gruesomeness, is undeniably fascinating."
+
+=Sketch.=--"It is a well-written story. An admirable literary style,
+natural and concise construction, succeed in compelling the reader's
+attention through every line. We hope to welcome the author again,
+working on a larger scene."
+
+=Star.=--"May be guaranteed to disturb your night's rest. It is a
+gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece
+of work, with a thrill on every page. Read it."
+
+=Sunday Chronicle.=--"A very clever study by 'Charles L'Epine,' who should
+by his style be an accomplished author not unknown in other ranks of
+literature. Beyond comparison it is the strongest shilling shocker we
+have read for many a day. The author has succeeded in heaping horror
+upon horror until one's blood is curdled."
+
+     =_That Fascinating Widow_=, and other Frivolous and Fantastic Tales,
+     for River, Road and Rail. By S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD. Long 12mo,
+     cloth, 1s.
+
+=The Scotsman.=--"The widow is a charmingly wicked person. The stories are
+well written, with a pleasant humour of a farcical sort; they are never
+dull."
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"Written with all the dash and ease which Mr
+Fitz-Gerald has accustomed us to in his journalistic work. There is a
+breezy, invigorating style about this little book which will make it a
+favourite on the bookstalls."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"Nonsense, genial harmless nonsense, to which the most
+captious and morose of readers will find it difficult to refuse the
+tribute of a broad smile, even if he can so far restrain himself as not
+to burst out into genuine laughter."
+
+=The Referee.=--"Another little humorous book is 'That Fascinating Widow,'
+by Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, who can be very funny when he tries. The
+story which gives the title to the book would make a capital farce. 'The
+Blue-blooded Coster' is an amusing piece of buffoonery."
+
+=The Globe.=--"The author, Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, has already shown
+himself to be the possessor of a store of humour, on which he has again
+drawn for the furnishing of the little volume he has just put together.
+Among the tales included are several which might be suitable for reading
+or recitation, and none which are dull. Mr Fitz-Gerald frankly addresses
+himself to that portion of the public which desires nothing so much as
+to be amused, and likes even its amusements in small doses. Such a
+public will entertain itself very pleasantly with Mr Fitz-Gerald's
+lively tales, and will probably name as its favourites those titled
+'Pure Cussedness,' 'Splidgings' First Baby,' and 'The Blue-blooded
+Coster.'"
+
+     =_Shadows._= A Series of Side Lights on Modern Society. By ERNEST
+     MARTIN. (Dedicated to Sir Henry Irving.) Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt
+     tops, 2s.
+
+=Phoenix.=--"'Shadows' is a very clever work."
+
+=Western Mercury.=--"Clever sketches, intensely dramatic, original and
+forceful, based on scenes from actual life, and narrated with much
+skill."
+
+=Weekly Times.=--"A series of pictures sketched with considerable power.
+The last one, 'Hell in Paradise,' is terrible in the probable truth of
+conception."
+
+=Northern Figaro.=--"Mr Martin's descriptive paragraphs are couched in
+trenchant, convincing language, without a superfluous word sandwiched in
+anywhere.... 'Shadows' may be read with much profit, and will give more
+than a superficial insight into various phases of society life and
+manners."
+
+     =_Death and the Woman._= A Powerful Tale. By ARNOLD GOLSWORTHY.
+     Picture cover drawn by SYDNEY H. SYME. Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A cleverly constructed story about a murder and a gang of
+diamond robbers.... The tale never has to go far without a strong
+situation. It is a capital book for a railway journey."
+
+=Star.=--"A good shilling's worth of highly coloured sensationalism. Those
+readers who want a good melodramatic story smartly told, Mr Golsworthy's
+latest effort will suit down to the ground."
+
+=Literary World.=--"We do not remember having read a book that possessed
+the quality of _grip_ in a greater degree than is the case with 'Death
+and the Woman.' ... Every page of every chapter develops the interest,
+which culminates in one of the most sensational _dénouements_ it has
+been our lot to read. The flavour of actuality is not destroyed by any
+incredible incident; it is the inevitable thing that always happens.
+'Death and the Woman' will supply to the brim the need of those in
+search of a holding drama of modern London life."
+
+     =_The Fellow-Passengers._= A Mystery and its Solution. A Detective
+     Story. By RIVINGTON PYKE, Author of "The Man who Disappeared." Long
+     12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"Those who love a mystery with plenty of 'go,' and a
+story which is not devoid of a certain amount of realism, cannot do
+better than pick up 'Fellow-Passengers.' The characters are real men and
+women, and not the sentimental and artificial puppets to which we have
+been so long accustomed by our sensationalists. The book is brightly
+written, and of detective stories it is the best I have read lately."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"If you want a diverting story of realism, bordering
+upon actuality, you cannot do better than take up this bright,
+vivacious, dramatic volume. It will interest you from first page to
+last."
+
+=Catholic Times.=--"This is a well-written story, with a good plot and
+plenty of incident. From cover to cover there is not a dull page, and
+the interest keeps up to the end."
+
+=Glasgow News.=--"It is a thriller.... The sort of book one cannot help
+finishing at a sitting, not merely because it is short, but because it
+rivets.... The author uses his materials with great ingenuity, his plot
+is cleverly devised, and he very effectively works up to a striking
+_dénouement_.
+
+
+Illustrated Books for Children
+
+     =_Nonsense Numbers and Jocular Jingles_= FOR FUNNY LITTLE FOLK.
+     Written by DRUID GRAYL, with full-page Illustrations by WALTER J.
+     MORGAN. 4to, cloth boards, 5s.
+
+     =_The Grand Panjandrum_=, and other fanciful Fairy Tales for the
+     youthful of all Ages, Climes and Times. By S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD,
+     Author of "The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch," "The Wonders of the
+     Secret Cavern," "The Mighty Toltec," etc. Many full-page and
+     smaller Illustrations by GUSTAVE DARRÉ. Second Edition. Square 8vo,
+     art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Truth.=--"A decided acquisition to the children's library."
+
+=Ladies' Pictorial.=--"Quite one of the brightest of the season's gift
+books."
+
+=Spectator.=--"Well provided with fun and fancy."
+
+=Morning Post.=--"Bright and thoroughly amusing. It will please all
+children. The pictures are excellent."
+
+=Echo.=--"Of the pile (of children's books) before us, Mr Adair
+Fitz-Gerald's 'Grand Panjandrum' is the cleverest. Mr Fitz-Gerald needs
+no introduction to the nursery of these days."
+
+=Times.=--"Very fanciful."
+
+=Church News.=--"This is one of the most delightful books of nonsense we
+have read since we welcomed 'The Wallypug of Why.'"
+
+=Scotsman.=--"Will make the eyes of readers open wide with wonder and
+delight."
+
+=Lloyd's.=--"Will amuse all children lucky enough to get this neat and
+pretty volume."
+
+=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"A charming little book. Simply written, and
+therefore to be comprehended of the youthful mind. It will be popular,
+for the writer has a power of pleasing which is rare."
+
+=Literary World.=--"A handsomely bound, mouth-watering, in every way
+up-to-date volume, written especially for and on behalf of the toddler
+or the newly breeched."
+
+=People.=--"A delightful story for children, something in the style of
+'Alice in Wonderland,' but also having some flavour of Kingley's 'Water
+Babies.'"
+
+=Sun.=--"Good fairy stories are a source of everlasting joy and delight.
+Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald breaks fresh ground and writes pleasantly.... The
+book has the added advantage of being charmingly illustrated in colour
+by Gustave Darré."
+
+=Nottingham Guardian.=--"It is a merry book, and should keep the nursery
+in a good humour for hours. It is artistically got up, the illustrations
+by Mr Gustave Darré being of a high order of merit."
+
+=Manchester Courier.=--"It should prove a great favourite with young
+people, being written by one who evidently takes the utmost interest in
+them and their ways. The full-page illustrations are very pretty."
+
+=Weekly Sun.=--"Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald is a well-known writer of fairy
+stories and humorous books for the young. 'The Grand Panjandrum' is just
+the sort of book to please youngsters of all ages, being full of
+pleasant imaginings, and introducing its readers to a host of curious
+people."
+
+
+Greening's Humorous Books
+
+     =_The Pillypingle Pastorals._= A Series of Amusing Rustic Tales and
+     Sketches. By DRUID GRAYL. Profusely Illustrated by WALTER J.
+     MORGAN. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Pottle Papers._= Written by TRISTRAM COUTTS, Author of "A
+     Comedy of Temptation." Illustrated by L. RAVEN HILL. Fourth
+     Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=THE POTTLE PAPERS=, the fourth edition of which is just ready, is a
+really funny book written by Saul Smiff, and illustrated by Mr L. Raven
+Hill. "Anyone who wants a good laugh should get 'The Pottle Papers,'"
+says the =Sheffield Daily Telegraph.= "They are very droll reading for an
+idle afternoon, or picking up at any time when 'down in the dumps.' They
+are very brief and very bright, and it is impossible for anyone with the
+slightest sense of humour to read the book without bursting into 'the
+loud guffaw' which does not always 'bespeak the empty mind.'" =The Pall
+Mall Gazette= says it contains "Plenty of boisterous humour of the Max
+Adeler kind ... humour that is genuine and spontaneous. The author, for
+all his antics, has a good deal more in him than the average buffoon.
+There is, for example, a very clever and subtle strain of feeling
+running through the comedy in 'The Love that Burned'--a rather striking
+bit of work. Mr Raven Hill's illustrations are as amusing as they always
+are." The =St. James's Budget= accorded this book a very long notice, and
+reproduced some of the pictures. The reviewer said: "Who says the sense
+of humour is dead when we have 'The Pottle Papers'? We can put the book
+down with the feeling that we have spent a very enjoyable hour and
+laughed immoderately. 'The Pottle Papers' will be in everybody's hands
+before long." H.R.H. the Prince of Wales honoured the author by
+accepting a copy of his book; and the =Court Circular= remarked: "The
+Prince of Wales has accepted a copy of Saul Smiff's delightfully merry
+book, 'The Pottle Papers.' The Prince is sure to enjoy Raven Hill's
+clever sketches." This funniest of funny books is published at 2s. 6d.,
+strongly bound in cloth.
+
+     =_Dan Leno, Hys Booke._= A Volume of Frivolities: Autobiographical,
+     Historical, Philosophical, Anecdotal and Nonsensical. Written by
+     DAN LENO. Profusely illustrated by Sidney H. Sime, Frank Chesworth,
+     W. S. Rogers, Gustave Darré, Alfred Bryan and Dan Leno. Fifth
+     Edition, containing a New Chapter, and an Appreciation of Dan Leno,
+     written by Clement Scott. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt edges, 2s.
+     Popular Edition, sewed, picture cover, 1s.
+
+=DAN LENO, HYS BOOKE=, is, says the =Liverpool Review=, "the funniest
+publication since 'Three Men in a Boat.' In this autobiographical
+masterpiece the inimitable King of Comedians tells his life story in a
+style that would make a shrimp laugh." This enormously successful book
+of genuine and spontaneous humour has been received with a complete
+chorus of complimentary criticisms and pleasing "Press" praise and
+approval. Here are a few reviewers' remarks: "Bombshells of
+fun."--=Scotsman.= "One long laugh from start to finish."--=Lloyd's.= "Full
+of exuberant and harmless fun."--=Globe.= "A deliciously humorous
+volume."--=English Illustrated Magazine.= "The fun is fast and
+furious."--=Catholic Times.= "It is very funny."--=St Paul's.= These are a
+few opinions taken at random from hundreds of notices. Says the =Daily
+News= (Hull): "The funniest book we have read for some time. You must
+perforce scream with huge delight at the dry sayings and writings of the
+funny little man who has actually killed people with his patter and his
+antics. Page after page of genuine fun is reeled off by the great little
+man."
+
+     =_Bachelor Ballads_= and other Lazy Lyrics. By HARRY A. SPURR, Author
+     of "A Cockney in Arcadia." With Fifty Illustrations by JOHN
+     HASSALL. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Pottle's Progress._= Being the Further Adventures of Mr and Mrs
+     Pottle. By TRISTRAM COUTTS, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc.
+     Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. (In preparation.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Guides, Etc.
+
+     =_London._= A Handy Guide for the Visitor, Sportsman and Naturalist.
+     By J. W. CUNDALL. Including an Article on "Literary Restaurants,"
+     by CLEMENT SCOTT. Numerous Illustrations. Second Year of
+     Publication. Long 12mo, cloth, 6d.
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"A capital little guide book. No bulky volume this, but a
+handy booklet full of pithy information on all the most important
+subjects connected with our great city."
+
+=Outlook.=--"A handy booklet, more tasteful than one is accustomed to."
+
+=Pelican.=--"As full of useful and entertaining information as is an egg
+of meat."
+
+=Bookman.=--"A very lively and readable little guide."
+
+=To-day.=--"One of the best guide books for visitors to London. It is a
+model of lucidity and informativeness, and the profuse illustrations are
+admirably executed."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"A useful little work for those who have no desire to
+wade through many pages of information before getting what they want."
+
+     =_America Abroad._= A Handy Guide for Americans in England. Edited by
+     J. W. CUNDALL. With numerous Illustrations. Ninth Year of
+     Publication. 6d.
+
+     =_In Quaint East Anglia._= Descriptive Sketches. By T. WEST CARNIE.
+     Illustrated by W. S. ROGERS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s. (_See page 5._)
+
+     ="_Sisters by the Sea._"= Seaside and Country Sketches. By CLEMENT
+     SCOTT, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+     Frontispiece and Vignette designed by GEORGE POWNALL. Long 12mo,
+     attractively bound in cloth, 1s. (_See page 3._)
+
+
+     A BOOK OF GREAT INTEREST.
+
+     AT ALL BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIES. SECOND EDITION.
+
+     =RUDYARD KIPLING:=
+
+     =THE MAN AND HIS WORK.=
+
+     Being an Attempt at Appreciation. By =G. F. MONKSHOOD=. With a
+     Portrait of Mr Kipling, and an Autograph Letter to the Author in
+     facsimile.
+
+     _Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt top, 5/= nett._ */
+
+=A FEW OF MANY PRESS OPINIONS=
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--(Mr W. L. COURTNEY in "Books of the Day.")--"He writes
+fluently, and has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an intimate
+acquaintance with his work. Moreover, his book has been submitted to Mr
+Kipling, whose characteristic letter to the author is set forth in the
+Preface.... Of Mr Kipling's heroes Mr Monkshood has a thorough
+understanding, and his remarks on them are worth quoting." (Here follows
+a long extract.)
+
+=Scotsman.=--"This well-informed volume ... is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style.... One
+way and another, his book is full of interest; those who wish to talk
+about Mr Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted sympathy."
+
+=Western Daily Press.=--"A very praiseworthy attempt, and by a writer
+imbued with a fervent esteem for his subject.... This valuation of the
+work of our most virile Empire author should hold the attention of those
+who have well studied the subject and can appreciate accordingly."
+
+=Sun.=--"The author has carefully compiled a lot of most interesting
+matter, which he has edited with care and conscientiousness, and the
+result is a volume which every lover of Kipling can read with pleasure."
+
+=Spectator.=--"It is very readable. It tells us some things which we might
+not otherwise have known, and puts together in a convenient form many
+things which are of common knowledge."
+
+=Outlook.=--"SOMETHING MORE than an attempt at appreciation.... Mr
+Monkshood has written what all the young men at home and abroad who
+treasure Mr Kipling's writings think, but have not expressed. The volume
+is a striking testimony to the hold which work that is clean and sane
+and virile has upon the rising generation. And for this we cannot be
+sufficiently thankful."
+
+=Globe.=--"It has at the basis both knowledge and enthusiasm--knowledge of
+the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.... This book may be
+accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's merits as a writer. We
+can well believe that it will have many interested and approving
+readers."
+
+=Irish Times.=--"A well-thought-out and earnest appreciation of the great
+writer and his works."
+
+=Academy.=--"The book should give its subject pleasure, for Mr Monkshood
+is very keen and cordial. His criticisms have some shrewdness too. Here
+is a passage ..." (Long quotation follows.)
+
+=Sunday Times.=--"Sure to attract much attention. In it we are given a
+sketch of Mr Kipling's career and the story of his various works, along
+with some sane and balanced criticism.... The book is written brightly,
+thoughtfully, and informingly."
+
+=Bookseller.=--"It is acute in perception, and sympathetic to the verge of
+worship, with just as much criticism as will allow that the hero has his
+limitations.... Mr Monkshood's well-informed and well-written critique
+possesses undoubted ability and attraction."
+
+=Yorkshire Herald.=--"This work, which is highly appreciative, will be
+received with enthusiasm.... From this point the biography becomes even
+more interesting.... The author deals at length with Kipling's works,
+and with sufficient forcefulness and originality to hold the reader's
+attention throughout. The biography has undoubted merit and will be
+largely read."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+   A
+
+   ADAMS, Herbert--
+     A Virtue of Necessity                                            7
+
+   ALEXANDER, Geo.--
+     Introduction to "Art of Elocution"                               4
+
+   America Abroad (J. W. Cundall)                                    21
+
+   Anna Marsden's Experiment (Ellen Williams)                        15
+
+   Asmodeus (edited by Justin Hannaford)                              6
+
+   Ashes Tell no Tales (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)                           7
+
+   ASCHER, Isidore G.--
+     A Social Upheaval                                                8
+
+
+   B
+
+   Bachelor Ballads (H. A. Spurr)                                    21
+
+   BECKFORD, Geo.--
+     Vathek                                                           6
+
+   Bible Stories Retold                                               4
+
+   BRADSHAW, Mrs Albert S.--
+     Ashes Tell no Tales                                              7
+     Gates of Temptation                                             14
+
+   Bye-ways of Crime (R. J. Power-Berrey)                             4
+
+
+   C
+
+   CARNIE, T. West--
+     In Quaint East Anglia                                            5
+
+   Comedy of Temptation (T. Coutts)                                   9
+
+   COUTTS, Tristram--
+     Pottle Papers                                                   20
+     Comedy of Temptation                                             9
+     Pottle's Progress                                               21
+
+   CUNDALL, J. W.--
+     London                                                          21
+     America Abroad                                                  21
+
+   Cry in the Night (A. Golsworthy)                                   7
+
+
+   D
+
+   DANIELS, Heber--
+     Dona Rufina                                                     13
+
+   Darab's Wine-Cup (B. Kennedy)                                     16
+
+   Dan Leno, Hys Booke (Dan Leno)                                    20
+
+   Death and the Woman (A. Golsworthy)                               18
+
+   Devil in a Domino (C. L'Epine)                                    17
+
+   Devil on Two Sticks (Le Sage)                                      6
+
+   DE BRÉMONT, Comtesse--
+     A Son of Africa                                                  7
+     The Gentleman Digger                                             9
+
+   DE SOISSON--
+     The Path of the Soul                                             5
+
+   Dolomite Cavern (W. P. Kelly)                                     11
+
+   Dona Rufina (Heber Daniels)                                       13
+
+
+   E
+
+   East Anglia, In Quaint (T. W. Carnie)                             21
+
+   "ENGLISH WRITERS OF TO-DAY" Series--
+     Rudyard Kipling (G. F. Monkshood)                                1
+     Thomas Hardy (W. L. Courtney)                                    2
+     Geo. Meredith (Walter Jerrold)                                   2
+     Bret Harte (T. E. Pemberton)                                     2
+     Richard Le Gallienne (C. R. Gull)                                2
+     Arthur Wing Pinero (H. Fyffe)                                    2
+     W. E. Henley (G. Gamble)                                         2
+     English Parnassian School (Sir G. Douglas)                       2
+     Realistic Writers (J. Hannaford)                                 2
+
+   ESCOTT, T. H. S.--
+     A Trip to Paradoxia                                              3
+
+   Elocution, The Art of (Ross Ferguson)                              4
+
+   Epicurean, The (edited by Justin Hannaford)                        6
+
+
+   F
+
+   Fame, the Fiddler (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                          16
+
+   Famous Hamlets (C. Scott)                                          4
+
+   FERGUSON, Ross--
+     The Art of Elocution                                             4
+
+   Fetters of Fire (Compton Reade)                                    7
+
+   Fellow-Passengers (R. Pyke)                                       18
+
+   FITZ-GERALD, S. J. Adair--
+     Fame, the Fiddler                                               16
+     That Fascinating Widow                                          17
+     The Grand Panjandrum                                            19
+
+
+   G
+
+   GALT, John--
+     Ringan Gilhaize                                                  6
+
+   Gates of Temptation, The (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)                     14
+
+   Gentleman Digger, The (Comtesse de Brémont)                        9
+
+   Girl of the North, A (H. Milicite)                                 7
+
+   GOLSWORTHY, Arnold--
+     A Cry in the Night                                               7
+     Death and the Woman                                             18
+
+   GRAYL, Druid--
+     Nonsense Numbers, etc.                                          19
+     Pillypingle Pastorals                                           20
+
+   Grand Panjandrum, The (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                      19
+
+   GREEN, Percy B.--
+     A History of Nursery Rhymes                                      5
+
+   Green Passion (A. P. Vert)                                        10
+
+   Guides, etc.                                                      21
+
+
+   H
+
+   HALL, Sydney--
+     Temptation of Edith Watson                                       9
+
+   Hamlets, Some Famous (C. Scott)                                    4
+
+   HERMAN, Henry--
+     The Sword of Fate                                                9
+
+   Hypocrite, The (Anonymous)                                        13
+
+
+   I
+
+   In Monte Carlo (H. Sienkiewicz)                                   12
+
+   In Quaint East Anglia (T. W. Carnie)                              21
+
+
+   J
+
+   Jocular Jingles (Druid Grayl)                                     19
+
+   JOHNSON, Dr--
+     Rasselas                                                         6
+
+
+   K
+
+   KELLY, W. Patrick--
+     The Dolomite Cavern                                             11
+
+   KENNEDY, Bart--
+     A Man Adrift                                                     5
+     Darab's Wine-Cup                                                16
+     The Wandering Romanoff                                          13
+
+
+   L
+
+   Lady of the Leopard, The (C. L'Epine)                             12
+
+   Lady of Criswold, The (L. Outram)                                 14
+
+   LE SAGE--
+     Asmodeus; or, The Devil on Two Sticks                            6
+
+   L'EPINE, Charles--
+     The Devil in a Domino                                           17
+     The Lady of the Leopard                                         12
+
+   LENO, Dan--
+     Dan Leno, Hys Booke                                             20
+
+   LONGSTAFF, W. Luther--
+     Weeds and Flowers                                                6
+     The Tragedy of the Lady Palmist                                 12
+
+   Lord Jimmy (G. Martyn)                                            14
+
+   London (J. W. Cundall)                                            21
+
+
+   M
+
+   Man Adrift, A (B. Kennedy)                                         5
+
+   Madonna Mia (C. Scott)                                            11
+
+   MARTYN, Geo.--
+     Lord Jimmy                                                      14
+
+   MARTIN, Ernest--
+     Shadows                                                         18
+
+   M'MILLAN, Mrs Alec--
+     The Weird Well                                                   9
+
+   Miss Malevolent (Author of "The Hypocrite")                        9
+
+   MILICITE, Helen--
+     A Girl of the North                                              7
+
+   MONKSHOOD, G. F.--
+     Woman and the Wits                                               5
+     Rudyard Kipling                                                  1
+     My Lady Ruby                                                    12
+
+   MOORE, Thomas--
+     The Epicurean                                                    6
+
+   Mora (T. W. Speight)                                               7
+
+   My Lady Ruby (G. F. Monkshood)                                    12
+
+
+   N
+
+   New Tale of the Terror, A (Author of "The Hypocrite")              8
+
+   Nonsense Numbers (D. Grayl)                                       19
+
+   Nursery Rhymes, A History of (P. B. Green)                         5
+
+
+   O
+
+   Obscure Apostle (Orzeszko)                                         7
+
+   Outrageous Fortune (Anonymous)                                    10
+
+   OUTRAM, Leonard--
+     The Lady of Criswold                                            14
+
+   OWEN, J. L.--
+     Seven Nights with Satan                                         10
+
+
+   P
+
+   Path of the Soul (C. S. de Soisson)                                5
+
+   People, Plays, and Places (C. Scott)                               3
+
+   Pelican Tails (F. M. Boyd, etc.)                                  17
+
+   Pillypingle Pastorals (D. Grayl)                                  20
+
+   Pootle Papers, The (T. Coutts)                                    21
+
+   Pootle's Progress, The (T. Coutts)                                21
+
+   POWER-BERREY, R. J.--
+     Bye-Ways of Crime                                                4
+
+   PYKE, Rivington--
+     The Fellow-Passengers                                           18
+
+
+   R
+
+   RAE-BROWN, Campbell--
+     The Shadow on the Manse                                         12
+     The Resurrection of His Grace                                   15
+
+   Rasselas (Edited by Justin Hannaford)                              6
+
+   READE, Compton--
+     Fetters of Fire                                                  7
+
+   Resurrection of His Grace (C. Rae-Brown)                          15
+
+   Ringan Gilhaize (Edited by Sir G. Douglas)                         6
+
+
+   S
+
+   SADLEIR, Mrs Maria M.--
+     Such is the Law                                                  7
+
+   SCOTT, Clement--
+     The Wheel of Life                                                2
+     Madonna Mia                                                     11
+     People, Plays, and Places                                        3
+     Sisters by the Sea                                               3
+     Famous Hamlets                                                   4
+
+   Seven Nights with Satan (J. L. Owen)                              10
+
+   Shadows (E. Martin)                                               18
+
+   Shams (Anonymous)                                                  8
+
+   Shadow on The Manse (C. Rae-Brown)                                12
+
+   SIENKIEWICZ, Henryk--
+     In Monte Carlo                                                  12
+
+   Sisters by the Sea (C. Scott)                                      3
+
+   Son of Africa, A (Comtesse de Brémont)                             7
+
+   Social Upheaval, A (I. G. Ascher)                                  8
+
+   SPEIGHT, T. W.--
+     Mora; One Woman's History                                        7
+
+   SPURR, Harry A.--
+     Bachelor Ballads                                                21
+
+   Stage, Year Book of (Greening and Hannaford)                       5
+
+   Such is the Law (M. M. Sadleir)                                    7
+
+   Sword of Fate, The (H. Herman)                                     9
+
+
+   T
+
+   Temptation of Edith Watson (S. Hall)                               9
+
+   That Fascinating Widow (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                     17
+
+   THOMPSON, Creswick J.--
+     Zoroastro                                                        9
+
+   Tragedy of the Lady Palmist, The (W. L. Longstaff)                12
+
+   Trip to Paradoxia, A (T. H. S. Escott)                             3
+
+
+   V
+
+   Vathek (Edited by Justin Hannaford)                                6
+
+   VERT, Anthony P.--
+     The Green Passion                                               10
+
+   Virtue of Necessity, A (H. Adams)                                  7
+
+
+   W
+
+   Wandering Romanoff, The (B. Kennedy)                              13
+
+   Weeds and Flowers (W. L. Longstaff)                                6
+
+   Weird Well, The (A. M'Millan)                                      9
+
+   Wheel of Life, The (C. Scott)                                      2
+
+   WILLIAMS, Ellen--
+     Anna Marsden's Experiment                                       15
+
+   Woman and the Wits (G. F. Monkshood)                               5
+
+
+   Y
+
+   Year Book of the Stage (Greening and Hannaford)                    5
+
+
+   Z
+
+   Zoroastro (C. J. S. Thompson)                                      9
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+The following changes have been made to the text:
+
+Page 13: "chishmaclavers" changed to "clishmaclavers".
+
+Page 15: "laid his land" changed to "laid his hand".
+
+Page 17: "necessary hyprocrisy" changed to "necessary hypocrisy".
+
+Page 52: "they they well gone" changed to "they well gone".
+
+Page 59: "peebles" changed to "pebbles".
+
+Page 67: "paper was drwan" changed to "paper was drawn".
+
+Page 67: "umlimited domination" changed to "unlimited domination".
+
+Page 71: "mindet to pass" changed to "minded to pass".
+
+Page 80: "therefere" changed to "therefore".
+
+Page 84: "idolaltry" changed to "idolatry".
+
+Page 89: "Eslpa Ruet" changed to "Elspa Ruet".
+
+Page 89: "Elpsa made" changed to "Elspa made".
+
+Page 142: "progenitrex" changed to "progenitrix".
+
+Page 188: "is his discourses" changed to "in his discourses".
+
+Page 201: "acquaintaces" changed to "acquaintances".
+
+Page 220: "No, my friens" changed to "No, my friends".
+
+Page 226: "pursuer and the persecuted" changed to the "pursuer and the
+persecutor".
+
+Page 250: "imprisoment" changed to "imprisonment".
+
+Page 252: "soldiery" changed to "soldierly".
+
+Page 261: "riotors" changed to "rioters".
+
+Page 264: "ordered come" changed to "ordered some".
+
+Page 269: "Cumraes" changed to "Cumbrae".
+
+Page 361: "Pharoah" changed to "Pharaoh".
+
+Page 365: "unbonnetted" changed to "unbonneted".
+
+Page 370: "Hogmanae" changed to "Hogmanæ".
+
+Page 3 of ads: "may me say" changed to "may we say".
+
+Page 5 of ads: "asthetic" changed to "aesthetic".
+
+Page 22 of ads: "attact" changed to attract".
+
+Page 1 and 2 of Index: "Asmodens" changed to "Asmodeus".
+
+Page 1 of Index: "((H. Sienkiewicz) 1" changed to
+"((H. Sienkiewicz)  12".
+
+Page 1 of Index: "((T. W. Carnie) 25" changed to "((T. W. Carnie)  21".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RINGAN GILHAIZE ***
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ringan Gilhaize
+       or The Covenanters
+
+Author: John Galt
+
+Release Date: December 24, 2009 [EBook #30749]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RINGAN GILHAIZE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins, Carla Foust, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's note</h3>
+<p>Inconsistencies in language and dialect found in the original book have
+been retained. Minor punctuation errors have been changed without
+notice.  Printer
+errors have been changed, and they are indicated with
+a <a class="correction" title="like this" href="#tnotes">mouse-hover</a>
+and listed at the
+<a href="#tnotes">end of this book</a>.</p>
+
+<p> A Table of Contents has been created for this version.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p class="fm3">
+<a href="#INTRODUCTION"><b>INTRODUCTION</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII"><b>CHAPTER XXXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV"><b>CHAPTER XXXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XL"><b>CHAPTER XL</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLI"><b>CHAPTER XLI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLII"><b>CHAPTER XLII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII"><b>CHAPTER XLIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV"><b>CHAPTER XLIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLV"><b>CHAPTER XLV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI"><b>CHAPTER XLVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII"><b>CHAPTER XLVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII"><b>CHAPTER XLVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX"><b>CHAPTER XLIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_L"><b>CHAPTER L</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LI"><b>CHAPTER LI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LII"><b>CHAPTER LII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIII"><b>CHAPTER LIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIV"><b>CHAPTER LIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LV"><b>CHAPTER LV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVI"><b>CHAPTER LVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVII"><b>CHAPTER LVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LVIII"><b>CHAPTER LVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LIX"><b>CHAPTER LIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LX"><b>CHAPTER LX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXI"><b>CHAPTER LXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXII"><b>CHAPTER LXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXIII"><b>CHAPTER LXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXIV"><b>CHAPTER LXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXV"><b>CHAPTER LXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXVI"><b>CHAPTER LXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXVII"><b>CHAPTER LXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXVIII"><b>CHAPTER LXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXIX"><b>CHAPTER LXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXX"><b>CHAPTER LXX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXI"><b>CHAPTER LXXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXII"><b>CHAPTER LXXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXIII"><b>CHAPTER LXXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXIV"><b>CHAPTER LXXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXV"><b>CHAPTER LXXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXVI"><b>CHAPTER LXXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXVII"><b>CHAPTER LXXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER LXXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXIX"><b>CHAPTER LXXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXX"><b>CHAPTER LXXX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXI"><b>CHAPTER LXXXI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXII"><b>CHAPTER LXXXII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXIII"><b>CHAPTER LXXXIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXIV"><b>CHAPTER LXXXIV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXV"><b>CHAPTER LXXXV</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXVI"><b>CHAPTER LXXXVI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXVII"><b>CHAPTER LXXXVII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXVIII"><b>CHAPTER LXXXVIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_LXXXIX"><b>CHAPTER LXXXIX</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XC"><b>CHAPTER XC</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XCI"><b>CHAPTER XCI</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XCII"><b>CHAPTER XCII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XCIII"><b>CHAPTER XCIII</b></a><br />
+<a href="#GLOSSARY"><b>GLOSSARY</b></a><br />
+<a href="#BOOKS_WORTH_READING"><b>BOOKS WORTH READING</b></a><br />
+<a href="#INDEX"><b>INDEX</b></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i9">Their constancy in torture and in death&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">These on Tradition's tongue still live, these shall<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">On History's honest page be pictured bright<br /></span>
+<span class="i9">To latest times.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Grahame's Sabbath</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>Ringan<br />
+Gilhaize</h1>
+
+<p class="fm3">OR</p>
+
+<p class="fm2"><i>THE COVENANTERS</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="fm3">BY</p>
+
+<p class="fm2">JOHN GALT</p>
+
+<p class="fm4">AUTHOR OF<br />
+"<i>Annals of the Parish</i>," "<i>Sir Andrew Wylie</i>," "<i>The Entail</i>," <i>Etc.</i></p>
+
+<p class="fm3">EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY</p>
+
+<p class="fm3">Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS, Bart.</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="fm3">London</p>
+<p class="fm2">GREENING &amp; CO., LTD.</p>
+<p class="fm3">20 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road</p>
+<p class="fm4">1899</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<h3>A NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE</h3>
+
+
+<p>There have, of course, been many men of genius who have united with
+great laxity and waywardness in their lives a high and perfect respect
+for their art; but instances of the directly contrary practice are much
+rarer, and among these there is probably none more prominent than that
+of the author of <i>Ringan Gilhaize</i>. Gifted by nature with a faculty
+which was at once brilliant, powerful and genial, he led an industrious
+life, the upright and generally exemplary character of which has never
+for a moment been called in question. But, in the sphere of his art, it
+is as undeniable as unaccountable that he cared little or nothing to do
+his best. The haps or whims of the moment seem, indeed, to have governed
+his production with an influence as of stars malign or fortunate.
+Furthermore, we know that the profession of authorship&mdash;that most
+distinguished of all professions, as, speaking in sober sadness without
+arrogance, we cannot but be bold to call it&mdash;that profession from which
+he was himself so well equipt to derive honour&mdash;was held by him in low
+esteem. So that, speaking of the time of his residence in Upper Canada,
+he thinks no shame to observe that he did <i>then</i> consider himself
+qualified to do something more useful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> than "stringing blethers<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> into
+rhyme," or "writing 'clishmaclavers' in a closet." And again says he,
+"to tell the truth, I have sometimes felt a little shamefaced in
+thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in
+which I view the profession of book-making in general. A mere literary
+man&mdash;an author by profession&mdash;stands low in my opinion." Such remarks as
+these from a man of commanding literary talent are the reverse of
+pleasant reading. But let us deal with the speaker, as we would
+ourselves be dealt by&mdash;mercifully, and regard these petulant utterances
+as a mere expression of bitterness or perversity in one much tried and
+sorely disappointed. Even so, the fact remains that the sum of Galt's
+immense and varied production exhibits inequalities of execution for
+which only carelessness or contempt in the worker for his task can
+adequately account. We shall presently have occasion to speak of him in
+his relation to the great contemporary writer to whose life and work his
+own work and life present so many interesting points of similarity and
+diversity; but we may here note that, in the glaringly disparate
+character of his output, the author of <i>The Provost</i> is in absolute
+contrast to the author of <i>The Antiquary</i>. For, if Scott's work viewed
+as a whole be rarely of the very finest literary quality, its evenness
+within its own limits is on the other hand very striking indeed. For, of
+his twenty-seven novels, there are perhaps but three which fall
+perceptibly below the general level of excellence; whilst probably any
+one of at least as many as six or eight might by a quorum of competent
+judges be selected as the best of all. And hence, where in the case of
+other authors we are called on to read this masterpiece or those
+specimens, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span>and, having done so, are held to have acquitted ourselves,
+in the case of Scott we cannot feel that we have done our duty till we
+have read through the Waverley Novels. How entirely different is it with
+Galt&mdash;where we find <i>The Omen</i> occupying one shelf with <i>The Radical</i>,
+<i>The Annals of the Parish</i> catalogued with <i>Lawrie Todd</i>, and <i>The
+Spaewife</i> side by side with <i>The Covenanters</i>! And obviously it is in
+this inequality in its author's work&mdash;in the magnitude, that is, of the
+rubbish-heap in which he chose to secrete his jewels&mdash;that the
+explanation of the neglect, if not rather oblivion, into which the work
+last-named has fallen can alone be sought and found. For, once in the
+threescore years of his busy life, Galt did his best, consistently and
+on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of
+<i>Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters</i>. What is more&mdash;however lamentably
+he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism&mdash;he knew
+when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his
+favourite. But a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral
+delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless
+tome has been exacted in the obscuration of one of the finest and truest
+of historical romances in our language.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> A word or two as to the
+genesis and character of the book which we have ventured thus to
+describe may not be out of place as preface to our endeavour to obtain
+for it a second hearing.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1822 or 1823 that Galt, aged then about forty-three,
+and having already seen much of life in various countries and
+capacities, settled at Esk Grove, Musselburgh, to apply himself to
+writing <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>historical fiction. He was for the moment elated&mdash;carried away,
+perhaps, for his temper was enthusiastic even to a fault&mdash;by the recent
+and deserved success of his novels of Scottish manners, <i>Sir Andrew
+Wylie</i> and <i>The Entail</i>; and the soaring idea appears to have entered
+his head of deliberately attempting to rival Scott in the very field
+which "the Wizard" had made peculiarly his own. From the point of view
+of prudence, though not from that of art or of sport, this enterprise
+was a mistake. For an author, serving as he does the public, shows no
+more than common sense if he endeavour to study, in the proper degree,
+the idiosyncrasies of that employer on whose favour his reputation, nay,
+perhaps the payment of his butcher's bill, depends. And it has long been
+observed that when the public has once made up its mind that one man is
+supreme in his own line, it has generally little attention to spare for
+those who seek to have it reconsider its decision. (This, by the way,
+was amply illustrated in the sequel of the very case now under
+discussion.) But the names of Galt and Prudence do not naturally go
+together: indeed, the two were never well or for any length of time
+acquainted. At Esk Grove, either in earnest, or, as seems more likely,
+in banter of the architectural incongruities of Abbotsford, Galt
+announced his intention of building a "veritable fortress," exactly in
+the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare. <i>En attendant</i>, he
+worked hard with his pen, the first fruits of his industry appearing in
+the novel which is here reprinted after some six-and-seventy years.</p>
+
+<p>What of the merits of this first attempt in a line that was new to him?
+In the first place, he had at least been guided in his choice of subject
+by an unerring historical instinct. For, surpassingly rich as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span> is
+Scottish history in the elements both of picturesque and romantic
+incident and of wild and fascinating character, it is none the less a
+fact that there is but one period during which that history rises to the
+dignity of a really wide and permanent interest. And that period is of
+course the century, or century and a half, of the national struggle for
+religious liberty. It is not necessary to remind the reader that upon
+that struggle, and on those who maintained it, much has been written as
+well in the terms of undiscriminating eulogy as in those of
+uncomprehending condemnation. Nor is it more to the purpose to add that
+the truth lies neither entirely on one side nor the other. For&mdash;as in
+the earlier struggle for political independence, and, indeed, more or
+less in all other great national movements&mdash;the motives of most of those
+who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. Thus it is
+undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming Scottish laird of the
+sixteenth century, mistrust of Rome was a subordinate feeling to the
+covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated
+Church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few
+persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the
+intolerance embodied even by the martyr Guthrie in his celebrated
+Remonstrance&mdash;to say nothing of that which made the mere hearing of the
+mass, under certain circumstances, a capital offence. These things are,
+however, more or less accidental, and supply no criterion by which the
+true character of the reforming movement may be tested; for during the
+Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the very nature of tolerance, if
+understood by one here and there, was beyond the comprehension of the
+masses of the people. And yet we believe that, notwithstanding the
+intolerant and implacable spirit too often manifested by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span> the
+Covenanters, no candid reader will read this book to the end without
+acknowledging (what is, indeed, the truth) that the soul of the
+Covenanting movement was a great and noble one. And that soul we here
+find personified in the younger Gilhaize&mdash;a type, if there be one in
+literature, of the Covenanter of the best kind.</p>
+
+<p>For, whatever may have been the temper of his associates in the
+aggregate, the hero of the book holds the scales between the rival
+parties with admirable evenness&mdash;and this notwithstanding the strong
+bias of his temper and upbringing. Indeed, until the time when he has
+become, not metaphorically, but literally maddened by the wrongs and
+outrages to which he has been subjected, the book, in so far as it
+constitutes an expression of his personal sentiments, is a perfect
+homily on fairness. And how much such fairness has to do with the
+winning and retaining of sympathy, perhaps only a modern reader is
+qualified to say. Gifted with the saving graces of humour and of
+fellow-feeling, the supposed annalist of our chronicle is no less
+prepared to make allowance for the faults of the other side than to
+acknowledge the shortcomings of his own. In fact he is the pattern of a
+spirit at once upright, humble, and self-respecting, whose ruling
+passion is an earnest piety, and who asks no more of those set over him
+than freedom to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.
+And for this little boon, so harshly and unjustly withheld, we see him
+called upon to sacrifice home, kindred and estate, to know his wife and
+daughters given over to death and worse than death, and finally to
+surrender his liberty and his last remaining child. Unless pity and
+terror in a master's hand have lost their power, surely this spectacle
+is a moving one! Nor must we forget that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span> even in the culminating scene
+of the tragedy&mdash;where Ringan makes his bold and inspired oration at the
+meeting of the Cameronian leaders with Renwick in a dell near
+Lasswade&mdash;the hero, for all his wrongs, remains unembittered, and
+retains unimpaired the gentleness and the manliness which are his
+characteristics. That there were such men as this among the Covenanters,
+or that they constituted the salt which gave its savour to the movement,
+we are forbidden to doubt. But, saving in the pages which follow, we
+know not where to seek for the ideal presentment of one such. This is
+what we mean by saying, as we have said above, that Galt has in this
+romance laid bare the soul of the Covenanting movement. And this, we may
+add, is what Scott in <i>Old Mortality</i> most signally failed to do. For in
+that novel&mdash;in place of Galt's subtle and penetrating analysis of the
+motives which animated the Covenanters nobly to dare and nobly to
+endure&mdash;we find the author content himself with using the
+characteristics and the disturbances of the time for the mere purpose of
+providing incident and adventure, and a strong local colour for his
+puppets&mdash;in a word, for the most ordinary and conventional purposes of
+the romantic novelist. Nor is this the only instance of such
+psychological obtuseness in his work. That, in spite of this initial and
+damning defect, he does succeed in producing a fine novel, is but one
+more proof of the amazing fecundity of his genius. None the less does
+the fact remain that it is a novel, so to speak, without a soul&mdash;that,
+so far from being of the essence of the Covenant, the Burleys,
+Mucklewraths, Mauses and Macbrairs are but so many of its accidents, and
+that thus the main issues of the historical drama are not involved in
+the romance. In other words, it is as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span> though the tragedy of <i>Hamlet</i>
+had been performed with great skill and <i>éclat</i>, only without the
+appearance of the Prince of Denmark upon the stage. And thus, if the
+historical novel is to play a part of any dignity in our literature, we
+may safely predict that it is upon the stock here supplied by Galt,
+rather than upon that supplied by Scott in <i>Old Mortality</i>, that it will
+have to be grafted.</p>
+
+<p>Having now assigned to our author the credit due to him for his choice
+and general treatment of a fine subject, it remains to touch briefly
+upon the technical skill which he has brought to bear upon the handling
+of its details. By resorting, then, to an ingenious and yet perfectly
+natural and legitimate device, he has contrived to extend his "household
+memorial" (for it is thus that he describes the story) so as to make it
+embrace the entire period of the religious struggle&mdash;from its inception
+under the regency of Marie of Lorraine to its close, or practical close,
+under the rule of the enlightened and tolerant William of Orange,&mdash;a
+period in all of full one hundred and thirty years. For the narrative,
+opening with the martyrdom of Walter Mill at St Andrews in 1558, is
+continued to the death of Claverhouse at Killiecrankie in 1689. And by
+this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by
+step, through the preachings of John Knox and the early image-breaking
+outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of James the First of
+England, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by
+the shifty and infatuated Martyr King to the climax of the "Killing
+Time" under the younger of his sons. Few incidents of really primary or
+representative importance are omitted, and the skill shown by the Author
+in stringing the pearls of history upon the thread of his narrative is
+not the least of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</a></span> the merits he displays. But, as should be in a novel,
+the historical never overweights the human or fictitious interest, but
+is always properly subordinated to it.</p>
+
+<p>We have spoken elsewhere<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> of Galt the novelist as being "in advance of
+his time"&mdash;a facile phrase which it is expedient to use with due reserve
+and after due consideration. But the fact that the author with whose
+work we are instinctively impelled to compare the novel of <i>Ringan
+Gilhaize</i> is the great chief of the French "Naturalistic" School would
+appear, at least so far, to support that characterisation. It is, of
+course, undeniable that, at the outset, there confront us several
+striking points of contrast or divergence between the two authors. For
+example, of that <i>triste amour du laid</i>, which, with its concomitants,
+was for so long, and perhaps is even yet, regarded by the general public
+as Zola's one prominent characteristic&mdash;of this, Galt has absolutely
+nothing, his preoccupation being uniformly with beauty in one form or
+another, whether of matter or of spirit. With him, a gloom which, did we
+not fear to be less than just to Galt we might denominate Byronic, fills
+perhaps the place of Zola's pessimism. Next, of that misbegotten passion
+for the painter's brush which has vitiated so much of modern French
+writing, and of which Zola in inferior works has even more than his due
+share, the novel of <i>Ringan Gilhaize</i> shows equally no trace. On the
+contrary, its brief descriptive passages, of which it is noticeable how
+many are nocturnal or crepuscular, or paint effects of mist or
+rain-cloud&mdash;these might serve as models, at once in their breadth of
+execution, their aptness and their pregnancy, or quality of moral
+suggestiveness, of what descriptions in literature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</a></span>
+should be. How different from those laboured outlines, laboriously
+filled in, of such a piece of writing as <i>La Curée</i>!</p>
+
+<p>So much, then, for the divergence of the two authors; and now as to
+their relationship. It is, perhaps, in their power of putting their
+sense of a multitude before the reader, of exhibiting the passions by
+which that multitude is animated, and of tracing the phases and
+fluctuations of that passion, that the Frenchman or Italian and the Scot
+come first and most strikingly together. Witness in this book the scene
+of the advance of the congregations to the trial of the Ministers, or
+that of the return of the Reformer, Knox, to Scotland. This of itself,
+however, is not much; nor should we have felt justified in drawing
+special attention to it, but for the fact that it seems to us to be an
+outward and visible sign of what is a vital, perhaps <i>the</i> vital
+characteristic of either writer&mdash;or, at least, that of Galt in this
+book, and of Zola in his masterwork. It is associated, then, as we read
+it, with a desire to rise in art above the limitation of the merely
+individual, and the springs of this desire we take to lie in that noble
+and abounding pity which is the dominant passion of either author, or of
+either book. In either case it is an "objective" or artistic pity,
+called into being by the spectacle of human suffering as specific as it
+is intolerable to contemplate. Only that with Galt it is felt for a
+particular historical group of men, with Zola for a particular section
+of his contemporaries. And from this characteristic there naturally
+results a gain of the quality of artistic grandeur in the books. For it
+is less the fortunes of the individual colliers than the Rights of
+Labour and their chances of recognition which form the true theme of
+<i>Germinal</i>; whilst in <i>Ringan Gilhaize</i> we are called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span> to gaze upon
+nothing less than the grandiose spectacle of a nation in death-grips
+with a race of mansworn sovereigns. Hence, in either case, the
+individual characters, measured by the greatness of the issues at stake,
+sink into comparative insignificance. But this very insignificance
+serves to illustrate a fundamental truth. For, to quote the words of a
+great modern thinker, "This is the law which governs humanity: an
+immense prodigality in regard to the mere individual, a contemptuous
+heaping together of the unit of human life." He continues, "I can
+picture to myself the artificer letting great quantities of his material
+go to waste&mdash;undisturbed, indeed, although three parts of it fall
+useless to the ground. For it is the fate of the vast majority of the
+human race to serve as a mere floor-cloth on which Destiny may celebrate
+her revel, or, rather, to contribute towards the making up of one of
+those numerous persons who were known to the classical drama as the
+Chorus."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Impressively to exhibit this truth in art is of itself to
+accomplish much; but in the infinite pathos of the individual lot there
+is a converse side to every great drama too, and to this neither of our
+writers is insensible. Hence it is that, against the shadowy curtain or
+background formed by the crowded and suffering masses of humanity, are
+relieved and detached such tragic silhouettes as those of Ringan and of
+La Maheude. In the nature of the long-drawn unrelenting ordeal to which
+each of these is subjected they are identical; for both of them are rich
+only in human affection, and of this both live to see themselves
+entirely denuded. Gilhaize, who is raised above the struggle for mere
+daily bread, is animated by a spiritual and intellectual <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>passion which
+would have been altogether beyond the comprehension of the miner's wife
+of Montsou; but that he is on that account the nobler or more
+interesting figure of the two, we do not take upon us to say. Neither,
+of course, must we be understood to insist unduly on the few points of
+resemblance in two books which, after all, are in so many respects
+radically unlike.</p>
+
+<p>There is a lighter side to Galt's book, too, and this is seen
+principally, ere the stress of the action has become intense, in the
+adventures of the astute Michael Gilhaize. At this point in his
+narrative it is probably with Stevenson that Galt suggests comparison,
+nor is it any disparagement to the delightful author of <i>Kidnapped</i> and
+<i>Catriona</i> to say that the best of his work is to the best of Galt's as
+a clever boy's to that of a clever man. For whilst Galt presents
+incident with all, or nearly all, the charm of Stevenson, he is master,
+besides, of an adult psychology to which the other, in his short life,
+never attained.</p>
+
+<p class="author">GEORGE DOUGLAS.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Springwood Park</span>, <i>August</i> 1899.</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Scots expletives, signifying different varieties of
+nonsense.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Dismissed in the <i>Dictionary of National Biography</i>, <i>sub
+voce</i> Galt, as one of "three forgotten novels."</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> In "The <i>Blackwood</i> Group": Famous Scots' Series; Essay on
+Galt.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Ernest Renan in <i>L'Avenir de la Science</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="RINGAN_GILHAIZE" id="RINGAN_GILHAIZE"></a>RINGAN GILHAIZE</h2>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is a thing past all contesting, that, in the Reformation, there was a
+spirit of far greater carnality among the champions of the cause than
+among those who in later times so courageously, under the Lord, upheld
+the unspotted banners of the Covenant. This I speak of from the
+remembrance of many aged persons, who either themselves bore a part in
+that war with the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, or who had
+heard their fathers tell of the heart and mind wherewith it was carried
+on, and could thence, with the helps of their own knowledge, discern the
+spiritual and hallowed difference. But, as I intend mainly to bear
+witness to those passages of the late bloody persecution in which I was
+myself both a soldier and a sufferer, it will not become me to brag of
+our motives and intents, as higher and holier than those of the great
+elder Worthies of "the Congregation." At the same time it is needful
+that I should rehearse as much of what happened in the troubles of the
+Reformation as, in its effects and influences, worked upon the issues of
+my own life. For my father's father was out in the raids of that
+tempestuous season, and it was by him, and from the stories he was wont
+to tell of what the Government did when drunken with the sorceries of
+the gorgeous Roman harlot, and rampaging with the wrath of Moloch and of
+Belial, it trampled on the hearts and thought to devour the souls of the
+subjects, that I first was taught to feel, know and understand the divine
+right of resistance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was come of a stock of bein burghers in Lithgow; but his father
+having a profitable traffic in saddle-irons and bridle-rings among the
+gallants of the court, and being moreover a man who took little heed of
+the truths of religion, he continued with his wife in the delusions of
+the papistical idolatry till the last, by which my grandfather's young
+soul was put in great jeopardy. For the monks of that time were eager to
+get into their clutches such men-children as appeared to be gifted with
+any peculiar gift, in order to rear them for stoops and posts to sustain
+their Babylon, in the tower and structure whereof many rents and cracks
+were daily kithing.</p>
+
+<p>The Dominican friars, who had a rich howf in the town, seeing that my
+grandfather was a shrewd and sharp child, of a comely complexion, and
+possessing a studious observance, were fain to wile him into their
+power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in
+a manner that shows how wonderfully the Lord worketh out the purposes of
+His will, by ways and means of which no man can fathom the depth of the
+mysteries.</p>
+
+<p>Besides his traffic in the polished garniture of horse-gear, my
+grandfather's father was also a ferrier, and enjoyed a far-spread repute
+for his skill in the maladies of horses; by which, and as he dwelt near
+the palace-yett, on the south side of the street, fornent the grand
+fountain-well, his smiddy was the common haunt of the serving-men
+belonging to the nobles frequenting the court, and as often as any
+newcomers to the palace were observed in the town, some of the monks and
+friars belonging to the different convents were sure to come to the
+smiddy to converse with their grooms and to hear the news, which were
+all of the controversies raging between the priesthood and the people.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was then a little boy, but he thirsted to hear their
+conversations, and many a time, as he was wont to tell, has his very
+heart been raspet to the quick by the cruel comments in which those
+cormorants of idolatry indulged themselves with respect to the brave
+spirit of the reformers; and he rejoiced when any retainers of the
+protestant lords quarrelled with them, and dealt back to them as hard
+names as the odious epithets with which the hot-fed friars reviled the
+pious challengers of the papal iniquities. Thus it was, in the green
+years of his childhood, that the same sanctified spirit was poured out
+upon him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> which roused so many of the true and faithful to resist and
+repel the attempt to quench the relighted lamps of the Gospel, preparing
+his young courage to engage in those great first trials and strong tasks
+of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings and the bickerings to which he was a hearkener in the
+smiddy, he was in the practice of relating to his companions, by which
+it came to pass that, it might in a manner be said, all the boys in the
+town were leagued in spirit with the reformers, and the consequences
+were not long of ripening.</p>
+
+<p>In those days there was a popish saint, one St Michael, that was held in
+wonderful love and adoration by all the ranks and hierarchies of the
+ecclesiastical locust then in Lithgow; indeed, for that matter, they
+ascribed to him power and dominion over the whole town, lauding and
+worshipping him as their special god and protector. And upon a certain
+day of the year they were wont to make a great pageant and revel in
+honour of this supposed saint, and to come forth from their cloisters
+with banners, and with censers burning incense, shouting and singing
+paternosters in praise of this their Dagon, walking in procession from
+kirk to kirk, as if they were celebrating the triumph of some mighty
+conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>This annual abomination happening to take place shortly after the
+martyrdom of that true saint and gospel preacher Mr George Wishart, and
+while kirk and quire were resounding, to the great indignation of all
+Christians, with lamentations for the well-earned death of the cruel
+Cardinal Beaton, his ravenous persecutor, the monks and friars received
+but little homage as they passed along triumphing, though the streets
+were, as usual, filled with the multitude to see their fine show. They
+suffered, however, no molestation nor contempt till they were passing
+the Earl of Angus' house, on the outside stair of which my grandfather,
+with some two or three score of other innocent children, was standing;
+and even there they might, perhaps, have been suffered to go by
+scaithless, but for an accident that befel the bearer of a banner, on
+which was depicted a blasphemous type of the Holy Ghost in the shape and
+lineaments of a cushy-doo.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that the bearer of this blazon of iniquity was a particular
+fat monk, of an arrogant nature, with the crimson complexion of surfeit
+and constipation, who for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> many causes and reasons was held in greater
+aversion than all the rest, especially by the boys, that never lost an
+opportunity of making him a scoff and a scorn; and it so fell out, as he
+was coming proudly along, turning his Babylonish banner to pleasure the
+women at the windows, to whom he kept nodding and winking as he passed,
+that his foot slipped and down he fell as it were with a gludder, at
+which all the thoughtless innocents on the Earl of Angus' stair set up a
+loud shout of triumphant laughter, and from less to more began to hoot
+and yell at the whole pageant, and to pelt some of the performers with
+unsavoury missiles.</p>
+
+<p>This, by those inordinate ministers of oppression, was deemed a horrible
+sacrilege, and the parents of all the poor children were obligated to
+give them up to punishment, of which none suffered more than did my
+grandfather, who was not only persecuted with stripes till his loins
+were black and blue, but cast into a dungeon in the Blackfriars' den,
+where for three days and three nights he was allowed no sustenance but
+gnawed crusts and foul water. The stripes and terrors of the oppressor
+are, however, the seeds which Providence sows in its mercy to grow into
+the means that shall work his own overthrow.</p>
+
+<p>The persecutions which from that day the monks waged, in their conclaves
+of sloth and sosherie, against the children of the town, denouncing them
+to their parents as worms of the great serpent and heirs of perdition,
+only served to make their young spirits burn fiercer. As their joints
+hardened and their sinews were knit, their hearts grew manful, and
+yearned, as my grandfather said, with the zealous longings of a
+righteous revenge, to sweep them away from the land as with a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>After enduring for several years great affliction in his father's house
+from his mother, a termagant woman, who was entirely under the dominion
+of her confessor, my grandfather entered into a paction with two other
+young lads to quit their homes for ever, and to enter the service of
+some of those pious noblemen who were then active in procuring adherents
+to the protestant cause, as set forth in the first covenant.
+Accordingly, one morning in the spring of 1558, they bade adieu to their
+fathers' doors, and set forward on foot towards Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>"We had light hearts," said my grandfather, "for our trust was in
+Heaven; we had girded ourselves for a holy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> enterprise, and the
+confidence of our souls broke forth into songs of battle, the melodious
+breathings of that unison of spirit which is alone known to the soldiers
+of the great Captain of Salvation."</p>
+
+<p>About noon they arrived at the Cross of Edinburgh, where they found a
+crowd assembled round the Luckenbooths, waiting for the breaking up of
+the States, which were then deliberating anent the proposal from the
+French king that the Prince Dolphin, his son, should marry our young
+queen, the fair and faulty Mary, whose doleful captivity and woful end
+scarcely expiated the sins and sorrows that she caused to her ill-used
+and poor misgoverned native realm of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>While they were standing in this crowd, my grandfather happened to see
+one Icener Cunningham, a servant in the household of the Earl of
+Glencairn, and having some acquaintance of the man before at Lithgow, he
+went towards him, and after some common talk, told on what errand he and
+his two companions had come to Edinburgh. It was in consequence agreed
+between them that this Icener should speak to his master concerning
+them, the which he did as soon as my Lord came out from the Parliament;
+and the Earl was so well pleased with the looks of the three young men
+that he retained them for his service on the spot, and they were
+conducted by Icener Cunningham home to his Lordship's lodgings in St
+Mary's Wynd.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was my grandfather enlisted into the cause of the Lords of the
+Congregation, and in the service of that great champion of the
+Reformation, the renowned, valiant and pious Earl of Glencairn, he saw
+many of those things, the recital of which kindled my young mind to
+flame up with no less ardour than his against the cruel attempt that was
+made, in our own day and generation, to load the neck of Scotland with
+the grievous chains of prelatic tyranny.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+
+<p>The Earl of Glencairn, having much to do with the other Lords of the
+Congregation, did not come to his lodging till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> late in the afternoon,
+when, as soon as he had passed into his privy chamber, he sent for his
+three new men, and entered into some conversation with them concerning
+what the people at Lithgow said and thought of the Queen-dowager's
+government, and the proceedings at that time afoot on behalf of the
+reformed religion. But my grandfather jealoused that in this he was less
+swayed by the expectation of gathering knowledge from them, than by a
+wish to inspect their discretion and capacities; for, after conversing
+with them for the space of half an hour or thereby, he dismissed them
+courteously from his presence, without intimating that he had any
+special service for them to perform.</p>
+
+<p>One evening as the Earl sat alone at supper, he ordered my grandfather
+to be brought again before him, and desired him to be cup-bearer for
+that night. In this situation, as my grandfather stood holding the
+chalice and flagon at his left elbow, the Earl, as was his wonted custom
+with such of the household as he from time to time so honoured, entered
+into familiar conversation with him; and when the servitude and homages
+of the supper were over, and the servants were removing the plate and
+trenchers, he signified, by a look and a whisper, that he wished him to
+linger in the room till after they were gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Gilhaize," said he, when the serving-men had retired, and they were by
+themselves, "I am well content with your prudence, and therefore, before
+you are known to belong to my train, I would send you on a confidential
+errand, for which you must be ready to set forth this very night."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather made no reply in words to this mark of trust, but bowed
+his head in token of his obedience to the commands of the Earl.</p>
+
+<p>"I need not tell you," resumed his master, "that among the friends of
+the reformed cause there are some for policy and many for gain, and that
+our adversaries, knowing this, leave no device or stratagem untried to
+sow sedition among the Lords and Leaders of the Congregation. This very
+day the Earl of Argyle has received a mealy-mouthed letter from that
+dissolute papist, the Archbishop of St Andrews, entreating him, with
+many sweet words, concerning the ancient friendship subsisting between
+their families, to banish from his protection that good and pious
+proselyte,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> Douglas, his chaplain, evidently presuming, from the easy
+temper of the aged Earl, that he may be wrought into compliance. But
+Argyle is an honest man, and is this night to return, by the
+Archbishop's messenger and kinsman, Sir David Hamilton, a fitting and
+proper reply. It is not, however, to be thought that this attempt to
+tamper with Argyle is the sole trial which the treacherous priest is at
+this time making to breed distrust and dissension among us, though as
+yet we have heard of none other. Now, Gilhaize, what I wish you to do,
+and I think you can do it well, is to throw yourself in Sir David's way,
+and, by hook or crook, get with him to St Andrews, and there try by all
+expedient means to gain a knowledge of what the Archbishop is at this
+time plotting&mdash;for plotting we are assured from this symptom he is&mdash;and
+it is needful to the cause of Christ that his wiles should be
+circumvented."</p>
+
+<p>In saying these words the Earl rose, and, taking a key from his belt,
+opened a coffer that stood in the corner of the room, and took out two
+pieces of gold, which he delivered to my grandfather, to bear the
+expenses of his journey.</p>
+
+<p>"I give you, Gilhaize," said he, "no farther instructions; for, unless I
+am mistaken in my man, you lack no better guide than your own
+discernment. So God be with you, and His blessing prosper the
+undertaking."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was much moved at being so trusted, and doubted in his
+own breast if he was qualified for the duty which his master had thus
+put upon him. Nevertheless he took heart from the Earl's confidence,
+and, without saying anything either to his two companions or to Icener
+Cunningham, he immediately, on parting from his master, left the house,
+leaving his absence to be accounted for to the servants according to his
+lord's pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Having been several times on errands of his father in Edinburgh before,
+he was not ill-acquainted with the town, and the moon being up, he had
+no difficulty in finding his way to Habby Bridle's, a noted stabler's at
+the foot of Leith Wynd, nigh the mouth of the North Loch, where gallants
+and other travellers of gentle condition commonly put up their horses.
+There he thought it was likely Sir David Hamilton had stabled his steed,
+and he divined that, by going thither, he would learn whether that
+knight had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> set forward to Fife, or when he was expected so to do; the
+which movement, he always said, was nothing short of an instinct from
+Heaven; for just on entering the stabler's yard, a groom came shouting
+to the hostler to get Sir David Hamilton's horses saddled outright, as
+his master was coming.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without the exposure of any inquiry, he gained the tidings that he
+wanted, and with what speed he could put into his heels, he went forward
+to the pier of Leith, where he found a bark, with many passengers on
+board, ready to set sail for Kirkcaldy, waiting only for the arrival of
+Sir David, to whom, as the Archbishop's kinsman, the boatmen were fain
+to pretend a great outward respect; but many a bitter ban, my
+grandfather said, they gave him for taigling them so long, while wind
+and tide both served&mdash;all which was proof and evidence how much the
+hearts of the common people were then alienated from the papistical
+churchmen.</p>
+
+<p>Sir David having arrived, and his horses being taken aboard, the bark
+set sail, and about daybreak next morning she came to anchor at
+Kirkcaldy. During the voyage, my grandfather, who was of a mild and
+comely aspect, observed that the knight was more affable towards him
+than to the lave of the passengers, the most part of whom were coopers
+going to Dundee to prepare for the summer fishing. Among them was one
+Patrick Girdwood, the deacon of the craft, a most comical character, so
+vogie of his honours and dignities in the town council that he could not
+get the knight told often enough what a load aboon the burden he had in
+keeping a' things douce and in right regulation amang the bailies. But
+Sir David, fashed at his clatter, and to be quit of him, came across the
+vessel and began to talk to my grandfather, although, by his apparel, he
+was no meet companion for one of a knight's degree.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that Sir David was pleased with his conversation, which was
+not to be wondered at, for in his old age, when I knew him, he was a man
+of a most enticing mildness of manner, and withal so discreet in his
+sentences that he could not be heard without begetting respect for his
+observance and judgment. So out of the vanity of that vogie tod of the
+town council was a mean thus made by Providence to further the ends and
+objects of the Reformation in so far as my grandfather was concerned;
+for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> the knight took a liking to him, and being told, as it was
+expedient to give a reason for his journey to St Andrews, that he was
+going thither to work as a ferrier, Sir David promised him not only his
+own countenance, but to commend him to the Archbishop.</p>
+
+<p>There was at that time in Kirkcaldy one Tobit Balmutto, a horse-setter,
+of whom my grandfather had some knowledge by report. This Tobit being
+much resorted to by the courtiers going to and coming from Falkland, and
+well known to their serving-men, who were wont to speak of him in the
+smiddy at Lithgow as a zealous reformer&mdash;chiefly, as the prodigals among
+them used to jeer and say, because the priests and friars in their
+journeyings atween St Andrews and Edinburgh took the use of his beasts
+without paying for them, giving him only their feckless benisons instead
+of white money.</p>
+
+<p>To this man my grandfather resolved to apply for a horse, and such a
+one, if possible, as would be able to carry him as fast as Sir David
+Hamilton's. Accordingly, on getting to the land, he inquired for Tobit
+Balmutto, and several of his striplings and hostlers being on the shore,
+having, on seeing the bark arrive, come down to look out for travellers
+that might want horses, he was conducted by one of them to their
+employer, whom he found an elderly man of the corpulent order, sitting
+in an elbow-chair by the fireside, toasting an oaten bannock on a pair
+of tormentors, with a blue puddock-stool bonnet on his head, and his
+grey hose undrawn up, whereby his hairy legs were bare, showing a power
+and girth such as my grandfather had seen few like before, testifying to
+what had been the deadly strength of their possessor in his younger
+years. He was thought to have been an off-gett of the Boswells of
+Balmutto.</p>
+
+<p>When he had made known his want to Tobit, and that he was in a manner
+obligated to be at St Andrews as soon as Sir David Hamilton, the
+horse-setter withdrew the bannock from before the ribs, and seeing it
+somewhat scowthert and blackent on the one cheek, he took it off the
+tormentors and scraped it with them, and blew away the brown burning
+before he made any response; then he turned round to my grandfather, and
+looking at him with the tail of his eye from aneath his broad bonnet,
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then ye're no in the service of his Grace, my Lord the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> Archbishop? And
+yet, frien', I think na ye're just a peer to Sir Davie, that you need to
+ettle at coping with his braw mare, Skelp-the-dub, whilk I selt to him
+mysel'; but the de'il a bawbee hae I yet han'let o' the price; howsever,
+that's neither here nor there, a day of reckoning will come at last."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather assured Tobit Balmutto it was indeed very true he was not
+in the service of the Archbishop, and that he would not have been so
+instant about getting to St Andrews with the knight had he not a dread
+and fear that Sir David was the bearer of something that might be sore
+news to the flock o' Christ, and he was fain to be there as soon as him
+to speak in time of what he jealoused, that any of those in the town who
+stood within the reverence of the Archbishop's aversion, on account of
+their religion, might get an inkling and provide for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"If that's your errand," said the horse-setter, "ye s'all hae the
+swiftest foot in my aught to help you on, and I redde you no to spare
+the spur, for I'm troubled to think ye may be owre late&mdash;Satan, or they
+lie upon him, has been heating his cauldrons yonder for a brewing, and
+the Archbishop's thrang providing the malt. Nae farther gane than
+yesterday, auld worthy Mr Mill of Lunan, being discovered hidden in a
+kiln at Dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by
+twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his Grace, and it's thought it
+will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what
+haste ye dow, and the Lord put mettle in the beast that bears you."</p>
+
+<p>With that Tobit Balmutto ordered the lad who brought my grandfather to
+the house to saddle a horse that he called Spunkie; and in a trice he
+was mounted and on the road after Sir David, whom he overtook
+notwithstanding the spirit of his mare, Skelp-the-dub, before he had
+cleared the town of Pathhead, and they travelled onward at a brisk trot
+together, the knight waxing more and more pleased with his companion, in
+so much that by the time they had reached Cupar, where they stopped to
+corn, he lamented that a young man of his parts should think of
+following the slavery of a ferrier's life, when he might rise to trusts
+and fortune in the house of some of the great men of the time, kindly
+offering to procure for him, on their arrival at St Andrews, the favour
+and patronage of his kinsman, the Archbishop.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was the afternoon when my grandfather and Sir David Hamilton came in
+sight of St Andrews, and the day being loun and bright, the sky clear,
+and the sea calm, he told me that when he saw the many lofty spires and
+towers and glittering pinnacles of the town rising before him, he verily
+thought he was approaching the city of Jerusalem, so grand and glorious
+was the apparition which they made in the sunshine, and he approached
+the barricaded gate with a strange movement of awe and wonder rushing
+through the depths of his spirit.</p>
+
+<p>They, however, entered not into the city at that time, but, passing
+along the wall leftward, came to a road which led to the gate of the
+castle where the Archbishop then dwelt; and as they were approaching
+towards it, Sir David pointed out the window where Cardinal Beaton sat
+in the pomp of his scarlet and fine linen to witness the heretic
+Wishart, as the knight called that holy man, burnt for his sins and
+abominations.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, on hearing this, drew his bridle in, and falling behind
+Sir David, raised his cap in reverence and in sorrow at the thought of
+passing over the ground that had been so hallowed by martyrdom, but he
+said nothing, for he knew that his thoughts were full of offence to
+those who were wrapt in the errors and delusions of popery like Sir
+David Hamilton; and, moreover, he had thanked the Lord thrice in the
+course of their journey for the favour which it had pleased Him he
+should find in the sight of the kinsman of so great an adversary to the
+truth as was the Archbishop of St Andrews, whose treasons and
+treacheries against the Church of Christ he was then travelling to
+discover and waylay.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the castle-yett they alighted; my grandfather, springing
+lightly from the saddle, took hold of Sir David's mare by the
+bridle-rings, while the knight went forward, and whispered something
+concerning his Grace to a stalwart, hard-favoured, grey-haired
+man-at-arms, that stood warder of the port, leaning on his sword, the
+blade of whilk could not be shorter than an ell. What answer he got was
+brief, the ancient warrior pointing at the same time with his right hand
+towards a certain part of the city,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> and giving a Belial smile of
+significance; whereupon Sir David turned round without going into the
+court of the castle, and bidding my grandfather give the man the beasts
+and follow, which he did, they walked together under the town wall
+towards the east till they came to a narrow sallyport in the rampart,
+wherewith the priory and cathedral had of old been fenced about with
+turrets and bastions of great strength against the lawless kerns of the
+Highlands, and especially the ships of the English, who have in all ages
+been of a nature gleg and glad to mulct and molest the sea-harbour towns
+of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>On coming to the sallyport, Sir David chapped with his whip twice, and
+from within a wicket was opened in the doors, ribbed with iron
+stainchers on the outside, and a man with the sound of corpulency in his
+voice looked through and inquired what they wanted. Seeing, however, who
+it was that had knocked, he forthwith drew the bar and allowed them to
+enter, which was into a pleasant policy adorned with jonquils and
+jelly-flowers, and all manner of blooming and odoriferous plants, most
+voluptuous to the smell and ravishing to behold, the scents and
+fragrancies whereof smote my grandfather for a time, as he said, with
+the very anguish of delight. But, on looking behind to see who had given
+them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed
+soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel there placed was,
+he saw a large, elderly monk, sitting on a bench with a broken pasty
+smoking on a platter beside him, and a Rotterdam greybeard jug standing
+by, no doubt plenished with cordial drink.</p>
+
+<p>Sir David held no parlance with the feeding friar, but going straight up
+the walk to the door of a lodging, to the which this was the parterre
+and garden, he laid his hand on the sneck, and opening it, bade my
+grandfather come in.</p>
+
+<p>They then went along the trance towards an open room, and on entering it
+they met a fair damsel in the garb of a handmaid, to whom the knight
+spoke in familiarity, and kittling her under the chin, made her giggle
+in a wanton manner. By her he was informed that the Archbishop was in
+the inner chamber at dinner with her mistress, upon which he desired my
+grandfather to sit down, while he went ben to his Grace.</p>
+
+<p>The room where my grandfather took his seat was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> parted from the inner
+chamber, in which the Archbishop and his lemane were at their
+festivities, by an arras partition, so that he could hear all that
+passed within, and the first words his Grace said on his kinsman going
+ben was,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Aweel, Davie, and what says that auld doddard Argyle, will he send me
+the apostate to mak a benfire?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has sent your Grace a letter," replied Sir David, "wherein he told
+me he had expounded the reasons and causes of his protecting Douglas,
+hoping your Grace will approve the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Approve heresy and reprobacy!" exclaimed the Archbishop; "but gi'e me
+the letter, and sit ye down, Davie. Mistress Kilspinnie, my dauty, fill
+him a cup of wine, the malvesie, to put smeddam in his marrow; he'll no
+be the waur o't, after his gallanting at Enbro. Stay! what's this? the
+auld man's been at school since him and me hae swappit paper. My word,
+Argyle, thou's got a tongue in thy pen neb! but this was ne'er indited
+by him; the cloven foot of the heretical Carmelite is manifest in every
+line. Honour and conscience truly!&mdash;braw words for a Hielant schore,
+that bigs his bield wi' other folks' gear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be composed, your sweet Grace, and dinna be so fashed," cried a
+silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as I
+shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the Mrs Kilspinnie. "What
+does he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say? Why, that Douglas preaches against idolatry, and he remits to my
+conscience forsooth, gif that be heresy&mdash;and he preaches against
+adulteries and fornications too&mdash;was ever sic varlet terms written in
+ony nobleman's letter afore this apostate's time&mdash;and he refers that to
+my conscience likewise."</p>
+
+<p>"A faggot to his tail would be ower gude for him," cried Mrs Kilspinnie.</p>
+
+<p>"He preaches against hypocrisy," said his Grace, "the which he also
+refers to my conscience&mdash;conscience again! Hae, Davie, tak thir
+<a name='TC_1'></a><ins title="Was chishmaclavers">clishmaclavers</ins> to Andrew Oliphant. It'll be spunk to his zeal. We maun
+strike our adversaries wi' terror, and if we canna wile them back to the
+fold, we'll e'en set the dogs on them. Kind Mistress Kilspinnie, help me
+frae the stoup o' sherries, for I canna but say that this scalded heart
+I hae gotten frae that auld shavling-gabbit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Hielander has raised my
+corruption, and I stand in need, my lambie, o' a' your winsome
+comforting."</p>
+
+<p>At which words Sir David came forth the chamber with the letter in his
+hand; but seeing my grandfather, whom it would seem he had forgotten, he
+went suddenly back and said to his Grace,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Please you, my Lord, I hae brought with me a young man of a good
+capacity and a ripe understanding that I would commend to your Grace's
+service. He is here in the outer room waiting your Grace's pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"Davie Hamilton," replied the Archbishop, "ye sometimes lack discretion.
+What for did ye bring a stranger into this house&mdash;knowing, as ye ought
+to do, that I ne'er come hither but when I'm o' a sickly frame, in need
+o' solace and repose? Howsever, since the lad's there, bid him come
+ben."</p>
+
+<p>Upon this, Sir David came out and beckoned my grandfather to go in; and
+when he went forward, he saw none in that inner chamber but his Grace
+and the Mrs Kilspinnie, with whom he was sitting on a bedside before a
+well-garnished table, whereon was divers silver flagons, canisters of
+comfits, and goblets of the crystal of Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>He looked sharp at my grandfather, perusing him from head to foot, who
+put on for the occasion a face of modesty and reverence, but he was none
+daunted, for all his eyes were awake, and he took such a cognition of
+his Grace as he never afterwards forgot. Indeed, I have often heard him
+say that he saw more of the man in the brief space of that interview
+than of others in many intromissions, and he used to depict him to me as
+a hale, black-avised carl, of an o'ersea look, with a long dark beard
+inclining to grey; his abundant hair, flowing down from his cowl, was
+also clouded and streaked with the kithings of the cranreuch of age.
+There was, however, a youthy and luscious twinkling in his eyes, that
+showed how little the passage of three-and-fifty winters had cooled the
+rampant sensuality of his nature. His right leg, which was naked, though
+on the foot was a slipper of Spanish leather, he laid o'er Mistress
+Kilspinnie's knees as he threw himself back against the pillar of the
+bed, the better to observe and converse with my grandfather; and she,
+like another Delilah, began to prattle it with her fingers, casting at
+the same time glances, unseen by her papistical paramour,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> towards my
+grandfather, who, as I have said, was a comely and well-favoured young
+man.</p>
+
+<p>After some few questions as to his name and parentage, the prelate said
+he would give him his livery, being then anxious, on account of the
+signs of the times, to fortify his household with stout and valiant
+youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his
+<a name='TC_2'></a><ins title="Was land">hand</ins> on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather
+said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious
+hirkos, then wantoning so openly with his adulterous concubine, for no
+better was Mistress Kilspinnie, her husband, a creditable man, being
+then living, and one of the bailies of Crail. Nor is it to be debated
+that the scene was such as ought not to have been seen in a Christian
+land; but in those days the blasphemous progeny of the Roman harlot were
+bold with the audacious sinfulness of their parent, and set little store
+by the fear of God or the contempt of man. It was a sore trial and a
+struggle in the bosom of my grandfather that day to think of making a
+show of homage and service towards the mitred Belial and high priest of
+the abominations wherewith the realm was polluted, and when he rose from
+under his paw he shuddered, and felt as if he had received the foul erls
+of perdition from the Evil One. Many a bitter tear he long after shed in
+secret for the hypocrisy of that hour, the guilt of which was never
+sweetened to his conscience, even by the thought that he maybe thereby
+helped to further the great redemption of his native land in the blessed
+cleansing of the Reformation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sir David Hamilton conducted my grandfather back through the garden and
+the sallyport to the castle, where he made him acquainted with his
+Grace's seneschal, by whom he was hospitably entertained when the knight
+had left them together, receiving from him a cup of hippocras and a
+plentiful repast, the like of which, for the savouriness of the viands,
+was seldom seen out of the howfs of the monks.</p>
+
+<p>The seneschal was called by name Leonard Meldrum,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> and was a most douce
+and composed character, well stricken in years, and though engrained
+with the errors of papistry, as was natural for one bred and cherished
+in the house of the speaking horn of the Beast, for such the high priest
+of St Andrews was well likened to, he was nevertheless a man of a humane
+heart and great tenderness of conscience.</p>
+
+<p>The while my grandfather was sitting with him at the board, he lamented
+that the Church, so he denominated the papal abomination, was so far
+gone with the spirit of punishment and of cruelty as rather to shock
+men's minds into schism and rebellion than to allure them back into
+worship and reverence, and to a repentance of their heresies&mdash;a strain
+of discourse which my grandfather so little expected to hear within the
+gates and precincts of the guilty castle of St Andrews that it made him
+for a time distrust the sincerity of the old man, and he was very
+guarded in what he himself answered thereto. Leonard Meldrum was,
+however, honest in his way, and rehearsed many things which had been
+done within his own knowledge against the reformers that, as he said,
+human nature could not abide, nor the just and merciful Heavens well
+pardon.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, from less to more, my grandfather and he fell into frank
+communion, and he gave him such an account of the bloody Cardinal Beaton
+as was most awful to hear, saying that his then present master, with all
+his faults and prodigalities, was a saint of purity compared to that
+rampagious cardinal, the which to hear, my grandfather thinking of what
+he had seen in the lodging of Madam Kilspinnie, was seized with such a
+horror thereat that he could partake no more of the repast before him,
+and he was likewise moved into a great awe and wonder of spirit that the
+Lord should thus, in the very chief sanctuary of papistry in all
+Scotland, be alienating the affections of the servants from their
+master, preparing the way, as it were, for an utter desertion and
+desolation to ensue.</p>
+
+<p>They afterwards talked of the latter end of that great martyr, Mr George
+Wishart, and the seneschal informed him of several things concerning the
+same that were most edifying, though sorrowful to hear.</p>
+
+<p>"He was," said he, "placed under my care, and methinks I shall ever see
+him before me, so meek, so holy, and so goodly was his aspect. He was of
+tall stature, black haired, long bearded, of a graceful carriage,
+elegant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> courteous, and ready to teach. In his apparel he was most
+comely, and in his diet of an abstemious temperance. On the morning of
+his execution, when I gave him notice that he was not to be allowed to
+have the sacrament, he smiled with a holiness of resignation that almost
+melted me to weep. I then invited him to partake of my breakfast, which
+he accepted with cheerfulness, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I will do it very willingly, and so much the rather, because I
+perceive you to be a good Christian, and a man fearing God.'</p>
+
+<p>"I then ordered in the breakfast, and he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I beseech you, for the love you bear to our Saviour, to be silent a
+little while, till I have made a short exhortation, and blessed this
+bread we are to eat.'</p>
+
+<p>"He then spoke about the space of half an hour of our Saviour's death
+and passion, exhorting me, and those who were present with me, to mutual
+love and holiness of life; and giving thanks, brake the bread,
+distributing a part to those about him; then taking a cup, he bade us
+remember that Christ's blood was shed to wash away our sins, and,
+tasting it himself, he handed it to me, and I likewise partook of it:
+then he concluded with another prayer, at the end of which he said, 'I
+will neither drink nor eat any more in this world,' and he forthwith
+entered into an inner chamber where his bed was, leaving us filled with
+admiration and sorrow, and our eyes flowing with tears."</p>
+
+<p>To this the seneschal added, "I fear, I fear, we are soon to have
+another scene of the same sort, for to-morrow the Bishops of Murray, and
+Brechin, and Caithness, with other dignitaries, are summoned to the
+cathedral to sit in judgment on the aged priest of Lunan, that was
+brought hither from Dysart yestereen, and from the head the newfangled
+heresies are making, there's little doubt that the poor auld man will be
+made an example. Woes me! far better would it be an they would make an
+example of the like of the Earls of Argyle and Glencairn, by whom the
+reprobates are so encouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"And is this Mill," inquired my grandfather with diffidence, for his
+heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the
+necessary <a name='TC_3'></a><ins title="Was hyprocrisy">hypocrisy</ins> which the peril he stood in required&mdash;"Is this Mill
+in the castle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry am I to say it," replied the seneschal, "and under<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> my keeping;
+but I darena show him the pity that I would fain do to his grey hairs
+and aged limbs. Some of the monks of the priory are with him just now,
+trying to get him to recant his errors, with the promise of a bein
+provision for the remainder of his days in the abbey of Dunfermline, the
+whilk I hope our blessed Lady will put it into his heart to accept."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust," said my grandfather in the core of his bosom, "that the Lord
+will fortify him to resist the temptation."</p>
+
+<p>This, however, the seneschal heard not, for it was ejaculated inwardly,
+and he subjoined,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When the monks go away, I will take you in to see him, for truly he is
+a sight far more moving to compassion than displeasure, whatsoever his
+sins and heresies may be."</p>
+
+<p>In this manner, for the space of more than an hour, did my grandfather
+hold converse and communion with Leonard Meldrum, in whom, he was often
+heard to say, there was more of the leaven of a sanctified nature than
+in the disposition of many zealous and professing Christians.</p>
+
+<p>When the two shavlings that had been afflicting Master Mill with the
+offer of the wages of Satan were departed from the castle, the seneschal
+rose, and bidding my grandfather to come after him, they went out of the
+room, and traversing a narrow dark passage with many windings, came to
+the foot of a turnpike stair which led up into the sea-tower, so called
+because it stood farthermost of all the castle in the sea, and in the
+chamber thereof they found Master Mill alone, sitting at the window,
+with his ancient and shrivelled lean hand resting on the sole and
+supporting his chin, as he looked through the iron stainchers abroad on
+the ocean that was sleeping in a blessed tranquillity around, all
+glowing and golden with the shimmer of the setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>"How fares it with you?" said the seneschal with a kindly accent;
+whereupon the old man, who had not heard them enter, being tranced in
+his own holy meditations, turned round, and my grandfather said he felt
+himself, when he beheld his countenance, so smitten with awe and
+admiration, that he could not for some time advance a step.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Master Meldrum, and sit ye down by me!" said the godly man.
+"Draw near unto me, for I am a thought hard of hearing. The Lord has of
+late, by steeking the doors and windows of my earthly tabernacle, been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
+admonishing me that the gloaming is come, and the hour of rest cannot be
+far off."</p>
+
+<p>His voice, said my grandfather, was as the sound of a mournful melody,
+but his countenance was brightened with a solemn joyfulness. He was of a
+pale and spiritual complexion; his eyes beamed, as it were, with a
+living light, and often glanced thoughts of heavenly imaginings, even as
+he sat in silence. He was then fourscore and two years old; but his
+appearance was more aged, for his life had been full of suffering and
+poverty; and his venerable hands and skinny arms were heart-melting
+evidences of his ineffectual power to struggle much longer in the
+warfare of this world. In sooth, he was a chosen wheat-ear, ripened and
+ready for the garnels of salvation.</p>
+
+<p>"I have brought, Master Mill," said the seneschal, "a discreet youth to
+see you, not out of a vain curiosity, for he sorrows with an exceeding
+grief that such an aged person should be brought into a state of so
+great jeopardy; but I hope, Master Mill, it will go well with you yet,
+and that ye'll repent and accept the boon that I hae heard was to be
+proffered."</p>
+
+<p>To these words the aged saint made no reply for the space of about a
+minute; at the end of which he raised his hands, and casting his eyes
+heavenward, exclaimed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I thank Thee, O Lord, for the days of sore trial, and want, and hunger,
+and thirst, and destitution which Thou hast been pleased to bestow upon
+me, for by them have I, even now as I stand on the threshold of life,
+been enabled, through Thy merciful heartenings, to set at nought the
+temptations wherewith I have been tempted."</p>
+
+<p>And, turning to the seneschal, he added mildly, "But I am bound to you,
+Master Meldrum, in great obligations, for I know that in the hope you
+have now expressed there is the spirit of much charitableness, albeit
+you discern not the deadly malady that the sin of compliance would bring
+to my poor soul. No, sir, it would na be worth my while now, for world's
+gain, to read a recantation. And, blessed be God, it's no in my power to
+yield, so deeply are the truths of His laws engraven upon the tablet of
+my heart."</p>
+
+<p>They then fell into more general discourse, and while they were
+speaking, a halberdier came into the room with a paper, whereby the
+prisoner was summoned to appear in the cathedral next day by ten
+o'clock, to answer divers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> matters of heresy and schism laid to his
+charge; and the man having delivered the summons, said to the seneschal
+that he was ordered by Sir Andrew Oliphant to bid him refrain from
+visiting the prisoner, and to retire to his own lodging.</p>
+
+<p>The seneschal to this command said nothing, but rose, and my grandfather
+likewise rose. Fain would he have knelt down to beg the blessing of the
+martyr, but the worthy Master Meldrum signified to him with a look to
+come at once away; and when they were returned back into his chamber
+where the repast had been served, he told him that there was a danger of
+falling under the evil thoughts of Oliphant, were he to be seen
+evidencing anything like respect towards prisoners accused of the sin of
+heresy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next day was like a cried fair in St. Andrews. All the country from
+ayont Cupar, and many reformed and godly persons even from Dundee and
+Perth, were gathered into the city to hear the trial of Master Walter
+Mill. The streets were filled with horses and men with whips in their
+hands and spurs at their heels, and there was a great going to and fro
+among the multitude; but, saving in its numbers, the congregation of the
+people was in no other complexion either like a fair or a tryst. Every
+visage was darkened with doure thoughts; none spoke cheerfully aloud;
+but there was whispering and muttering, and ever and anon the auld men
+were seen wagging their heads in sorrow, while the young cried often
+"Shame! shame!" and with vehement gestures clave the air with their
+right hands, grasping their whips and staffs with the vigour of
+indignation.</p>
+
+<p>At last the big bell of the cathedral began to jow, at the doleful sound
+of which there was, for the space of two or three minutes, a silence and
+pause in the multitude as if they had been struck with panic and
+consternation, for till then there was a hope among them that the
+persecutors would relent; but the din of the bell was as the signal of
+death and despair, and the people were soon awakened from their
+astonishment by the cry that "the bishops are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> coming," whereat there
+was a great rush towards the gates of the church, which was presently
+filled, leaving only a passage up the middle aisle.</p>
+
+<p>In the quire a table was spread with a purple velvet cloth, and at the
+upper end, before the high place of the mass, was a stool of state for
+the Archbishop; on each side stood chairs for the Bishops of Murray,
+Brechin and Caithness and his other suffragans, summoned to sit in
+judgment with him.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, armed and wearing the Archbishop's livery, was with
+those that guarded the way for the cruel prelates, and by the pressure
+of the throng in convoying them into their place, he was driven within
+the screen of the quire, and saw and heard all that passed.</p>
+
+<p>When they had taken their seats, Master Mill was brought before them
+from the prior's chamber, whither he had been secretly conducted early
+in the morning, to the end that his great age might not be seen of the
+people to work on their compassion. But, notwithstanding the forethought
+of this device, when he came in, his white hair and his saintly look and
+his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. Even the very legate
+of Antichrist, the Archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was
+evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as
+he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran
+through the church.</p>
+
+<p>On being taken to the bottom of the table and placed fornent the
+Archbishop, Master Mill knelt down and prayed for support in a voice so
+firm and clear and eloquent that all present were surprised, for it rung
+to the farthest corner of that great edifice, and smote the hearts of
+his oppressors as with the dread of a menacing oracle.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Andrew Oliphant, who acted as clerk and chancellor on the occasion,
+began to fret as he heard him thus strengthened of the Lord, and cried
+peevishly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Walter Mill, get up and answer, for you keep my lords here too
+long."</p>
+
+<p>He, however, heeded not this command, but continued undisturbed till he
+had finished his devotion, when he rose and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am bound to obey God more than man, and I serve a mightier Lord than
+yours. You call me Sir Walter, but I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> am only Walter. Too long was I one
+of the Pope's knights; but now say what you have to say."</p>
+
+<p>Oliphant was somewhat cowed by this bold reply, and he bowed down, and
+turning over his papers, read a portion of one of them to himself, and
+then raising his head, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What thinkest thou of priests' marriage?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked bravely towards the bishops, and answered with an
+intrepid voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I esteem marriage a blessed bond, ordained by God, approved by Christ,
+and made free to all sorts of men; but you abhor it, and in the meantime
+take other men's wives and daughters; you vow chastity, and keep it
+not."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather at these words looked unawares towards the Archbishop,
+thinking of what he had seen in the lodging of Mistress Kilspinnie, and
+their eyes chancing to meet, his Grace turned his head suddenly away as
+if he had been rebuked.</p>
+
+<p>Divers other questions were then put by Oliphant touching the
+sacraments, the idolatry of the mass, and transubstantiation, with other
+points concerning bishops and pilgrimages, and the worshipping of God in
+unconsecrated places, to all which Master Mill answered in so brave a
+manner, contrary to the papists, that even Oliphant himself often looked
+reproved and confounded. At last the choler of that sharp weapon of
+persecution began to rise, and he said to him sternly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you will not recant I will pronounce sentence against you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," replied Master Mill, with an apostolic constancy and
+fortitude, "I know that I must die once, and therefore, as Christ said
+to Judas, What thou doest do quickly. You shall know that I will not
+recant the truth, for I am corn and not chaff. I will neither be blown
+away by the wind nor burst with the flail, but will abide both."</p>
+
+<p>At these brave words a sough of admiration sounded through the church,
+but, instead of deterring the prelates from proceeding with their wicked
+purpose, it only served to harden their hearts and to rouse their anger,
+for when they had conferred a few minutes apart, Oliphant was ordered to
+condemn him to the fire, and to deliver him over to the temporal
+magistrates to see execution done.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was the sentence known, than a cry like a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> howl of wrath rose
+from all the people, and the provost of the town, who was present with
+the bailies, hastily quitted the church and fled, abhorring the task,
+and fearful it would be put upon him to see it done, he being also
+bailie of the Archbishop's regalities.</p>
+
+<p>When the sentence was pronounced, the session of the court was
+adjourned, and the bishops, as they were guarded back to the castle,
+heard many a malison from the multitude who were ravenous against them.</p>
+
+<p>The aged martyr being led back to the prior's chamber, was, under cloud
+of night, taken to the castle; but my grandfather saw no more of him,
+nor of Master Meldrum, the seneschal; for there was a great fear among
+the bishops' men that the multitude would rise and attempt a rescue; and
+my grandfather, not being inclined to go so far with his disguise as to
+fight against that cause, took occasion, in the dusk of the evening, to
+slip out of the castle, and to hide himself in the town, being resolved,
+after what he had witnessed, no longer to abide, even as a spy, in a
+service which his soul loathed.</p>
+
+<p>All the night long there was a great commotion in the streets, and
+lights in many houses, and a sound of lamentation mingled with rage. The
+noise was as if some dreadful work was going on. There was no shouting,
+nor any sound of men united together, but a deep and hoarse murmur rose
+at times from the people, like the sound of the bandless waves of the
+sea when they are driven by the strong impulses of the tempest. The
+spirit of the times was indeed upon them, and it was manifest to my
+grandfather that there wanted that night but the voice of a captain to
+bid them hurl their wrath and vengeance against the towers and
+strongholds of the oppressors.</p>
+
+<p>At the dawn of day the garrison of the castle came forth, and, on the
+spot where the martyrdom of Mr George Wishart had been accomplished, a
+stake was driven into the ground, and faggots and barrels of tar were
+placed around it, piled up almost as high as a man; in the middle, next
+to the stake, a place was left for the sufferer.</p>
+
+<p>But when all things were prepared, no rope could be had&mdash;no one in all
+the town would give or sell a cord to help that sacrifice of iniquity,
+nor would any of the magistrates come forth to see the execution done,
+so it was thought for a time that the hungry cruelty of the perse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>cutors
+would be disappointed of its banquet. One Somerville, however, who was
+officer of the Archbishop's guard, bethought himself, in this extremity,
+of the ropes wherewith his master's pavilion was fastened, and he went
+and took the same; and then his men brought forth the aged martyr, at
+the sight of whom the multitude set up a dreadful imprecation, the roar
+and growling groan of which was as if a thousand furious tigresses had
+been robbed of their young. Many of Somerville's halberdiers looked
+cowed, and their faces were aghast with terror; and some cried,
+compassionately, as they saw the blessed old man brought, with his hands
+tied behind him, to the stake, "Recant, recant!"</p>
+
+<p>The monks and friars of the different monasteries, who were all there
+assembled around, took up the word, and bitterly taunting him, cried
+likewise, "Recant, recant and save thyself!" He, however, replied to
+them with an awful austerity,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I marvel at your rage, ye hypocrites, who do so cruelly pursue the
+servants of God. As for me, I am now fourscore and two years old, and by
+course of nature cannot live long; but hundreds shall rise out of my
+ashes who shall scatter you, ye persecutors of God's people."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Andrew Oliphant, who was that day the busiest high priest of the
+horrible sacrifice, at these words pushed him forward into the midst of
+the faggots and fuel around the stake. But, nothing moved by this
+remorseless indignity, the martyr looked for a moment at the pile with a
+countenance full of cheerful resignation, and then requested permission
+to say a few words to the people.</p>
+
+<p>"You have spoken too much," cried Oliphant, "and the bishops are
+exceedingly displeased with what you have said."</p>
+
+<p>But the multitude exclaimed, "Let him be heard! let him speak what he
+pleases! Speak, and heed not Oliphant." At which he looked towards them
+and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dear friends, the cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid
+to my charge, though I acknowledge myself a miserable sinner, but only
+for the defence of the truths of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Old
+and New Testaments."</p>
+
+<p>He then began to pray, and while his eyes were shut, two of Somerville's
+men threw a cord with a running loop round his body, and bound him to
+the stake. The fire was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> then kindled, and at the sight of the smoke the
+multitude uttered a shriek of anguish, and many ran away, unable to bear
+any longer the sight of that woful tragedy. Among others, my grandfather
+also ran, nor halted till he was come to a place under the rocks on the
+south side of the town, where he could see nothing before him but the
+lonely desert of the calm and soundless ocean.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Many a time did my grandfather, in his old age, when all things he spoke
+were but remembrances, try to tell what passed in his bosom while he was
+sitting alone, under those cliffy rocks, gazing on the silent and
+innocent sea, thinking of that dreadful work, more hideous than the
+horrors of winds and waves, with which blinded men, in the lusts of
+their idolatry, were then blackening the ethereal face of heaven; but he
+was ever unable to proceed for the struggles of his spirit and the
+gushing of his tears. Verily it was an awful thing to see that
+patriarchal man overcome by the recollections of his youth; and the
+manner in which he spoke of the papistical cruelties was as the pouring
+of the energy of a new life into the very soul, instigating thoughts and
+resolutions of an implacable enmity against those ruthless adversaries
+to the hopes and redemption of the world, insomuch that, while yet a
+child, I was often worked upon by what he said, and felt my young heart
+so kindled with the live coals of his godly enthusiasm, that he himself
+has stopped in the eloquence of his discourse, wondering at my fervour.
+Then he would lay his hand upon my head, and say, the Lord had not
+gifted me with such zeal without having a task in store for my riper
+years. His words of prophecy, as shall hereafter appear, have greatly
+and wonderfully come to pass. But it is meet that for a season I should
+rehearse what ensued to him, for his story is full of solemnities and
+strange accidents.</p>
+
+<p>Having rested some time on the sea-shore, he rose and walked along the
+toilsome shingle, scarcely noting which way he went&mdash;his thoughts being
+busy with the martyrdom he had witnessed, flushing one moment with a
+glorious indignation, and fainting the next with despondent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> reflections
+on his own friendless state. For he looked upon himself as adrift on the
+tides of the world, believing that his patron, the Earl of Glencairn,
+would to a surety condemn his lack of fortitude in not enduring the
+servitude of the Archbishop, after having been in so miraculous a manner
+accepted into it, even as if Providence had made him a special
+instrument to achieve the discoveries which the Lords of the
+Congregation had then so much at heart. And while he was walking along
+in this fluctuating mood, he came suddenly upon a man who was sitting,
+as he had so shortly before been himself, sad and solitary, gazing on
+the sea. The stranger, on hearing him approach, rose hastily, and was
+moving quickly away; but my grandfather called to him to stop and not to
+be afraid, for he would harm no one.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," said the melancholy man, "that all his Grace's retainers
+were at the execution of the heretic."</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the way in which he uttered the latter clause of
+the sentence that seemed to my grandfather as if he would have made use
+of better and fitter words, and therefore, to encourage him into
+confidence, he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I belong not to his Grace."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, then, that you wear his livery, and that I saw you, with Sir
+David Hamilton, enter the garden of that misguided woman?"</p>
+
+<p>He could proceed no farther, for his heart swelled, and his utterance
+was for a while stifled, he being no other than the misfortunate Bailie
+of Crail, whose light wife had sunk into the depravity of the
+Archbishop's lemane. She had been beguiled away from him and her five
+babies, their children, by the temptations of a Dominican, who, by habit
+and repute, was pandarus to his Grace, and the poor man had come to try
+if it was possible to wile her back.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was melted with sorrow to see his great affection for the
+unworthy concubine, calling to mind the scene of her harlotry and wanton
+glances, and he reasoned with him on the great folly of vexing his
+spirit for a woman so far lost to all shame and given over to iniquity.
+But still the good man of Crail would not be persuaded, but used many
+earnest entreaties that my grandfather would assist him to see his wife,
+in order that he might remonstrate with her on the eternal perils in
+which she had placed her precious soul.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, though much moved by the importunity of that weak,
+honest man, nevertheless withstood his entreaties, telling him that he
+was minded to depart forthwith from St Andrews, and make the best of his
+way back to Edinburgh, and so could embark in no undertaking whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Discoursing on that subject in this manner, they strayed into the
+fields, and being wrapt up in their conversation, they heeded not which
+way they went, till, turning suddenly round the corner of an orchard,
+they saw the castle full before them, about half a mile off, and a dim
+white vapour mounting at times from the spot, still surrounded by many
+spectators, where the fires of martyrdom had burnt so fiercely.
+Shuddering and filled with dread, my grandfather turned away, and seeing
+several countrymen passing, he inquired if all was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said they, "and the soldiers are slockening the ashes; but a' the
+waters of the ocean-sea will never quench in Scotland the flame that was
+kindled yonder this day."</p>
+
+<p>The which words they said with a proud look, thinking my grandfather, by
+his arms and gabardine, belonged to the Archbishop's household; but the
+words were as manna to his religious soul, and he gave inward praise and
+thanks that the selfsame tragical means which had been devised to
+terrify the reformers was thus, through the mysterious wisdom of
+Providence, made more emboldening than courageous wine to fortify their
+hearts for the great work that was before them.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, however, farther passed; but, changing the course of their
+walk, my grandfather and the sorrowful Master Kilspinnie&mdash;for so the
+poor man of Crail was called&mdash;went back, and, entering the bow at the
+Shoegate, passed on towards a vintner's that dwelt opposite to the
+convent of the Blackfriars; for the day was by this time far advanced,
+and they both felt themselves in need of some refreshment.</p>
+
+<p>While they were sitting together in the vintner's apartment, a stripling
+came several times into the room, and looked hard at my grandfather, and
+then went away without speaking. This was divers times repeated, and at
+last it was so remarkable that even Master Kilspinnie took notice of
+him, observing, that he seemed as if he had something very particular to
+communicate, if an opportunity served,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> offering at the same time to
+withdraw, to leave the room clear for the youth to tell his errand.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather's curiosity was, by this strange and new adventure to
+him, so awakened, that he thought what his companion proposed a discreet
+thing; so the honest Bailie of Crail withdrew himself, and, going into
+the street, left my grandfather alone.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner was he gone out of the house than the stripling, who had been
+sorning about the door, again came in, and, coming close up to my
+grandfather's ear, said, with a significance not to be misconstrued,
+that if he would follow him he would take him to free quarters, where he
+would be more kindly entertained.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, though naturally of a quiet temperament, was
+nevertheless a bold and brave youth, and there was something in the
+mystery of this message&mdash;for such he rightly deemed it&mdash;that made him
+fain to see the end thereof. So he called in the vintner's wife and paid
+her the lawin', telling her to say to the friend who had been with him,
+when he came back, that he would soon return.</p>
+
+<p>The vintner's wife was a buxom and jolly dame, and before taking up the
+money, she gave a pawkie look at the stripling, and as my grandfather
+and he were going out at the door, she hit the gilly a bilf on the back,
+saying it was a ne'er-do-weel trade he had ta'en up, and that he wasna
+blate to wile awa' her customers, crying after him, "I redde ye warn
+your madam that gin she sends you here again, I'll maybe let his Grace
+ken that her cauldron needs clouting." However, the graceless gilly but
+laughed at the vintner's wife, winking as he patted the side of his nose
+with his fore-finger, which testified that he held her vows of vengeance
+in very little reverence; and then he went on, my grandfather following.</p>
+
+<p>They walked up the street till they came to the priory yett, when,
+turning down a wynd to the left, he led my grandfather along between two
+dykes, till they were come to a house that stood by itself within a fair
+garden. But instead of going to the door in an honest manner, he bade
+him stop, and going forward he whistled shrilly, and then flung three
+stones against a butt, that was standing at the corner of the house on a
+gauntrees to kep rain water from the spouting image of a stone puddock
+that vomited what was gathered from the roof in the rones, and soon
+after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> an upper casement was opened, and a damsel looked forth; she
+however said nothing to the stripling, but she made certain signs which
+he understood, and then she drew in her head, shutting the casement
+softly, and he came back to my grandfather, to whom he said it was not
+commodious at that time for him to be received into the house, but if he
+would come back in the dark, at eight o'clock, all things would be ready
+for his reception.</p>
+
+<p>To this suggestion my grandfather made no scruple to assent, but
+promised to be there; and he bargained with the lad to come for him,
+giving him at the same time three placks for a largess. He then returned
+to the vintner's, where he found the Crail man sitting waiting for him;
+and the vintner's wife, when she saw him so soon back, jeered him, and
+would fain have been jocose, which he often after thought a woful
+immorality, considering the dreadful martyrdom of a godly man that had
+been done that day in the town; but at the time he was not so over
+strait-laced as to take offence at what she said; indeed, as he used to
+say, sins were not so heinous in those papistical days as they
+afterwards became, when men lost faith in penance, and found out the
+perils of purchased pardons.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+
+<p>My grandfather having, as I have told, a compassion for the silly
+affection wherewith the honest man of Crail still regarded his wanton
+wife, told him the circumstantials of his adventure with the stripling;
+without, however, letting wot he had discovered that the invitation was
+from her; the which was the case, for the damsel who looked out at the
+window was no other than the giglet he had seen in her lodging when he
+went thither with Sir David Hamilton, and he proposed to the
+disconsolate husband that he should be his friend in the adventure;
+meaning thereby to convince the unhappy man, by the evidence of his own
+eyes and ears, that her concubinage with the Antichrist was a blessed
+riddance to him and his family.</p>
+
+<p>At first Master Kilspinnie had no zest for any such frolic, for so it
+seemed to him, and he began to think my grandfather's horror at the
+martyrdom of the aged saint<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> but a long-fac't hypocrisy; nevertheless he
+was wrought upon to consent; and they sat plotting and contriving in
+what manner they should act their several parts, my grandfather
+pretending great fear and apprehension at the thoughts of himself, a
+stranger, going alone into the traps of a house where there were sic
+forerunners of shame and signs of danger. At last he proposed that they
+should go together and spy about the precincts of the place, and try to
+discover if there was no other entrance or outgate to the house than the
+way by which the stripling conducted him, though well he remembered the
+sallyport, where the fat friar kept watch, eating the pasty.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly they went forth from the vintner's, and my grandfather, as
+if he knew not the way, led his companion round between the priory and
+the sea, till they came near the aforesaid sallyport, when, mounting
+upon a stone, he affected to discover that the house of the madam stood
+in the garden within, and that the sallyport could be no less than a
+back yett thereto.</p>
+
+<p>While they were speaking concerning the same, my grandfather observed
+the wicket open in the gate, and guessing therefrom that it was one
+spying to forewarn somebody within who wanted to come out unremarked, he
+made a sign to his companion, and they both threw themselves flat on the
+ground, and hirsled down the rocks to conceal themselves. Presently the
+gate was opened, and then out came the fat friar, and looked east and
+west, holding the door in his hand; and anon out came his Grace the
+Antichrist, hirpling with a staff in his hand, for he was lame with that
+monkish malady called the gout. The friar then drew the yett to, and
+walked on towards the castle, with his Grace leaning on his arm. In the
+meantime the poor man of Crail was grinding the teeth of his rage at the
+sight of the cause of his sorrow, and my grandfather had a sore struggle
+to keep him down, and prevent him from running wud and furious at the
+two sacerdotal reprobates, for no lightlier could they be called.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without any disclosure on my grandfather's part, did Master
+Kilspinnie come to jealouse that the lemane who had trysted him was no
+other than his own faithless wife, and he smote his forehead and wept
+bitterly, to think how she was become so dreadless in sin. But he vowed
+to put her to shame; so it was covenanted between them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> that in the
+dusk of the evening the afflicted husband should post himself near to
+where they then stood, and that when my grandfather was admitted by the
+other entrance to the house, he should devise some reason for walking
+forth into the garden, and while there admit Master Kilspinnie.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, betimes my grandfather was ready, and the stripling, as had
+been bargained, came for him to the vintner's, and conducted him to the
+house, where, after giving the signals before enumerated, the damsel
+came to the door and gave him admittance, leading him straight to the
+inner chamber before described, where her mistress was sitting in a
+languishing posture, with the table spread for a banquet.</p>
+
+<p>She embraced my grandfather with many fond protestations, and filled him
+a cup of hot malvesie, while her handmaid brought in divers savoury
+dishes; but he, though a valiant young man, was not at his ease, and he
+thought of the poor husband and the five babies that the adultress had
+left for the foul love of the papist high-priest, and it was a chaste
+spell and a restraining grace. Still he partook a little of the rich
+repast which had been prepared, and feigned so long a false pleasance,
+that he almost became pleased in reality. The dame, however, was herself
+at times fearful, and seemed to listen if there was any knocking at the
+door, telling my grandfather that his Grace was to be back after he had
+supped at the castle. "I thought," said she, "to have had you here when
+he was at the burning of the heretic, but my gilly could not find you
+among the troopers till it was owre late; for when he brought you my
+Lord had come to solace himself after the execution. But I was so
+nettled to be so baulked, that I acted myself into an anger till I got
+him away, not, however, without a threat of being troubled with him
+again at night."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had madam said this, when my grandfather started up and feigned
+to be in great terror, begging her to let him hide himself in the garden
+till his Grace was come and gone. To this, with all her blandishments,
+the guilty woman made many obstacles, but he was fortified of the Lord
+with the thoughts of her injured children, and would not be entreated,
+but insisted on scogging himself in the garden till the Archbishop was
+sent away, the hour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> of his coming being then near at hand. Seeing him
+thus peremptory, Madam Kilspinnie was obligated to conform; so he was
+permitted to go into the garden, and no sooner was he there than he went
+to the sallyport and admitted her husband; and well it was that he had
+been so steadfast in his purpose, for scarcely were they moved from the
+yett into a honeysuckle bower hard by when they heard it again open, and
+in came his Grace with his corpulent pandarus, who took his seat on the
+bench before spoken of, to watch, while his master went into the house.</p>
+
+<p>The good Bailie of Crail breathed thickly, and he took my grandfather by
+the hand, his whole frame trembling with a passion of grief and rage. In
+the lapse of some four or five minutes, the giglet damsel came out of
+the house, and by the glimpse of a light from a window as she passed
+they saw she had a tankard of smoking drink in her hand, with which she
+went to the friar; and my grandfather and his companion, taking
+advantage of this, slipped out of their hiding-place and stole softly
+into the house and reached the outer chamber that was parted from
+madam's banquet bower by the arras partition. There they stopped to
+listen, and heard her complaining in a most dolorous manner of great
+heart-sickness, ever and anon begging the deluded prelate Hamilton to
+taste the feast she had prepared for him, in the hope of being able to
+share it with him and the caresses of his sweet love, to which his Grace
+as often replied, with great condolence and sympathy, how very grieved
+he was to find her in that sad and sore estate, with many other fond
+cajoleries, most odious to my grandfather to hear from a man so far
+advanced in years, and who, by reason of the reverence of his office,
+ought to have had his tongue schooled to terms of piety and temperance.</p>
+
+<p>The poor husband meanwhile said nothing, but my grandfather heard his
+heart panting audibly, and three or four times he was obligated to brush
+away his hand, for, having no arms himself, the bailie clutched at the
+hilt of his sword and would have drawn it from the scabbard.</p>
+
+<p>The Antichrist, seeing his lemane in such great malady as she so well
+feigned, he at last, to her very earnest supplication, consented to
+leave her that night, and kissed her as he came away; but her husband
+broke in upon them with the rage of a hungry lion, and seizing his
+Grace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> by the cuff of the neck, swung him away from her with such
+vehemence that he fell into the corner of the room like a sack of duds.
+As for madam, she uttered a wild cry, and threw herself back on the
+couch where she was sitting and seemed as if she had swooned, having no
+other device so ready to avoid the upbraidings and just reproaches of
+her spouse. But she was soon roused from that fraudulent dwam by my
+grandfather, who, seizing a flagon of wine, dashed it upon her face.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mrs Kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attempted
+to run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and my
+grandfather was empowered, by a signal grant of great presence of mind
+to think that the noise might cause alarm, whereupon he sprang instanter
+to the door that led into the garden just as the damsel was coming up,
+and the fat friar hobbling as fast as he could behind her; and he had
+but time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quiet
+in the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. She, on
+hearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closed
+and bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which he
+had been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, he
+returned to the scene of commotion.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the prelatic dragon that was so ravished from the woman
+had hastily risen upon his legs, and, red with a dreadful wrath, raged
+as if he would have devoured her husband. In sooth, to do his Grace
+justice, he lacked not the spirit of a courageous gentleman, and he
+could not, my grandfather often said, have borne himself more proudly
+and valiantly had he been a belted knight, bred in camps and fields of
+war, so that a discreet retreat and evasion of the house was the best
+course they could take. But Master Kilspinnie fain would have continued
+his biting taunts to the mistress, who was enacting a most tragical
+extravagance of affliction and terror. My grandfather, however, suddenly
+cut him short, crying, "Come, come, no more of this; an alarm is given,
+and we must save ourselves." With that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> he seized him firmly by the arm,
+and in a manner harled him out of the house and into the lane between
+the dykes, along which they ran with nimble heels. On reaching the
+Showgate they slackened their speed, still, however, walking as fast as
+they could till they came near the port, when they again drew in the
+bridle of their haste, going through among the guards that were
+loitering around the door of the wardroom, and passed out into the
+fields as if they had been indifferent persons.</p>
+
+<p>On escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along the
+road, who, by their discourse, were returning home to Cupar, and they
+walked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where my
+grandfather, giving Master Kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one that
+went to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road to
+Dysart and Crail.</p>
+
+<p>"This will ne'er do," said Master Kilspinnie, "they will pursue us this
+gait."</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped and
+conferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experience
+and foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was all
+his days protected. For it was in a manner revealed to him that he
+should throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in the
+castle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that they
+should turn back and cross the Cupar road, and go along the other, which
+led to the Dundee waterside ferry. This he told to his fearful
+companion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heard
+anybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himself
+among the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear they
+were not two persons in company together.</p>
+
+<p>But they had not long crossed the Cupar road and travelled the one
+leading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of horsemen
+coming after them, at which the honest man of Crail darted aside and lay
+flat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began to
+lilt as blithely as he could, "The Bonny Lass of Livingston," and the
+spring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words he
+then sang was an auld, ranting, godless and graceless ditty of the
+grooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+closer that the horsemen came he was strengthened to sing the louder and
+the clearer.</p>
+
+<p>"Saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of the
+pursuers, pulling up.</p>
+
+<p>"What like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Ane of them was o' his Grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other,
+curse tak me gin I ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provost
+of a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly."</p>
+
+<p>To this my grandfather answered briskly, "Nae sic twa ha'e past me, but
+as I was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa sturdy loons,
+ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, and
+I hae a thought that they took the road to Crail or Dysart."</p>
+
+<p>"That was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast,
+and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfather
+good-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance was
+there wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the horsemen had gone by, Bailie Kilspinnie came from his
+hiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-lime
+was on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside,
+where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundee
+and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of
+foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain
+with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay
+him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as
+the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat
+for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error
+till they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town,
+letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morning
+by the Perth boat to Dundee, with which Master Kilspinnie was well
+acquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as a
+plaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twice
+a week, and that the morrow was one of the days. All this they were
+enabled to do with such fortitude and decorum that no one aboard the
+Perth boat could have divined that they were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> honest men in great
+trouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat.</p>
+
+<p>But nothing showed more that Providence had a hand in all this than what
+ensued, for all the passengers in the boat had been at St Andrews to
+hear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehement
+not only in their condemnation of the mitred Antichrist, but grieved
+with a sincere sorrow that none of the nobles of Scotland would stand
+forth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race of
+oppressors more grievous than the Southrons that trode on the neck of
+their fathers in the hero-stirring times of the Wallace wight and King
+Robert the Bruce. Truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation in
+the company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour to
+avenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were daily
+growing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made the
+shores ring with the olden song of&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"O for my ain king, quo' gude Wallace,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The rightfu' king of fair Scotlan';<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between me and my sovereign dear<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I think I see some ill seed sawn."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It was the grey of the morning before they reached Perth, and as soon as
+they were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to the
+house of one Sawners Ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he had
+dealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them with
+breakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that had
+fallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of Scoone
+taking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, against
+all that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. And he counselled
+them not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on to
+Edinburgh by the Queensferry, but to hasten up the country to Crieff and
+thence take the road to Stirling. In this there was much prudence, but
+Bailie Kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children,
+whom he had left at his home in Crail, fearing that the talons of
+Antichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he was
+given up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that Baal, for so
+he nicknamed the prelatic Hamilton, would impute to him the
+unpardon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>able sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned to
+bring him to the stake.</p>
+
+<p>But Sawners Ruthven comforted him with the assurance that his Grace
+would not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how Mistress
+Kilspinnie then lived at St Andrews as his concubine. Nevertheless, the
+poor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my grandfather travelled
+towards Crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth in
+its grief that the right arm of the Lord might soon be manifested
+against the Roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruption
+naught in the nostrils of Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revenge
+mixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchable
+a manner against the Beast and its worshippers, for in the history of
+the honest man of Crail there was a great similitude to other foul and
+worse things which the Roman idolaters seemed to regard among their
+pestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dread
+of any earthly retribution.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+
+<p>My grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but
+instead of going to Stirling they crossed the river at Alloa, and so
+passed by the water-side way to Edinburgh, where, on entering the
+West-port, they separated. The bailie, who was a fearful man and in
+constant dread and terror of being burned as a heretic for having broke
+in upon the dalliance of his incontinent wife and the carnal-minded
+primate of St Andrews, went to a cousin of his own, a dealer in serge
+and temming in the Lawnmarket, with whom he concealed himself for some
+weeks, but my grandfather proceeded straight towards the lodging of the
+Earl of Glencairn to recount to his lordship the whole passages of what
+he had been concerned in, from the night that he departed from his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>It was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely
+tarried on their journey that they might enter Edinburgh at dusk. The
+shops of the traders were shut, for in those days there was such a
+resort of sorners<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> and lawless men among the trains of the nobles and
+gentry that it was not safe for honest merchants to keep their shops
+open after nightfall. Nevertheless the streets were not darkened, for
+there were then many begging-boxes, with images of the saints, and
+cruisies burning afore them, in divers parts of the High Street and
+corners of the wynds, insomuch that it was easy, as I have heard my
+grandfather tell, to see and know anyone passing in the light thereof.
+And, indeed, what befel himself was proof of it, for as he was coming
+through St Giles' Kirkyard, which is now the Parliament Close, and
+through which at that time there was a style and path for passengers, a
+young man, whom he had observed following him, came close up just as he
+reached a begging image of the Virgin Mary with its lamp that stood on a
+pillar at the south-east corner of the cathedral, and touching him on
+the left shoulder at that spot made him look round in such a manner that
+the light of the Virgin's lamp fell full on his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Dinna be frighted," said the stranger, "I ken you, and I'm in Lord
+Glencairn's service; but follow me and say nothing."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was not a little startled by this salutation; he,
+however, made no observe, but replied, "Go on, then."</p>
+
+<p>So the stranger went forward, and, after various turnings and windings,
+led him down into the Cowgate and up a close on the south side thereof,
+and then to a dark timber stair that was so frail and creaking and
+narrow that his guide bade him haul himself up with the help of a rope
+that hung down dangling for that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>When they had raised themselves to the stairhead, the stranger opened a
+door and they went together into a small and lonesome chamber, in the
+chimla-nook of which an old iron cruisie was burning with a winking and
+wizard light.</p>
+
+<p>"I hae brought you here," said his conductor, "for secrecy, for my Lord
+disna want that ye should be seen about his lodging. I'm ane of three
+that hae been lang seeking you, and, as a token that ye're no deceived,
+I was bade to tell you that before parting from my lord he gi'ed you two
+pieces of gold out of his coffer in the chamber where he supped."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My grandfather thought this very like a proof that he had been so
+informed by the Earl himself, but happening to remark that he sat with
+his back to the light and kept his face hidden in the shadow of the
+darkness, Providence put it into his head to jealouse that he might
+nevertheless be a spy, one perhaps that had been trusted in like manner
+as he had himself been trusted, and who had afterwards sold himself to
+the perdition of the adversaries' cause; he was, accordingly, on his
+guard, but replied with seeming frankness that it was very true he had
+received two pieces of gold from the Earl at his departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the young man, "by that token ye may know that I am in the
+private service of the Earl, who, for reasons best known to himsel',
+hath willed that you should tell me, that I may report the same secretly
+to him, what espionage you have made."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was perplexed by this speech, but distrust having crept
+into his thoughts, instead of replying with a full recital of all his
+adventures, he briefly said that he had indeed effected nothing, for his
+soul was sickened by the woful martyrdom of the godly Master Mill to so
+great a disease that he could not endure to abide in St Andrews, and
+therefore he had come back.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have been long on the way&mdash;how is that?&mdash;it is now many days
+since the burning," replied the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"You say truly," was my grandfather's answer, "for I came round by
+Perth, but I tarried at no place longer than was needful to repair and
+refresh nature."</p>
+
+<p>"Perth was a wide bout gait to take frae St Andrews to come to
+Edinburgh. I marvel how ye went so far astray," said the young man,
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"In sooth it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the
+godly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that I could do the
+Earl no manner of service, I wist not well what course to take, so after
+meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty of purpose I e'en
+resolved to come hither."</p>
+
+<p>Little more passed; the young man rose and said to my grandfather he
+feared the Earl would be so little content with him that he had better
+not go near him but seek some other master. And when they had descended
+the stair and were come into the street he advised him to go to the
+house of a certain Widow Rippet, that let dry lodgings in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> the
+Grass-market, and roost there for that night. The which my grandfather
+in a manner signified he would do, and so they parted.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger at first walked soberly away, but he had not gone many
+paces when he suddenly turned into a close leading up to the
+High-street, and my grandfather heard the pattering of his feet running
+as swiftly as possible, which confirmed to him what he suspected; and
+so, instead of going towards the Widow Rippet's house he turned back and
+went straight on to St Mary's Wynd, where the Earl's lodging was, and
+knocking at the yett was speedily admitted and conducted instanter to my
+Lord's presence, whom he found alone reading many papers which lay on a
+table before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Gilhaize," said the Earl, "how is this? why have you come back? and
+wherefore is it that I have heard no tidings from you?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon my grandfather recounted to him all the circumstantials which
+I have rehearsed, from the hour of his departure from Edinburgh up till
+the very time when he then stood in his master's presence. The Earl made
+no inroad on his narrative while he was telling it, but his countenance
+often changed and he was much moved at different passages&mdash;sometimes
+with sorrow and sometimes with anger; and he laughed vehemently at the
+mishap which had befallen the grand adversary of the Congregation and
+his concubine. The adventure, however, with the unknown varlet in the
+street appeared to make his Lordship very thoughtful, and no less than
+thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those
+barren answers which I have already recited; to all which he received
+the most solemn asseverations that no more was said. His Lordship then
+sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows
+bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp thought. At last he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gilhaize, you have done better in this than I ought to have expected of
+one so young and unpractised. The favour you won with Sir David Hamilton
+was no more than I thought your looks and manners would beget. But you
+are not only well-favoured but well-fortuned; and had you not found
+yourself worthily bound to your duty I doubt not you might have
+prospered in the Archbishop's household. The affair with Madam
+Kilspinnie was a thing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> I reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved
+yourself not only a very Joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years
+that your merits deserve more commendation than I can afford to give,
+for I have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and
+discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that
+Judas Iscariot, Winterton, for so I doubt not is the traitor who waylaid
+you. He was once in my service and is now in the Queen Regent's. In
+sending off my men on errands similar to yours, I was wont to give them
+two pieces of gold, and this the false loon has gathered to be a custom
+from others as well as by his own knowledge, and he has made it the key
+to open the breasts of my servants. To know this, however, is a great
+discovery. But, Gilhaize, not to waste words, you have your master's
+confidence. Go, therefore, I pray you, with all speed to the Widow
+Rippet's and do as Winterton bade you and as chance may require. In the
+morning come again hither, for I have this night many weighty affairs,
+and you have shown yourself possessed of a discerning spirit, that may,
+in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good
+Scotchmen."</p>
+
+<p>In saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the
+shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was
+sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So
+my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the
+Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five
+discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to
+sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his
+heart was grieved with pain to see Winterton come in, and behind him the
+two simple lads of Lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it
+appeared, the varlet had seduced from the Earl of Glencairn's service
+and inveigled into the Earl of Seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same
+wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my
+grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two Lithgow
+lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he
+too should make himself like them. He feigned, however, great weariness,
+and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so
+young a man as he saw in Winterton. So, after partaking with them of
+some spiced ale which Winterton brought from the Saluta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>tion tavern,
+opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep,
+and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. But when they were gone,
+and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but
+only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure
+concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes,
+and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the
+world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and
+become lewd and godless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid
+half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose,
+and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's
+lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their
+master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while
+they were speaking, the Earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber,
+called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early,
+and being informed thereof, he went into his master, and afterwards came
+again and desired my grandfather to walk up, and conducted him to his
+Lordship, whom he found on his couch, but not undressed, and who said to
+him on his entering, when the page had retired,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad, Gilhaize, that you have come thus early, for I want a trusty
+man to go forthwith into the west country. What I wish you to do cannot
+be written, but you will take this ring;" and he took one from the
+little finger of his right hand, on the gem of which his cipher was
+graven, and gave it to my grandfather. "On showing it to Lord Boyd, whom
+you will find at the Dean Castle, near Kilmarnock, he will thereby know
+that you are specially trusted of me. The message whereof you are the
+bearer is to this effect,&mdash;That the Lords of the Congregation have, by
+their friends in many places, received strong exhortations to step
+forward and oppose the headlong fury of the churchmen; and that they
+have in consequence deemed it necessary to lose no time in ascertaining
+what the strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> of the Reformed may be, and to procure declarations
+for mutual defence from all who are joined in professing the true
+religion of Christ. Should he see meet to employ you in this matter, you
+will obey his orders and instructions, whatsoever they may be."</p>
+
+<p>The Earl then put his hand aneath his pillow and drew out a small
+leathern purse, which he gave to my grandfather, who, in the doing of
+this, observed that he had several other similar purses ready under his
+head. In taking it, my grandfather was proceeding to tell him what he
+had observed at the Widow Rippet's, but his Lordship interrupted him,
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Such things are of no issue now, and your present duty is in a higher
+road; therefore make haste, and God be with you."</p>
+
+<p>With these words, his Lordship turned himself on his couch, and composed
+himself to sleep, which my grandfather, after looking on for about a
+minute or so, observing, came away; and having borrowed a frock and a
+trot-cozey for the journey from one of the grooms of the hall, he went
+straight to Kenneth Shelty's, a noted horse-setter in those days, who
+lived at the West-port, and bargained with him for the hire of a beast
+to Glasgow, though Glasgow was not then the nearest road to Kilmarnock;
+but he thought it prudent to go that way, in case any of the papistical
+emissaries should track his course.</p>
+
+<p>There was, however, a little oversight in this, which did not come to
+mind till he was some miles on the road, and that was the obligation it
+put him under of passing through Lithgow, where he was so well known,
+and where all his kith and kin lived&mdash;there being then no immediate
+route from Edinburgh to Glasgow but by Lithgow. And he debated with
+himself for a space of time whether he ought to proceed, or turn back
+and go the other way, and his mind was sorely troubled with doubts and
+difficulties. At last he considered that it was never deemed wise or
+fortunate to turn back in any undertaking, and besides, having for the
+service of the Saviour left his father's house and renounced his
+parents, like a bird that taketh wing and knoweth the nest where it was
+bred no more, he knit up his ravelled thoughts into resolution, and
+clapping spurs to his horse, rode bravely on.</p>
+
+<p>But when he beheld the towers of the palace, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> steeples of his
+native town, rising before him, many remembrances came rushing to his
+heart, and all the vexations he had suffered there were lost in the
+sunny recollections of the morning of life, when everyone was kind, and
+the eyes of his parents looked on him with the brightness of delight, in
+so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted
+with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his
+fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to
+swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier
+fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his
+nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the
+town without stopping. Scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when
+his horse stumbled and lost a shoe, by which he was not only constrained
+to stop, but to take him to his father's smiddy, which was in sight when
+the mischance happened.</p>
+
+<p>On going to the door, he found, as was commonly the case, a number of
+grooms and flunkies of the courtiers, with certain friars, holding
+vehement discourse concerning the tidings of the time, the burden of
+which was the burning of the aged Master Mill, a thing that even the
+monks durst not, for humanity, venture very strenuously to defend. His
+father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it
+was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the
+sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with
+the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. He replied,
+however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste
+and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before
+his father came.</p>
+
+<p>But, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and
+mother came rushing in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and
+wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the Evil
+One, and beseeching him to stop and repent. His father, however, said
+little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he
+was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from
+a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do
+well for himself and he would do well for his parents. The which
+fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud
+lament and reproaches of his mother; and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> replied that he had entered
+into the service of a nobleman, and was then riding on his master's
+business to Glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father
+inquire. His mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings,
+declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and,
+giving vent to her passion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a
+devil. The very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to
+soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more
+wild, so that all present compassionated my grandfather, who sat silent
+and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready.</p>
+
+<p>But greatly afflicted as he was by this trial, it was nothing to what
+ensued, when, after having mounted, and shaken his father by the hand,
+he galloped away to the West-port. There, on the outside, he was met by
+two women and an old man, parents of the lads whom he had taken with him
+to Edinburgh. Having heard he was at his father's smiddy, instead of
+going thither, they had come to that place, in order that they might
+speak with him more apart, and free from molestation, concerning their
+sons.</p>
+
+<p>One of the women was a poor widow, and she had no other child, nor the
+hope of any other bread-winner for her old age. She, however, said
+nothing, but stood with the corner of her apron at her eyes, sobbing
+very afflictedly, while her friends, on seeing my grandfather coming out
+of the port, stepped forward, and the old man caught the horse by the
+bridle, and said gravely,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye maun stop and satisfy three sorrowful parents! What hae ye done with
+your twa thoughtless companions?"</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather's heart was as if it would have perished in his bosom;
+for the company he had seen the lads with, and the talk they had held,
+and above all their recklessness of principle, came upon him like a
+withering flash of fire. He, however, replied soberly, that he had seen
+them both the night before, and that they were well in health and jocund
+in spirit.</p>
+
+<p>The mother that was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this,
+and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did
+hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever
+been all his days a brisk and a valiant bairn.</p>
+
+<p>But the helpless widow was not content, and she came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> forward drying her
+tears, saying, "And what is my poor fatherless do-na-gude about? I'm
+fearfu, fearfu to be particular; for, though he was aye kind-hearted to
+me, he was easily wised, and I doubt, I doubt he'll prove a blasting or
+a blessing, according to the hands he fa's among."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope and pray," said my grandfather, "that he'll be protected from
+scaith, and live to be a comfort to all his friends." And, so saying, he
+disengaged his bridle with a gentle violence from the old man's hold,
+telling them he could not afford to stop, being timed to reach Glasgow
+that night. So he pricked the horse with his rowals, and shot away; but
+his heart, all the remainder of his day's journey, was as if it had been
+pierced with many barbed arrows, and the sad voice of the poor anxious
+widow rung in his ears like the sound of some doleful knell.</p>
+
+<p>Saving this affair at Lithgow, nothing befell him till he came to the
+gates of Glasgow; by which time it was dark, and the ward and watch set,
+and they questioned him very sharply before giving him admission. For
+the Queen Regent was then sojourning in the castle, and her fears and
+cares were greatly quickened at that time, by rumours from all parts of
+the kingdom concerning the murder, as it was called, of Master Mill. On
+this account the French guards, which she had with her, were instructed
+to be jealous of all untimeous travellers, and they being joined with a
+ward of burghers, but using only their own tongue, caused no small
+molestation to every Scotsman that sought admission after the sun was
+set: for the burghers, not being well versed in military practices, were
+of themselves very propugnacious in their authority, making more ado
+than even the Frenchmen. It happened, however, that there was among
+those valiant traders and craftsmen of Glasgow one Thomas Sword, the
+deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at
+the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out
+of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was
+son to Michael Gilhaize, the Lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in,
+saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when
+young men, in the King's armoury at Stirling; and he told him where he
+lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper,
+for he was glad to see him for his father's sake.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+
+<p>At this time an ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St
+Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had
+been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the
+same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted
+and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or
+their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack
+or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy
+burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of
+their city than did Deacon Sword. So it came to pass, as he was sitting
+at supper with my grandfather, that he enlarged and expatiated on the
+inordinate pretensions of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and took
+occasion to diverge from the prelate's political ambition to speak of
+the enormities of his ecclesiastical government, and particularly of
+that heinous and never-to-be-forgotten act, the burning of an aged man
+of fourscore and two years, whose very heresies, as the deacon
+mercifully said, ought rather to have been imputed to dotage than
+charged as offences.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was well pleased to observe such vigour of principle and
+bravery of character in one having such sway and weight in so great a
+community as to be the chief captain of the crafts who were banded with
+the hammermen, namely, the cartwrights, the saddlers, the masons, the
+coopers, the mariners, and all whose work required the use of
+edge-tools, the hardiest and buirdliest of the trades, and he allowed
+himself to run in with the deacon's humour, but without letting wot
+either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing
+however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be
+growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the Archbishop of
+St Andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the
+horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his
+displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>Deacon Sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which,
+with his public enmity to the challenger of his own Archbishop, made him
+take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to God,
+shaking my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps
+were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not
+wanting five hundred men in Glasgow who would start forward with weapons
+in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of
+the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of
+the law against all offenders as of old. And, giving scope to his
+ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in Glasgow that
+men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the
+churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable
+against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question.</p>
+
+<p>Thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the
+Queen Regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one
+another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the
+Congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of
+the citizens of Glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that
+period troubled the minds and fears of all men.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather was joyfully heartened by what he heard, and before
+coming away from the deacon who, with the hospitality common to his
+townsmen, would fain have had him to prolong their sederunt over the
+gardevine, he said that if Glasgow were as true and valiant as it was
+thought, there could be no doubt that her declaration for the Lords of
+the Congregation would work out a great redress of public wrongs. For,
+from all he could learn and understand, those high and pious noblemen
+had nothing more at heart than to procure for the people the free
+exercise of their right to worship God according to their conscience and
+the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments.</p>
+
+<p>But though over the liquor-cup the deacon had spoken so dreadless and
+like a manly citizen, my grandfather resolved with himself to depart
+betimes for Kilmarnock, in case of any change in his temper.
+Accordingly, he requested the hostler of the hostel where he had taken
+his bed, to which his day's hard journey early inclined him, to have his
+horse in readiness before break of day. But this hostel, which was
+called the Cross of Rhodes, happened to be situated at the Water-port,
+and besides being a tavern and inn, was likewise the great ferryhouse of
+the Clyde<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> when the tide was up, or the ford rendered unsafe by the
+torrents of the speats and inland rains&mdash;the which caused it to be much
+frequented by the skippers and mariners of the barks that traded to
+France and Genoa with the Renfrew salmon, and by all sorts of travellers
+at all times even to the small hours of the morning. In short it was a
+boisterous house, the company resorting thereto of a sort little in
+unison with the religious frame of my grandfather. As soon, therefore,
+as he came from the deacon's, he went to bed without taking off his
+clothes, in order that he might be fit for the road as he intended; and
+his bed being in the public room, with sliding doors, he drew them upon
+him, hoping to shut out some of the din and to win a little repose. But
+scarcely had he laid his head on the pillow when he heard the voice of
+one entering the room, and listening eagerly, he discovered that it was
+no other than the traitor Winterton's, the which so amazed him with
+apprehension that he shook as he lay, like the aspen leaf on the tree.</p>
+
+<p>Winterton called like a braggart for supper and hot wine, boasting he
+had ridden that day from Edinburgh, and that he must be up and across
+his horse by daylight in the morning, as he had need to be in Kilmarnock
+by noon. In this, which vanity made him tell in bravado, my grandfather
+could not but discern a kind Providence admonishing himself, for he had
+no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit of him, and thankful he was that
+he had given no inkling to anyone in the house as to whence he had come
+and where he was going. But had this thought not at once entered his
+head, he would soon have had cause to think it, for while Winterton was
+eating his supper he began to converse with their host, and to inquire
+what travellers had crossed the river. Twice or thrice, in as it were an
+off-hand manner, he spoke of one whom he called a cousin, but, in
+describing his garb, he left no doubt in my grandfather's bosom that it
+was regarding him he seemed at once both so negligent and so anxious.
+Most providential therefore it was that my grandfather had altered his
+dress before leaving Edinburgh, for the marks which Winterton gave of
+him were chiefly drawn from his ordinary garb, and by them their host in
+consequence said he had seen no such person.</p>
+
+<p>When Winterton had finished his repast, and was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> getting his second
+stoup of wine heated, he asked where he was to sleep, to the which
+question the host replied that he feared he would, like others, be
+obligated to make a bench by the fireside his couch, all the beds in the
+house being already bespoke or occupied. "Every one of them is double,"
+said the man, "save only one, the which is paid for by a young man that
+goes off at break of day and who is already asleep."</p>
+
+<p>At this Winterton swore a dreadful oath that he would not sleep by the
+fire after riding fifty miles while there was half a bed in the house,
+and commanded the host to go and tell the young man that he must half
+blankets with him.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather knew that this could only refer to him; so, when their
+host came and opened the sliding doors of the bed, he feigned himself to
+be very fast asleep at the back of the bed, and only groaned in
+drowsiness when he was touched.</p>
+
+<p>"O, let him alane," cried Winterton, "I ken what it is to be tired; so,
+as there's room enough at the stock, when I have drank my posset I'll
+e'en creep in beside him."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, weary as he was, lay panting with apprehension, not
+doubting that he should be speedily discovered; but when Winterton had
+finished his drink and came swaggering and jocose to be his bedfellow,
+he kept himself with his face to the wall, and snored like one who was
+in haste to sleep more than enough, insomuch that Winterton, when he lay
+down, gave him a deg with his elbow and swore at him to be quiet. His
+own fatigue, however, soon mastered the disturbance which my grandfather
+made, and he began himself to echo the noise in defenceless sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>On hearing him thus fettered by sleep, my grandfather began to consider
+with himself what he ought to do, being both afraid and perplexed he
+knew not wherefore; and he was prompted by a power that he durst not and
+could not reason with to rise and escape from the jeopardy wherein he
+then was. But how could this be done, for the house was still open, and
+travellers and customers were continually going and coming. Truly his
+situation was one of great tribulation, and escape therefrom a thing
+seemingly past hope and the unaided wisdom of man.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+
+<p>After lying about the period of an hour in great perturbation, he began
+to grow more collected, and the din and resort of strangers in the house
+also subsided, by which he was enabled, with help from on high, to
+gather his scattered thoughts and to bind them up into the sheaves of
+purpose and resolution. Accordingly, when all was still, and several
+young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being
+occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended
+upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings,
+he rose softly from the side of Winterton, and stepping over him,
+slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he
+went to the stable to take out his horse. It was not his intent to have
+done this, but to have gone up into the streets of the city and walked
+the walls thereof till he thought his adversary was gone, but seeing the
+moon so fair and clear he determined to take his horse and forthwith
+proceed on his journey, for the river was low and fordable, and trintled
+its waters with a silvery sheen in the stillness of the beautiful light.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely, however, had he pulled the latch of the stable door&mdash;even as
+he was just entering in&mdash;when he heard Winterton coming from the house
+rousing the hostler, whom he profanely rated for allowing him to
+oversleep himself. For, wakening just as his bedfellow rose, he thought
+the morning was come and that his orders had been neglected.</p>
+
+<p>In this extremity my grandfather saw no chance of evasion. If he went
+out into the moonshine he would to a surety be discovered, and in the
+stable he would to a certainty be caught. But what could he do and the
+danger so pressing? He had hardly a choice; however, he went into the
+stable, shut the door, and running up to the horses that were farthest
+ben, mounted into the hack, and hid himself among the hay.</p>
+
+<p>In that concealment he was scarcely well down when Winterton, with an
+hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning
+the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle,
+the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> morning,
+and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. To the which
+there was speedy evidence, for on going towards Winterton's horse the
+hostler saw my grandfather's in its stall and told him so.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a glimpse of the lantern fell on the horse's legs, and
+its feet being white, "Oho!" cried Winterton, "let us look here&mdash;Kenneth
+Shelty's Lightfoot&mdash;the very beast; and hae I been in the same hole wi'
+the tod and no kent it. The deil's black collie worry my soul, but this
+is a soople trick. I did nae think the sleekit sinner had art enough to
+play't. Nae doubt he's gane to hide himsel in the town till I'm awa, for
+he has heard what I said yestreen. But I'll be up sides wi' him. The
+de'il a foot will I gang this morning till he comes back for his horse."
+And with these words he turned out of the stable with the hostler and
+went back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner were <a name='TC_4'></a><ins title="Was they they">they</ins> well gone than my grandfather came from his
+hiding-place, and twisting a wisp of straw round his horse's feet, that
+they might not dirl or make a din on the stones, he led it cannily out
+and down to the river's brink, and, there mounting, took the ford, and
+was soon free on the Gorbals side. Riding up the gait at a brisk trot,
+he passed on for a short time along the road that he had been told led
+to Kilmarnock, but fearing he would be followed, he turned off at the
+first wynd he came to on the left, and a blessed thing it was that he
+did so, for it led to the Reformation-leavened town of Paisley, where he
+arrived an hour before daylight. Winterton, little jealousing what had
+happened, went again to bed, as my grandfather afterwards learnt, and
+had fallen asleep. In the morning when he awoke and was told that both
+man and horse were flown, he flayed the hostler's back and legs in more
+than a score of places, believing he had connived at my grandfather's
+secret flight.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather had never before been in the town of Paisley, but he had
+often heard from Abercorn's serving-men that were wont to sorn about his
+father's smiddy, of a house of jovial entertainment by the water-side,
+about a stone-cast from the abbey-yett, the hostess whereof was a
+certain canty dame called Maggy Napier, then in great repute with the
+shavelings of the abbey. Thither he directed his course, the abbey
+towers serving him for her sign, and the moonlight and running river
+were guides to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> her door, at the which he was not blate in chapping. She
+was, however, long of giving entrance, for it happened that some nights
+before the magistrates of the town had been at a carousal with the abbot
+and chapter, the papistical denomination for the seven heads and ten
+horns of a monastery, and when they had come away and were going home,
+one of them, Bailie Pollock, a gaucy widower, was instigated by the
+devil and the wine he had drunk to stravaig towards Maggy Napier's&mdash;a
+most unseemly thing for a bailie to do&mdash;especially a bailie of Paisley,
+but it was then the days of popish sinfulness. And when Bailie Pollock
+went thither the house was full of riotous swankies, who, being the waur
+of drink themselves, had but little reverence for a magistrate in the
+same state, so they handled him to such a degree that he was obliged to
+keep his bed and put collops to his eyes for three days. The consequence
+of which was that the house fell under the displeasure of the Town
+Council, and Maggie was admonished to keep it more orderly and
+doucely&mdash;though the fault came neither from her nor her customers, as
+she told my grandfather, for detaining him so long, it being requisite
+that she should see he was in a condition of sobriety before letting him
+in. But, when admitted, he was in no spirit to enjoy her jocosity
+concerning Bailie Pollock's spree, so he told her that he had come far
+and had far to go, and that having heard sore tidings of a friend, he
+was fain to go to bed and try if he could compose himself with an hour
+or two of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Maggie accordingly refrained from her jocularity, and began to soothe
+and comfort him, for she was naturally of a winsome way, and prepared a
+bed for him with her best sheets, the which, she said, were gi'en her in
+gratus gift frae the Lord Abbot, so that he undressed himself and
+enjoyed a pleasant interregnum of anxiety for more than five hours; and
+when he awoke and was up, he found a breakfast worthy of the abbot
+himself ready, and his hostess was most courtly and kind, praising the
+dainties, and pressing him to eat. Nor when he proposed to reckon with
+her for the lawin would she touch the money, but made him promise, when
+he came back, he would bide another night with her, hoping he would then
+be in better spirits, for she was wae to see so braw a gallant sae
+casten down, doless and dowie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they had settled their contest, and my grandfather had come out to
+mount his beast, which a stripling was holding ready for him at a
+louping-on-stane near the abbey-yett, as he was going thither, a young
+friar, who was taking a morning stroll along the pleasant banks of the
+Cart, approached towards him, and, after looking hard at him for some
+time, called him by name and took him by both the hands, which he
+pressed with a brotherly affection.</p>
+
+<p>This friar was of Lithgow parentage and called Dominick Callender, and
+when he and my grandfather were playing-bairns, they had spent many a
+merry day of their suspicion-less young years together. As he grew up,
+being a lad of shrewd parts, and of a very staid and orderly deportment,
+the monks set their snares for him, and before he could well think for
+himself he was wiled into their traps, and becoming a novice, in due
+season professed himself a monk. But it was some time before my
+grandfather knew him again, for the ruddy of youth had fled his cheek,
+and he was pale and of a studious countenance; and when the first
+sparklings of his pleasure at the sight of his old play-marrow had gone
+off, his eyes saddened into thoughtfulness, and he appeared like one
+weighed down with care and heavy inward dule.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>After Dominick Callender and my grandfather had conversed some time,
+with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the
+gentle friar began to bewail his sad estate in being a professed monk,
+and so mournfully to deplore the rashness with which inexperienced youth
+often takes upon itself a yoke it can never lay down, that the
+compassion of his friend was sorrowfully awakened, for he saw he was
+living a life of bitterness and grief. He heard him, however, without
+making any reply or saying anything concerning his own lot of hazard and
+adventure; for, considering Dominick to be leagued with the papistical
+orders, he did not think him safe to be trusted, notwithstanding the
+unchanged freshness of the loving-kindness which he still seemed to bear
+in his heart; nor even, had he not felt this jealousy, would he have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+thought himself free to speak of his errand, far less to have given to
+any stranger aught that might have been an inkling of his noble master's
+zealous, but secret, stirrings for the weal of Scotland and the
+enfranchisement of the worshippers of the true God.</p>
+
+<p>When my grandfather had arrived at his horse, and prepared to mount,
+Dominick Callender said to him if he would ride slowly for a little way
+he would walk by his side, adding, "For maybe I'll ne'er see you
+again&mdash;I'm a-weary of this way of life, and the signs of the times bode
+no good to the church. I hae a thought to go into some foreign land
+where I may taste the air of a freeman, and I feel myself comforted
+before I quit our auld, hard-favoured but warm-hearted Scotland, in
+meeting wi' ane that reminds me how I had once sunny mornings and summer
+days."</p>
+
+<p>This was said so much in the sincerity of a confiding spirit that my
+grandfather could not refrain from observing, in answer, that he feared
+his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to
+acknowledge that it was so.</p>
+
+<p>"I am speaking to you, Gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld
+langsyne, and I dinna scruple to confess to one that I hae often thought
+of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my
+conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that I am
+now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the Reformed at
+Geneva. And maybe I'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no
+man can deny that the people of Scotland are not inwardly the warm
+adversaries of the church. That last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice
+of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the
+humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of
+the church, and there are few in Paisley whom the burning of auld Mill
+has not kindled with the spirit of resistance."</p>
+
+<p>The latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my
+grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more
+particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he
+gathered that the martyrdom of Master Mill had indeed caused great
+astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not
+only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more
+worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> said that the sense
+of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them,
+and that they were all in all for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But as they were proceeding through the town and along the road,
+conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns,
+Dominick Callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren,
+and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by
+his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest
+pleasures of man. And before they separated, it came out that he had
+been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a
+young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in Paisley,
+and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the
+Egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping
+from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to
+innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his
+brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to
+that fair blossom, the gracious and holy embalmment of her virtues would
+have proved an incorruptible protection.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he exclaimed, with a sorrowful voice, "that which is her glory
+and my admiration and praise is converted by the bondage of my unnatural
+vows into a curse to us both. The felicity that we might have enjoyed
+together in wedded life is forbidden to us as a great crime. But the
+laws of God are above the canons of the church, the voice of Nature is
+louder than the fulminations of the Vatican, and I have resolved to obey
+the one and give ear to the other despite the horrors that await on
+apostacy. Can you, Gilhaize, in aught assist my resolution?"</p>
+
+<p>There was so much vehemence and the passion of grief in these
+ejaculations, that my grandfather wist not well what to say. He told
+him, however, not to be rash in what he did, nor to disclose his intents
+save only to those in whom he could confide, for the times were perilous
+to everyone that slackened in reverence to the papacy, particularly to
+such as had pastured within the chosen folds of the church.</p>
+
+<p>"Bide," said he, "till you see what issue is ordained to come from this
+dreadful deed which so shaketh all the land, making the abbey towers
+topple and tremble to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> oldest and deepest foundations. Truth is
+awakened and gone forth conquering and to conquer. It cannot be that
+ancient iniquities will be much longer endured, the arm of Wrath is
+raised against them, the sword of Revenge is drawn forth from its
+scabbard by Justice, and Nature has burst asunder the cords of the Roman
+harlot and stands in her freedom, like Samson, when the Spirit of the
+Lord was mightily poured upon him, as he awoke from the lap of Delilah."</p>
+
+<p>The gentle friar, as my grandfather often told, stood for some time
+astounded at this speech, and then he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I dreamt not, Gilhaize, that beneath a countenance so calm and comely,
+the zealous fires of a warrior's bravery could have been kindled to so
+vehement a heat. But I will vex you with no questions. Heaven is on your
+side, and may its redeeming promptings never allow its ministers to rest
+till the fetters are broken and the slaves are set free."</p>
+
+<p>With these words he stepped forward to shake my grandfather by the hand
+and to bid him farewell, but just as he came to the stirrup he halted
+and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is not for nothing that the remembrance of you has been preserved so
+much brighter and dearer to me than that of all my kin. There was aye
+something about you in our heedless days that often made me wonder, I
+could not tell wherefore, and now, when I behold you in the prime of
+manhood, it fills me with admiration and awe and makes me do homage to
+you as a master."</p>
+
+<p>Much more he added to the same effect, which the modesty of my
+grandfather would not allow him to repeat; but when they had parted, and
+my grandfather had ridden forward some two or three miles, he recalled
+to mind what had passed between them, and he used to say that this
+discourse with his early friend first opened to him a view of the
+grievous captivity which Nature suffered in the monasteries and
+convents, notwithstanding the loose lives imputed to their inmates; and
+he saw that the Reformation would be hailed by many that languished in
+the bondage of their vows as a great and glorious deliverance. But still
+he was wont to say, even with such as these, it was overly mingled with
+temporal concernments, and that they longed for it less on account of
+its immortal issues than for its sensual emancipations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And as he was proceeding on his way in this frame of mind, and thinking
+on all that he had seen and learnt from the day in which he bade adieu
+to his father's house, he came to a place where the road forked off in
+two different airts, and not knowing which to take, he stopped his horse
+and waited till a man drew nigh whom he observed coming towards him. By
+this man he was told that the road leading leftward led to Kilmarnock
+and Ayr, and the other on the right to Kilwinning; so, without saying
+anything, he turned his horse's head into the latter, the which he was
+moved to do by sundry causes and reasons. First, he had remarked that
+the chances in his journey had, in a very singular manner, led him to
+gain much of that sort of knowledge which the Lords of the Congregation
+thirsted for; and second, he had no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit
+of him to Kilmarnock, for some purpose of frustration or circumvention,
+the which, though he was not able to divine, he could not but consider
+important, if it was, as he thought, the prime motive of that varlet's
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>But he was chiefly disposed to prefer the Kilwinning road, though it was
+several miles more of bout-gait, on account of the rich abbacy in that
+town, hoping he might glean and gather some account how the clergy there
+stood affected, the meeting with Dominick Callender having afforded him
+a vista of friends and auxiliaries in the enemy's camp little thought
+of. Besides all this, he reflected, that as it was of consequence he
+should reach the Lord Boyd in secrecy, he would be more likely to do so
+by stopping at Kilwinning and feeing someone there to guide him to the
+Dean Castle by moonlight. I have heard him say, however, the speakable
+motives of his deviation from the straight road were at the time far
+less effectual in moving him thereto than a something which he could not
+tell, that with an invisible hand took his horse, as it were, by the
+bridle-rings and constrained him to go into the Kilwinning track. In the
+whole of this journey there was indeed a very extraordinary
+manifestation of a special providence, not only in the protection
+vouchsafed towards himself, but in the remarkable accidents and
+occurrences by which he was enabled to enrich himself with the knowledge
+so precious at that time to those who were chosen to work the great work
+of the Gospel in Scotland.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>As my grandfather came in sight of Kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with
+its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of Cunningham
+between it and the sea, it seemed to him as if a huge leviathan had come
+up from the depths of the ocean and was devouring the green inland,
+having already consumed all the herbage of the wide waste that lay so
+bare and yellow for many a mile, desert, and lonely in the silent
+sunshine, and he ejaculated to himself that the frugal soil of poor
+Scotland could ne'er have been designed to pasture such enormities.</p>
+
+<p>As he rode on, his path descended from the heights into pleasant tracks
+along banks feathered with the fragrant plumage of the birch and hazel,
+and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the Garnock
+waters, as they swirled among the <a name='TC_5'></a><ins title="Was peebles">pebbles</ins> by the roadside, the
+pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the
+ignorance of the world to raise such costly monuments of the
+long-suffering patience of Heaven, while they showed how much the divine
+nature of the infinite God and the humility of His eternal Son had been
+forgotten in this land among professing Christians.</p>
+
+<p>When he came nigh the town he inquired for an hostel, and a stripling,
+the miller's son, who was throwing stones at a flock of geese belonging
+to the abbey, then taking their pleasures uninvited in his father's
+mill-dam, guided him to the house of Theophilus Lugton, the chief
+vintner, horse-setter and stabler in the town, where, on alighting, he
+was very kindly received; for the gudewife was of a stirring, household
+nature, and Theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a
+publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in
+his trade but from a disinterested good-will. He was, indeed, as my
+grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great
+respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the
+abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of Irvine, the most
+regular of his customers. For they being then in the darkness of
+papistry, were as much given to the idolatry of holidays and masses as,
+thanks be and praise! they are now to the hunting out of sound gospel
+preachers and sacramental occasions. Many a stoup of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> burnt wine and
+spiced ale they were wont at Pace and Yule and other papistal high times
+to partake of together in the house of Theophilus Lugton, happy and well
+content when their possets were flavoured with the ghostly conversation
+of some gawsie monk well versed in the mysteries of requiems and
+purgatory.</p>
+
+<p>Having parted with his horse to be taken to the stable by Theophilus
+himself, my grandfather walked into the house, and Dame Lugton set for
+him an elbow-chair by the chimla lug, and while she was preparing
+something for a repast they fell into conversation, in the course of
+which she informed him that a messenger had come to the abbey that
+forenoon from Edinburgh, and a rumour had been bruited about soon after
+his arrival that there was great cause to dread a rising among the
+heretics, for, being ingrained with papistry, she so spoke of the
+Reformers.</p>
+
+<p>This news troubled my grandfather not a little, and the more he inquired
+concerning the tidings the more reason he got to be alarmed and to
+suspect that the bearer was Winterton, who being still in the town, and
+then at the abbey&mdash;his horse was in Theophilus Lugton's stable&mdash;he could
+not but think that in coming to Kilwinning instead of going right on to
+Kilmarnock he had run into the lion's mouth. But, seeing it was so, and
+could not be helped, he put his trust in the Lord and resolved to swerve
+in no point from the straight line which he had laid down for himself.</p>
+
+<p>While he was eating of Dame Lugton's fare with the relishing sauce of a
+keen appetite, in a manner that no one who saw him could have supposed
+he was almost sick with a surfeit of anxieties, one James Coom, a smith,
+came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale, and he, seeing a traveller, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thir's sair news! The drouth of cauld iron will be slockened in men's
+blood ere we hear the end o't."</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed," replied my grandfather, "it's very alarming; Lucky, here, has
+just been telling me that there's likely to be a straemash among the
+Reformers. Surely they'll ne'er daur to rebel."</p>
+
+<p>"If a' tales be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the
+froth from the cap in which Dame Lugton handed him the ale, and taking a
+right good-willy waught.</p>
+
+<p>"But what's said?" inquired my grandfather, when the smith had fetched
+his breath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Naebody can weel tell," was his response; "a' that's come this length
+is but the sough afore the storm. Within twa hours there has been a
+great riding hither and yon, and a lad straight frae Embro' has come to
+bid my Lord Abbot repair to the court; and three chiels hae been at me
+frae Eglinton Castle to get their beast shod for a journey. My Lord
+there is hyte and fykie; there's a gale in his tail, said they, light
+where it may. Now, atween oursels, my Lord has na the heart of a true
+bairn to that aged and worthy grannie of the papistry, our leddy the
+Virgin Mary&mdash;here's her health, poor auld deaf and dumb creature&mdash;she
+has na, I doubt, the pith to warsle wi' the blast she ance in a day
+had."</p>
+
+<p>"Haud that heretical tongue o' thine, Jamie Coom," exclaimed Dame
+Lugton. "It's enough to gaur a body's hair stand on end to hear o' your
+familiarities wi' the Holy Virgin. I won'er my Lord Abbot has na
+langsyne tethert thy tongue to the kirk door wi' a red-het nail for sic
+blasphemy. But fools are privileged, and so's seen o' thee."</p>
+
+<p>"And wha made me familiar wi' her, Dame Lugton, tell me that?" replied
+James; "was na it my Lord himself at last Marymas, when he sent for me
+to make a hoop to mend her leg that sklintered aff as they were dressing
+her for the show. Eh! little did I think that I was ever to hae the
+honour and glory of ca'ing a nail intil the timber hip o' the Virgin
+Mary! Ah, Lucky, ye would na hae tholed the dirl o' the dints o' my
+hammer as she did. But she's a saint, and ye'll ne'er deny that ye're a
+sinner."</p>
+
+<p>To this Dame Lugton was unable to reply, and the smith, cunningly
+winking, dippet his head up to the lugs in the ale-cap.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said my grandfather, "no to speak wi' disrespeck of things
+considered wi' reverence, it does na seem to me that there is ony cause
+to think the Reformers hae yet rebelled."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure," replied the smith, "if they hae na they ought, or the de'il
+a spunk's amang them. Isna a' the monks frae John o' Groat's to the
+Border getting ready their spits and rackses, frying-pans and branders
+to cook them like capons and doos for Horney's supper? I never hear my
+ain bellows snoring at a gaud o' iron in the fire but I think o' fat
+Father Lickladle, the abbey's head kitchener, roasting me o'er the low
+like a laverock in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> collop-tangs; for, as Dame Lugton there weel
+kens, I'm ane o' the Reformed. Heh! but it's a braw thing this
+Reformation. It used to cost me as muckle siller for the sin o' getting
+fu', no aboon three or four times in the year, as would hae kept ony
+honest man blithe and ree frae New'erday to Hogmanæ; but our worthy
+hostess has found to her profit that I'm now ane of her best customers.
+What say ye, Lucky?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly," said Dame Lugton, laughing, "thou's no an ill swatch o' the
+Reformers; and naebody need be surprised at the growth o' heresy wha
+thinks o' the dreadfu' cost the professors o't used to be at for
+pardons. But maybe they'll soon find that the de'il's as hard a taxer as
+e'er the kirk was; for ever since thou has refraint frae paying penance,
+thy weekly calks ahint the door ha'e been on the increase, Jamie, and no
+ae plack has thou mair to spare. So muckle gude thy reforming has done
+thee."</p>
+
+<p>"Bide awee, Lucky," cried the smith, setting down the ale-cap which he
+had just emptied; "bide awee, and ye'll see a change. Surely it was to
+be expecket, considering the spark in my hass, that the first use I
+would mak' o' the freedom o' the Reformation would be to quench it,
+which I never was allowed to do afore; and whenever that's done, ye'll
+see me a geizen't keg o' sobriety, tak the word o' a drouthy smith
+for't."</p>
+
+<p>At this jink o' their controversy who should come into the house,
+ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling
+rowels o' his spurs, but Winterton, without observing my grandfather,
+who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair
+at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered Dame Lugton to spice him a
+drink of her best brewing, he began to joke and jibe with the
+blacksmith, the which allowing my grandfather time to compose his wits,
+which were in a degree startled. He saw that he could not but be
+discovered, so he thought it was best to bring himself out. Accordingly,
+in as quiet a manner as he was able to put on, he said to Winterton,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I hae a notion that we twa ha'e forgathered no lang sincesyne."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of these words Winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped
+on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and
+then a shout, crying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha! tod lowrie! hae I yirded you at last?" But instanter he
+recollected himsel', and giving my grandfather a significant look, as if
+he wished him no to be particular, he said, "I heard o' you, Gilhaize,
+on the road, and I was fain to hae come up wi' you, that we might hae
+travelled thegither. Howsever, I lost scent at Glasgow." And then he
+continued to haver with him, in his loose and profligate manner, anent
+the Glasgow damsels, till the ale was ready, when he pressed my
+grandfather to taste, never letting wot how they had slept together in
+the same bed; and my grandfather, on his part, was no less circumspect,
+for he discerned that Winterton intended to come over him, and he was
+resolved to be on his guard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Winterton had finished his drink, which he did hastily, he proposed
+to my grandfather that they should take a stroll through the town; and
+my grandfather being eager to throw stour in his eyes, was readily
+consenting thereto.</p>
+
+<p>"Weel," said the knave, when he had warily led him into the abbey
+kirk-yard, "I didna think ye would hae gane back to my Lord; but it's a'
+very weel, since he has looked o'er what's past, and gi'en you a new
+dark."</p>
+
+<p>"He's very indulgent," replied my grandfather, "and I would be looth to
+wrang so kind a master;" and he looked at Winterton. The varlet,
+however, never winced, but rejoined lightly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But I wish you had come back to Widow Rippet's, for ye would hae spar't
+me a hard ride. Scarcely had ye ta'en the road when my Lord mindit that
+he had neglekit to gie you the sign, by the which ye were to make
+yoursel and message kent to his friends, and I was sent after to tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad o' that," replied my grandfather; "what is't?" Winterton was a
+thought molested by this thrust of a question, and for the space of
+about a minute said nothing, till he had considered with himself, when
+he rejoined,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Three lads were sent off about the same time wi' you, and the Earl was
+nae quite sure, he said, whilk of you a' he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> had forgotten to gie the
+token whereby ye would be known as his men. But the sign for the Earl of
+Eglinton, to whom I guess ye hae been sent, by coming to Kilwinning, is
+no the same as for the Lord Boyd, to whom I thought ye had been
+missioned; for I hae been at the Dean Castle, and finding you not there,
+followed you hither."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be plain wi' you," said my grandfather to this draughty speech.
+"I'm bound to the Lord Boyd; but coming through Paisley, when I reached
+the place where the twa roads branched, I took the ane that brought me
+here, instead of the gate to Kilmarnock; so, as soon as my beast has
+eaten his corn, I mean to double back to the Dean Castle."</p>
+
+<p>"How, in the name of the saints and souls, did ye think, in going frae
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, o' taking the road to Paisley?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, an' ye were acquaint," said my grandfather, "wi' how little I
+knew o' the country, ye would nae speir that question; but since we hae
+fallen in thegither, and are baith, ye ken, in my Lord Glencairn's
+service, I hope you'll no objek to ride back wi' me to the Lord Boyd's."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's no you that was sent to the Earl of Eglinton?" exclaimed
+Winterton, pretending more surprise than he felt; "and all my journey
+has been for naething. Howsever, I'll go back wi' you to Kilmarnock, and
+the sooner we gang the better."</p>
+
+<p>Little farther discourse then passed, for they returned to the hostel,
+and ordering out their horses, were soon on the road; and as they
+trotted along, Winterton was overly outspoken against the papisticals,
+calling them all kinds of ill names, and no sparing the Queen Regent.
+But my grandfather kept a calm tongue, and made no reflections.</p>
+
+<p>"Howsever," said Winterton, pulling up his bridle and walking his horse
+as they were skirting the moor of Irvine, leaving the town about a mile
+off on the right, "you and me, Gilhaize, that are but servants, need nae
+fash our heads wi' sic things. The wyte o' wars lie at the doors of
+kings, and the soldiers are free o' the sin o' them. But how will ye get
+into the presence and confidence of the Lord Boyd?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," replied my grandfather, pawkily, "that ye had gotten our
+master's token; and I maun trust to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Winterton, "I got but the ane for the lad sent to Eglinton
+Castle."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And ha'e ye been there?" said my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Winterton didna let wot that he heard this, but, stooping over on the
+off-side of his horse, pretended he was righting something about his
+stirrup-leather. My grandfather was, however, resolved to prob him to
+the quick; so, when he was again sitting upright, he repeated the
+question, if he had been to Eglinton Castle.</p>
+
+<p>"O, ay," cried the false loon; "I was there, but the bird was flown."</p>
+
+<p>"And how got he the ear of the Earl," said my grandfather, "not having
+the sign?"</p>
+
+<p>"In for a penny in for a pound," was Winterton's motto, and ae lie with
+him was father to a race. "Luckily for him," replied he, "some of the
+serving-men kent him as being in Glencairn's service, so they took him
+to their master."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather had no doubt that there was some truth in this, though he
+was sure Winterton knew little about it; for it agreed with what James
+Coom, the smith, had said about the lads from Eglinton that had been at
+his smiddy to get the horses shod, and remembering the leathern purses
+under the Earl his master's pillow, he was persuaded that there had been
+a messenger sent to the head of the Montgomeries, and likewise to other
+lords, friends of the Congregation; but he saw that Winterton went by
+guess, and lied at random. Still, though not affecting to notice it, nor
+expressing any distrust, he could not help saying to him, that he had
+come a long way, and after all it looked like a gowk's errand.</p>
+
+<p>The remark, however, only served to give Winterton inward satisfaction,
+and he replied with a laugh, that it made little odds to him where he
+was sent, and that he'd as lief ride in Ayrshire as sorn about the
+causey of Enbrough.</p>
+
+<p>In this sort of talk and conference they rode on together, the o'ercome
+every now and then of Winterton's discourse being concerning the proof
+my grandfather carried with him, whereby the Lord Boyd would know he was
+one of Glencairn's men. But, notwithstanding all his wiles and devices
+to howk the secret out of him, his drift being so clearly discerned, my
+grandfather was enabled to play with him till they were arrived at
+Kilmarnock, where Winterton proposed to stop till he had delivered his
+message to the Lord Boyd, at the Dean Castle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That surely cannot be," replied my grandfather; "for ye ken, as there
+has been some mistak about the sign whereby I am to make myself known,
+ye'll ha'e to come wi' me to expound, in case of need. In trooth, now
+that we hae forgatherit, and as I ha'e but this ae message to a' the
+shire of Ayr, I would fain ha'e your company till I see the upshot."</p>
+
+<p>Winterton could not very easily make a refusal to this, but he hesitated
+and swithered, till my grandfather urged him again;&mdash;when, seeing no
+help for it, and his companion, as he thought, entertaining no suspicion
+of him, he put on a bold face and went forward.</p>
+
+<p>When they had come to the Dean Castle, which stands in a pleasant green
+park about a mile aboon the town-head of Kilmarnock, on entering the
+gate, my grandfather hastily alighted, and giving his horse a sharp
+prick of his spur as he lap off, the beast ran capering out of his hand,
+round the court of the castle.</p>
+
+<p>With the well-feigned voice of great anxiety, my grandfather cried to
+the servants to shut the gate and keep it in; and Winterton alighting,
+ran to catch it, giving his own horse to a stripling to hold. At the
+same moment, however, my grandfather sprung upon him, and seizing him by
+the throat, cried out for help to master a spy.</p>
+
+<p>Winterton was so confounded that he gasped and looked round like a man
+demented, and my grandfather ordered him to be taken by the serving-men
+to their master, before whom, when they were all come, he recounted the
+story of his adventures with the prisoner, telling his Lordship what his
+master, the Earl of Glencairn, suspected of him. To which, when
+Winterton was asked what he had to say, he replied bravely, that it was
+all true, and he was none ashamed to be so catched, when it was done by
+so clever a fellow.</p>
+
+<p>He was then ordered by the Lord Boyd to be immured in the dungeon-room,
+the which may be seen to this day; and though his captivity was
+afterwards somewhat relaxed, he was kept a prisoner in the castle till
+after the death of the Queen Dowager, and the breaking-up of her
+two-faced councils. This exploit won my grandfather great favour, and he
+scarcely needed to show the signet-ring when he told his message from
+the Lords of the Congregation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>By such devices and missions, as my grandfather was engaged in for the
+Earl Glencairn with the Lord Boyd, a thorough understanding was
+concerted among the Reformed throughout the kingdom; and encouraged by
+their great strength and numbers, which far exceeded what was expected,
+the Lords of the Congregation set themselves roundly to work, and the
+protestant preachers openly published their doctrines.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after my grandfather had returned from the shire of Ayr, there was
+a weighty consultation held at the Earl his patron's lodging in
+Edinburgh, whereat, among others present, was that pious youth,
+afterwards the good Regent Murray. He was, by office and appointment,
+then the head and lord of the priory of St Andrews; but his soul
+cleaving to the Reformation and the Gospel, he laid down the use of that
+title, and about this time began to be called the Lord James Stuart.</p>
+
+<p>The Lords of the Congregation, feeling themselves strong in the goodness
+of their cause and the number of their adherents, resolved at this
+council, that they should proceed firmly but considerately to work, and
+seek redress as became true lieges, by representation and supplication.
+Accordingly a paper was <a name='TC_6'></a><ins title="Was drwan">drawn</ins> up, wherein they set forth how, for
+conscience sake, the Reformed had been long afflicted with banishment,
+confiscation of goods, and death in its cruellest forms. That continual
+fears darkened their lives till, being no longer able to endure such
+calamities, they were compelled to beg a remedy against the oppressions
+and tyranny of the Estate Ecclesiastical, which had usurped an <a name='TC_7'></a><ins title="Was umlimited">unlimited</ins>
+domination over the minds of men,&mdash;the faggot and the sword being the
+weapons which the prelates employed to enforce their mandates,&mdash;plain
+truths that were thus openly stated in order to show that the suppliants
+were sincere; and they concluded with a demand, that the original purity
+of the Christian religion should be restored, and the government so
+improved as to afford them security in their persons, opinions, and
+property.</p>
+
+<p>Sir James Calder of Sandilands was the person chosen to present this
+memorial to the Queen Regent; and never,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> said
+my grandfather, was an
+agent more fitly chosen to uphold the dignity of his trust, or to
+preserve the respect which, as good subjects, the Reformed desired to
+maintain and manifest towards the authority regal. He was a man far
+advanced in life; but there was none of the infirmities of age under the
+venerable exterior with which time had clothed his appearance. Of great
+honour and a pure life, he was reverenced by all parties, and had
+acquired both renown and affection, through his services to the realm
+and his manifold virtues.</p>
+
+<p>On a day appointed by the Queen Regent, the Lords and leaders of the
+Congregation attended Sandilands, each with a stately retinue, to
+Holyrood House; my grandfather having leave from the Earl, his master,
+to wait on his person on that occasion.</p>
+
+<p>It was a solemn day to the worshippers of the true God, who came in
+great multitudes to the town, many from distant parts, to be present,
+and to hear the issue of a conference that was to give liberty to the
+consciences of all devout Scotchmen. From the house in the Lawnmarket,
+where the Lords assembled, down to the very yetts of the palace, the
+sight was as if the street had been paved with faces, and windows over
+windows, roofs and lum-heads, were clustered with women and children.
+All temporal cares and businesses were that day suspended: in the
+accents and voices of men there was an awful sobriety, few speaking, and
+what was said, sounded as if every one was affected with the sense of
+some high and everlasting interest at stake.</p>
+
+<p>When the Lords went down into the street, there was, for a brief
+interval, a stir and a murmur in the multitude, which opened to the
+right and left as when the waves of the Red Sea were opened, and through
+the midst thereof prepared a miraculous road for the children of Israel.
+A deep silence succeeded, and Sandilands, with his hoary head uncovered,
+bearing in his hand the supplication and remonstrance, walked forward;
+and the Lords went after also all bareheaded, and every one with them
+followed in like manner as reverentially as their masters. The people,
+as they passed along, slowly and devoutly, took off their caps and
+bonnets, and bowed their heads as when the ark of the covenant of the
+Lord was of old brought back from the Philistines; and many wept, and
+others prayed aloud,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> and there was wonder, and awe, and dread, mingled
+with thoughts of unspeakable confidence and glory.</p>
+
+<p>When Sandilands and those with him were conducted into the presence of
+the Queen Dowager, she was standing under a canopy of state, surrounded
+by many of the nobles and prelates, and by her maidens of honour. My
+grandfather had not seen her before, and having often heard her
+suspected of double-dealing, and of a superstitious zeal and affection
+for the papal abominations and cruelties, he had pictured to himself a
+lean and haggard woman, with a pale and fierce countenance, and was
+therefore greatly amazed when he beheld a lady of a most sweet and
+gracious aspect, with mild dark eyes beaming with a chaste dignity, and
+a high and fair forehead, bright and unwrinkled with any care, and lips
+formed to speak soft and gentle sentences. In her apparel she was less
+gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. Her dress
+and mantle were of the richest purple Genoese unadorned with embroidery,
+and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of
+princely pearls. A small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to
+her waist from a loup in the vale of her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Sandilands advanced several paces before the Lords by whom he was
+attended, and falling on his knees, read with a loud and firm voice the
+memorial of the Reformed; and when he had done so and was risen, the
+Queen received a paper that was given to her by her secretary, who stood
+behind her right shoulder, and also read an answer which had been
+prepared, and in which she was made to deliver many comfortable
+assurances, that at the time were received as a great boon with much
+thankfulness by all the Reformed, who had too soon reason to prove the
+insincerity of those courtly flatteries. For no steps were afterwards
+taken to give those indulgences by law that were promised; but the
+papists stirring themselves with great activity, and foreign matters and
+concerns coming in aid of their stratagems, long before a year passed
+the mind of the Queen and government was fomented into hostility against
+the protestants. She called into her favour and councils the Archbishop
+of St Andrews, with whom she had been at variance; and the devout said,
+when they heard thereof, that when our Saviour was condemned, on the
+same day Herod and Pilate were made friends, applying the text to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> this
+reconcilation; and boding therefrom woe to the true church. Moved by the
+hatred which his Grace bore to the Reformers, the Queen cited the
+protestant preachers to appear at Stirling to answer to the charges
+which might there be preferred against them.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, when this perfidy came to a head, was at
+Finlayston-house, in the shire of Renfrew, with the Earl, his master,
+who, when he heard of such a breach of faith, smote the table, as he was
+then sitting at dinner, with his right hand, and said, "Since the false
+woman has done this, there is nothing for us but the banner and the
+blade;" and starting from his seat he forthwith ordered horses, and,
+attended by my grandfather and ten armed servants, rode to Glasgow,
+where Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudon, then sheriff of Ayr, and other
+worthies of the time, were assembled on business before the Lords of
+Justiciary; and it was instanter agreed, that they should forthwith
+proceed to Stirling where the court was, and remonstrate with the Queen.
+So, leaving all temporal concerns, Sir Hugh took horse, and they arrived
+at Stirling about the time her Highness supped, and going straight to
+the castle, they stood in the ante-chamber to speak, if possible, with
+her as she passed.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the room to pass to her table she saw them, and looked
+somewhat surprised and displeased; but without saying anything
+particular she desired the Earl to follow her, and Sir Hugh, unbidden,
+went also into the banquet-room. It was seldom that she used state in
+her household, and on this occasion, it being a popish fast, her table
+was frugally spread, and only herself sat at the board.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Glencairn," said she, "what has brought you hither from the west
+at this time? Is the realm to be forever tossed like the sea by this
+tempest of heresies? The royal authority is not always to be insulted
+with impunity, and in spite of all their friends the protestant
+preachers shall be banished from Scotland, aye, though their doctrines
+were as sound as St Paul's."</p>
+
+<p>The Earl, as my grandfather heard him afterwards relate, replied, "Your
+Majesty gave your royal promise that the Reformed should be protected,
+and they have done nothing since to cause the forfeiture of so gracious
+a boon: I implore your Majesty to call that sacred pledge to mind."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You lack reason, my Lord," she cried, sharply; "it becomes not subjects
+to burden their princes with promises which it may be inconvenient to
+keep."</p>
+
+<p>"If these, madam, are your sentiments," replied the Earl, proudly, "the
+Congregation can no longer acknowledge your authority, and must renounce
+their allegiance to your government."</p>
+
+<p>She had, at the moment, lifted the salt-cellar to sprinkle her
+salad,&mdash;but she was so astonished at the boldness of this speech, that
+she dropped it from her hand, and the salt was spilt on the floor,&mdash;an
+evil omen which all present noted.</p>
+
+<p>"My Lord Glencairn," said she, thoughtfully, "I would execute my great
+duties honestly, but your preachers trouble the waters, and I know not
+where the ford lies that I may safest ride. Go ye away and try to keep
+your friends quiet, and I will consider calmly what is best to be done
+for the weal of all."</p>
+
+<p>At these words the Earl and Sir Hugh Campbell bowed, and, retiring, went
+to the lodging of the Earl of Monteith, where they were <a name='TC_8'></a><ins title="Was mindet">minded</ins> to pass
+the night, but when they had consulted with that nobleman, my
+grandfather was ordered to provide himself with a fresh horse from
+Monteith's stable, and to set out for Edinburgh with letters for the
+Lord James Stuart.</p>
+
+<p>"Gilhaize," said his master, as he delivered them, "I foresee we must
+buckle on our armour; but the cause of the Truth does not require that
+the first blow should come from our side. By this time John Knox, who
+has been long expected, may be hourly looked for; and as no man stands
+higher in the aversion of the papists than that brave, honest man, we
+shall know by the reception he meets with what we ought to do."</p>
+
+<p>So my grandfather, putting the letters in his bosom, retired from the
+presence of the Earl, and by break of day reached the West-port and went
+straight on to the Lord James Stuart's lodging in the Canongate. But,
+though the household were astir, it was some time before he got
+admittance, for their master was a young man of great method in all
+things, and his chaplain was at the time reading the first prayers of
+the morning, during which the doors were shut, and no one, however
+urgent his business, could gain admission into that house while the
+inmates were doing their homage to the King of kings.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>As my grandfather, in the grey of the morning, was waiting in the
+Canongate till the worship was over in the house of the Lord James
+Stuart, he frequently rode up and down the street as far the
+Luckenbooths and the Abbey's sanctuary siver, and his mind was at times
+smitten with the remorse of pity when he saw, as the dawn advanced, the
+numbers of poor labouring men that came up out of the closes and
+gathered round the trone, abiding there to see who would come to hire
+them for the day. But his compassion was soon changed into a frame of
+thankfulness at the boundless variety of mercies which are dealt out to
+the children of Adam, for he remarked, that, for the most part, these
+poor men, whose sustenance was as precarious as that of the wild birds
+of the air, were cheerful and jocund, many of them singing and whistling
+as blithely as the lark, that carries the sweet incense of her melodious
+songs in the censer of a sinless breast to the golden gates of the
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto he had never noted, or much considered, the complicated cares
+and trials wherewith the lot of man in every station is chequered and
+environed; and when he heard those bondmen of hard labour, jocund after
+sound slumbers and light suppers, laughing contemptuously as they beheld
+the humiliating sight, which divers gallants and youngsters, courtiers
+of the court, degraded with debauch, made of themselves as they stumbled
+homeward, he thought there was surely more bliss in the cup that was
+earned by the constancy of health and a willing mind, than in all the
+possets and malvesia that the hoards of ages could procure. So he
+composed his spirit, and inwardly made a vow to the Lord, that as soon
+as the mighty work of the redemption of the Gospel from the perdition of
+papistry was accomplished, he would retire into the lea of some pleasant
+green holm, and take, for the purpose of his life, the attainment of
+that happy simplicity which seeks but the supply of the few wants with
+which man comes so rich from the hands of his Maker, that all changes in
+his natural condition of tilling the ground and herding the flocks only
+serve to make him poorer by increasing.</p>
+
+<p>While he was thus ruminating in the street, he observed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> two strangers
+coming up the Canongate. One of them had the appearance of a servant,
+but he was of a staider and more thoughtful aspect than belongs to men
+of that degree, only he bore on his shoulder a willease, and had in his
+hand a small package wrapt in a woollen cover and buckled with a
+leathern strap. The other was the master; and my grandfather halted his
+horse to look at him as he passed, for he was evidently no common man
+nor mean personage, though in stature he was jimp the ordinary size. He
+was bent more with infirmities than the load of his years. His hair and
+long flowing beard were very grey and venerable, like those of the
+ancient patriarchs who enjoyed immediate communion with God. But though
+his appearance was thus aged, and though his complexion and countenance
+betokened a frail tenement, yet the brightness of youth shone in his
+eyes, and they were lighted up by a spirit over which time had no power.</p>
+
+<p>In his steps and gait he was a little hasty and unsteady, and twice or
+thrice he was obliged to pause in the steep of the street to draw his
+breath; but even in this there was an affecting and great earnestness, a
+working of a living soul within, as if it panted to enter on the
+performance of some great and solemn hest.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to be eager and zealous like the apostle Peter in his temper,
+and as dauntless as the mighty and courageous Paul. Many in the street
+stopped, and looked after him with reverence and marvelling, as he
+proceeded with quick and desultory steps, followed by his sedate
+attendant. Nor was it surprising, for he was, indeed, one of those who,
+in their lives, are vast and wonderful,&mdash;special creations that are sent
+down from heaven, with authority attested by the glowing impress of the
+signet of God on their hearts, to avenge the wrongs done to His truths
+and laws in the blasphemies of the earth.&mdash;It was John Knox!</p>
+
+<p>When he had passed, my grandfather rode back to the yett of the Lord
+James Stuart's lodgings, which by this time was opened, and instanter,
+on mentioning to the porter from whom he had come, was admitted to his
+master.</p>
+
+<p>That great worthy was at the time sitting alone in a back chamber, which
+looked towards Salisbury Crags, and before him, but on the opposite side
+of the table, among divers letters and papers of business, lay a large
+Bible,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> with brass clasps thereon, in which, it would seem, some one had
+been expounding to him a portion of the Scriptures.</p>
+
+<p>When my grandfather presented to him the letter from the Earl of
+Glencairn, he took it from him without much regarding him, and broke
+open the seal, and began to peruse it to himself in that calm and
+methodical manner for which he was so famed and remarkable. Before,
+however, he had read above the half thereof, he gave as it were a sudden
+hitch, and turning round, looked my grandfather sharply in the face, and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Gilhaize?"</p>
+
+<p>But before any answer could be made, he waved his hand graciously,
+pointing to a chair, and desired him to sit down, resuming at the same
+time the perusal of the letter; and when he had finished it, he folded
+it up for a moment; but, as if recollecting himself, he soon runkled it
+up in his hand and put it into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Lord informs me," said he, "that he has all confidence, not only
+in your honesty, Gilhaize, but in your discernment; and says, that in
+respect to the high question anent Christ's cause, you may be trusted to
+the uttermost. Truly, for so young a man, this is an exceeding renown.
+His letter has told me what passed last night with the Queen's Highness.
+I am grieved to hear it. She means well; but her feminine fears make her
+hearken to counsels that may cause the very evils whereof she is so
+afraid. But the sincerity of her favour to the Reformed will soon be
+tried, for last night John Knox arrived, and I was with him; and, strong
+in the assurances of his faith, he intends to lead on to the battle.
+This morning he was minded to depart for Fife.&mdash;'Our Captain, Christ
+Jesus,' said he, 'and Satan, his adversary, are now at open defiance;
+their banners are displayed, and the trumpet is blown on both sides for
+assembling their armies.' As soon as it is known that he is within the
+kingdom, we shall learn what we may expect, and that presently too; for
+this very day the clergy meet in the monastery of the Greyfriars, and
+doubtless they will be advertised of his coming. You had as well try if
+you can gain admittance among the other auditors, to hear their
+deliberations; afterwards come again to me, and report what takes place;
+by that time I shall be advised whether to send you back to Glencairn or
+elsewhere."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, after this and some farther discourse, retired to the
+hall, and took breakfast with the household, where he was much edified
+with the douce deportment of all present, so unlike that of the lewd and
+graceless varlets who rioted in the houses of the other nobles. Verily,
+he used to say, the evidences of a reforming spirit were brightly seen
+there; and, to rule every one into a chaste sobriety of conversation, a
+pious clerk sate at the head of the board, and said grace before and
+after the meal, making it manifest how much all things about the Lord
+James Stuart were done in order.</p>
+
+<p>Having taken breakfast, and reposed himself some time, for his long ride
+had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the
+Greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing
+himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for
+admission, he got in with the crowd when the doors were opened.</p>
+
+<p>The matter that morning to be considered concerned the means to be
+taken, within the local jurisdictions of those there met, to enforce the
+process of the summons which had been issued against the reformed
+preachers to appear at Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>But while they were busily conversing and contriving how best to aid and
+further that iniquitous aggression of perfidious tyranny, there came in
+one of the brethren of the monastery, with a frightened look, and cried
+aloud, that John Knox was come, and had been all night in the town. At
+the news the spectators, as if moved by one spirit, gave a triumphant
+shout,&mdash;the clergy were thunderstruck,&mdash;some started from their seats,
+unconscious of what they did,&mdash;others threw themselves back where they
+sat,&mdash;and all appeared as if a judgment had been pronounced upon them.
+In the same moment the church began to skail,&mdash;the session was
+adjourned,&mdash;and the people ran in all directions. The cry rose
+everywhere, "John Knox is come!" All the town came rushing into the
+streets,&mdash;the old and the young, the lordly and the lowly, were seen
+mingling and marvelling together,&mdash;all tasks of duty, and servitude, and
+pleasure, were forsaken,&mdash;the sick-beds of the dying were deserted,&mdash;the
+priests abandoned their altars and masses, and stood pale and trembling
+at the doors of their churches,&mdash;mothers set down their infants on the
+floors, and ran to inquire what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> had come to pass,&mdash;funerals were
+suspended, and the impious and the guilty stood aghast, as if some
+dreadful apocalypse had been made;&mdash;travellers, with the bridles in
+their hands, lingering in profane discourse with their hosts, suddenly
+mounted, and speeded into the country with the tidings. At every cottage
+door and wayside bield, the inmates stood in clusters, silent and
+wondering, as horseman came following horseman, crying, "John Knox is
+come!" Barks that had departed, when they heard the news, bore up to
+tell others that they saw afar at sea. The shepherds were called in from
+the hills;&mdash;the warders on the castle, when, at the sound of many
+quickened feet approaching, they challenged the comers, were answered,
+"John Knox is come!" Studious men were roused from the spells of their
+books;&mdash;nuns, at their windows, looked out fearful and inquiring,&mdash;and
+priests and friars were seen standing by themselves, shunned like
+lepers. The whole land was stirred as with the inspiration of some new
+element, and the hearts of the persecutors were withered.</p>
+
+<p>"No tongue," often said my grandfather, "could tell the sense of that
+great event through all the bounds of Scotland, and the papistical
+dominators shrunk as if they had suffered in their powers and
+principalities, an awful and irremediable overthrow."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>When my grandfather left the Greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the
+Lord James Stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken
+place, which he much marvelled at, having scarcely tarried by the way in
+going thither.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Gilhaize," said my Lord, "the tidings fly like wildfire, and the
+Queen Regent, by the spirit that has descended into the hearts of the
+people, will be constrained to act one way or another. John Knox, as you
+perhaps know, stands under the ban of outlawry for conscience sake. In a
+little while we shall see whether he is still to be persecuted. If left
+free, the braird of the Lord, that begins to rise so green over all the
+land, will grow in peace to a plentiful harvest. But if he is to be
+hunted down,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> there will come such a cloud and storm as never raged
+before in Scotland. I speak to you thus freely, that you may report my
+frank sentiments to thir noble friends and trusty gentlemen, and say to
+them that I am girded for the field, if need be."</p>
+
+<p>He then put a list of several well-known friends of the Reformation
+ayont the frith into my grandfather's hands, adding, "I need not say
+that it is not fitting now to trust to paper, and therefore much will
+depend on yourself. The confidence that my friend the Earl, your master,
+has in you, makes me deal thus openly with you; and I may add, that if
+there is deceit in you, Gilhaize, I will never again believe the
+physiognomy of man&mdash;so go your ways; see all these, wheresoever they may
+be,&mdash;and take this purse for your charges."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather accepted the paper and the purse; and reading over the
+paper, imprinted the names in it on his memory, and then said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My Lord, I need not risk the possession of this paper; but it may be
+necessary to give me some token by which the lords and lairds therein
+mentioned may have assurance that I come from you."</p>
+
+<p>For some time the Lord James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with
+the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then he
+observed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your request is very needful;" and taking the paper, he mentioned
+divers things of each of the persons named in it, which he told my
+grandfather had passed between him and them severally, when none other
+was present. "By remembering them of these things," said he, "they will
+know that you are in verity sent from me."</p>
+
+<p>Being thus instructed, my grandfather left the Lord James, and
+proceeding forthwith to the pier of Leith, embarked in the Burntisland
+ferry-boat&mdash;and considering with himself, that the farthest way of those
+whom he was missioned to see ought to be the first informed, as the
+nearer had other ways and means of communion, he resolved to go forward
+to such of them as dwelt in Angus and Merns; by which resolution he
+reached Dundee shortly after the arrival there of the champion of the
+Reformation, John Knox.</p>
+
+<p>This resolution proved most wise and fortunate, for, on landing in that
+town, he found a great concourse of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> Reformed from the two shires
+assembled there, and among them many of those to whom he was specially
+sent. They had come to go with their ministers before the Queen Regent's
+counsel at Stirling, determined to avow their adherence to the doctrines
+of which those pious men were accused. And it being foreseen that, as
+they went forward others would join, my grandfather thought he could do
+no better in his mission than mingle with them, the more especially as
+John Knox was also to be of that great company.</p>
+
+<p>On the day following, they accordingly all set forward towards
+Perth,&mdash;and they were a glorious army, mighty with the strength of their
+great ally the Lord of the hosts of heaven. No trumpet sounded in their
+march, nor was the courageous drum heard among them,&mdash;nor the shouts of
+earthly soldiery,&mdash;nor the neigh of the war-horse,&mdash;nor the voice of any
+captain. But they sang hymns of triumph, and psalms of the great things
+that Jehovah had of old done for his people; and though no banner was
+seen there, nor sword on the thighs of men of might, nor spears in the
+grasp of warriors, nor crested helmet, nor aught of the panoply of
+battle, yet the eye of faith beheld more than all these, for the hills
+and heights of Scotland were to its dazzled vision covered that day with
+the mustered armies of the dreadful God: the angels of his wrath in
+their burning chariots; the archangels of his omnipotence, calm in their
+armour of storms and flaming fires, and the Rider on the white horse,
+were all there.</p>
+
+<p>As the people with their ministers advanced, their course was like a
+river, which continually groweth in strength and spreadeth its waters as
+it rolls onward to the sea. On all sides came streams of new adherents
+to their holy cause, in so much that when they arrived at Perth it was
+thought best to halt there, lest the approach of so great a multitude,
+though without weapons, should alarm the Queen Regent's government.
+Accordingly they made a pause, and Erskine of Dun, one of the Lord James
+Stuart's friends, taking my grandfather with him, and only two other
+servants, rode forward to Stirling to represent to her Highness the
+faith and the firmness of the people.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived, they found the town in consternation. Busy were the
+bailies, marshalling such of the burgesses as could be persuaded to take
+up arms, but all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> who joined them were feckless aged men, dealers and
+traffickers in commodities for the courtiers. Proud was the provost that
+day, and a type of the cause for which he was gathering his papistical
+remnants. At the sight of Dun and his three followers riding up the
+street to the castle, he was fain to draw out his sword and make a
+salutation; but it stuck sae dourly in that he was obligated to gar ane
+of the town-officers hold the scabbard, while he pulled with such might
+and main at the hilt, that the blade suddenly broke off, and back he
+stumbled, and up flew his heels, so that even my grandfather was
+constrained, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, to join in
+the shout of laughter that rose thereat from all present. But provosts
+and bailies, not being men of war, should not expose themselves to such
+adversities.</p>
+
+<p>Nor was the fyke of impotent preparation within the walls of the castle
+better. The Queen had been in a manner lanerly with her ladies when the
+sough of the coming multitude reached her. The French guards had not
+come from Glasgow, and there was none of the warlike nobles of the
+papistical sect at that time at Stirling. She had therefore reason both
+for dread and panic, when the news arrived that all Angus and Merns had
+rebelled, for so it was at first reported.</p>
+
+<p>On the arrival of Dun, he was on the instant admitted to her presence;
+for she was at the time in the tapestried chamber, surrounded by her
+priests and ladies, and many officers, all consulting her according to
+their fears. The sight, said my grandfather, for he also went into the
+presence, was a proof to him that the cause of the papacy was in the
+dead-thraws, the judgments of all present being so evidently in a state
+of discomfiture and desertion.</p>
+
+<p>Dun going forward with the wonted reverences, the Queen said to him
+abruptly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Erskine, what is this?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon he represented to her, in a sedate manner, that the Reformed
+ministers were not treated as they had been encouraged to hope;
+nevertheless, to show their submission to those in temporal authority
+over them, they were coming, in obedience to the citation, to stand
+trial.</p>
+
+<p>"But their retinue&mdash;when have delinquents come to trial so attended?"
+she exclaimed eagerly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The people, please your Highness," said Dun, with a steadfastness of
+manner that struck every one with respect for him, "the people hold the
+same opinions and believe the same doctrines as their preachers, and
+they feel that the offence, if it be offence, of which the ministers are
+accused, lies equally against them, and <a name='TC_9'></a><ins title="Was therefere">therefore</ins> they have resolved to
+make their case a common cause."</p>
+
+<p>"And do they mean to daunt us from doing justice against seditious
+schismatics?" cried her Highness somewhat in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"They mean," replied Dun, "to let your Highness see whether it be
+possible to bring so many to judgment. Their sentiment, with one voice,
+is, Cursed be they that seek the effusion of blood, or war, or
+dissension. Let us possess the evangile, and none within Scotland shall
+be more obedient subjects. In sooth, madam, they hold themselves as
+guilty of the crime charged as their ministers are, and they will suffer
+with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Suffer! Call you rebellion suffering?" exclaimed the Queen.</p>
+
+<p>"They have not yet rebelled," said Dun, calmly; "they come to
+remonstrate with your Highness first; for, as Christians, they are loth
+to draw the sword. They have no arms with them, to the end that no one
+may dare to accuse them of any treason."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a perilous thing when subjects," said the Queen, much troubled,
+"declare themselves so openly against the authority of their rulers."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bold thing for rulers," replied Dun, "to meddle with the
+consciences of their subjects."</p>
+
+<p>"How!" exclaimed the Queen, startled and indignant.</p>
+
+<p>"I will deal yet more plainly with your Highness," said he, firmly.
+"This pretended offence of which the Reformed are accused is not against
+the royal authority. They are good and true subjects, and, by their walk
+and conversation, bear testimony to the excellence and purity of those
+doctrines for which they are resolved to sacrifice their lives rather
+than submit to any earthly dictation. Their controversies pertain to
+things of Christ's kingdom,&mdash;it is a spiritual warfare. But the papists,
+conscious of their weakness in the argument, would fain see your
+Highness abandon that impartial justice which you were called of Heaven
+to administer in your great office, and to act<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> factiously on their
+side, as if the cause of the Gospel could be determined by the arm of
+flesh."</p>
+
+<p>"What has brought you here?" exclaimed the Queen, bursting into tears.</p>
+
+<p>"To claim the fulfilment of your royal promises," said Dun, making a
+lowly reverence that by its humility took away all arrogance from the
+boldness of the demand.</p>
+
+<p>"I will," said she. "I am ever willing to be just, but this rising has
+shaken me with apprehensions; therefore, I pray you, Erskine, write to
+your brethren; bid them disperse; and tell them from me, that their
+ministers shall neither be tried nor molested."</p>
+
+<p>At these words, she took the arm of one of her ladies and hastily
+retired. Dun also withdrew, and the same hour sent my grandfather back
+to Perth with letters to the Congregation to the effect of her request
+and assurance.</p>
+
+<p>That same evening the multitude broke up and returned to their
+respective homes, rejoicing with an exceeding great joy at so blessed a
+termination of their weaponless Christian war. Dun, however, distrusting
+the influence of some of those who were of the Queen's council, and who
+had arrived at the castle soon after my grandfather's departure, did not
+return, as he had intended, next morning to Perth, but resolved to wait
+over the day of trial; or, at least, until the ministers were absolved
+from attendance on the summons, either by proclamation or other forms of
+law.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>John Knox, among all the ministers who remained at Perth after the
+Congregation of the Reformed had dispersed, was the only one, my
+grandfather has been heard to say, that expressed no joy nor exultation
+at the assurances of the Queen Regent. "We shall see, we shall see," was
+all he said to those among them who gloried in the victory; adding, "But
+if there is truth in the Word of God, it is not in the nature of the
+Beast to do otherwise than evil," and his words of discernment and of
+wisdom were soon verified.</p>
+
+<p>Erskine of Dun, while he remained at Stirling, had his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> eyes and ears
+open; and in their porches he placed for sentinels, Distrust and
+Suspicion. He knew the fluctuating nature of woman; how every succeeding
+wave of feeling washes away the deepest traces that are traced on the
+quicksands of her unstable humours; and the danger having passed, he
+jealoused that the Queen Regent would forget her terrors, and give
+herself up to the headlong councils of the adversaries, whom, from her
+known adherence to the Romish ritual, he justly feared she was inclined
+to favour. Nor was he left long in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening before the day which had been appointed for the trial, no
+proclamation or other token was promulged to appease the anxiety of the
+cited preachers. He, therefore, thought it needful to be prepared for
+the worst; so, accordingly, he ordered his two serving-men to have his
+horses in readiness forth the town in the morning, and there to abide
+his orders.</p>
+
+<p>Without giving any other about him the slightest inkling of what he had
+conceited, he went up betimes to the castle, having learnt that the
+Queen Regent was that day to hold a council. And being a man held in
+great veneration by all parties, and well known to the household of the
+court, he obtained access to the ante-chamber after the council was met;
+and standing there, he was soon surprised by her Highness coming out,
+leaning on the arm of the Lord Wintoun, and seemingly much disturbed. On
+seeing him she was startled, and paused for a moment, but soon
+collecting all her pride, she dropped the Lord Wintoun's arm, and walked
+straight through the apartment without noticing any one, and holding
+herself aloft with an air of resolute dignity.</p>
+
+<p>Dun augured no good from this; but following till the Lord Wintoun had
+attended her to the end of the long painted gallery, where she stopped
+at the door that opened to her private apartments, he there awaited that
+nobleman's return, and inquired of him if the process against the
+protestant ministers had been rescinded.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Wintoun, peevishly; "the summons have been called over, and
+they have not appeared, either in person or by agents."</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so, my Lord?" cried Dun; "and what is the result?"</p>
+
+<p>"Outlawry, for non-appearance, is pronounced against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> them," replied
+Wintoun, haughtily, and went straight back into the council-chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Dun thought it unnecessary to inquire farther; so, without making more
+ado, he instanter left the castle, and, going down the town, went to the
+spot where his horses stood ready, and, mounting, rode off with the
+tidings to Perth, grieving sorely at the gross perfidy and sad deceit
+which the Queen Regent had been so practised on, by the heads of the
+papist faction, to commit.</p>
+
+<p>It happened on the same day, that John Knox, who remained at Perth, a
+wakeful warder on a post of peril, was moved by the Spirit of God to
+preach a sermon, in which he exposed the idolatry of the mass and the
+depravity of image-worship. My grandfather was present, and he often
+said that preaching was an era and epoch worthy to be held in
+everlasting remembrance. It took place in the Greyfriars church. There
+was an understanding among the people that it was to be there; but many
+fearing the monks might attempt to prevent it, a vast concourse, chiefly
+men, assembled at the ordinary mass hour, and remained in the church
+till the Reformer came, so that, had the friars tried to keep him out,
+they could not have shut the doors.</p>
+
+<p>A lane was made through the midst of the crowd to admit the preacher to
+the pulpit; and when he was seen advancing, aged and feeble, and leaning
+on his staff, many were moved with compassion, and doubted if it could
+be the wonderful man of whom every tongue spoke. But when he had
+ascended and began, he seemed to undergo a great transfiguration. His
+abject mien and his sickly visage became majestic and glorious. His eyes
+lightened; his countenance shone as with the radiance of a spirit that
+blazed within; and his voice dirled to the heart like vehement thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he spoke to the understandings of those who heard him, of that
+insane doctrine which represented the mission of the Redeemer to consist
+of believing, in despite of sight, and smell, and touch, and taste, that
+wafers and wine were actually the flesh and blood of a man that was
+crucified, with nails driven through his feet and hands, many hundred
+years ago. Then, rising into the contemplation of the divinity of the
+Saviour, he trampled under the feet of his eloquence a belief so
+contrary to the instincts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> and senses with which Infinite Wisdom has
+gifted his creatures; and bursting into ecstasy at the thought of this
+idolatrous invention, he called on the people to look at the images and
+the effigies in the building around them, and believe, if they could,
+that such things, the handy-works of carpenters and masons, were endowed
+with miraculous energies far above the faculties of man. Kindling into a
+still higher mood, he preached to those very images, and demanded of
+them, and those they represented, to show any proof that they were
+entitled to reverence. "God forgive my <a name='TC_10'></a><ins title="Was idolaltry">idolatry</ins>!" he exclaimed. "I
+forget myself&mdash;these things are but stocks and stones."</p>
+
+<p>Not one of all who heard him that day ever gave ear again to papistry.</p>
+
+<p>When he had made an end, and retired from the church, many still
+lingered, discoursing of his marvellous lecture, and among others, my
+grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>An imprudent priest belonging to the convent, little aware of the great
+conversion which had been wrought, began to prepare for the celebration
+of the mass, and a callan who was standing near, encouraged by the
+contempt which some of those around expressed at this folly, jibed the
+priest, and he drove him away. The boy, however, returned, and levelling
+a stone at a crucifix on the altar, shattered it to pieces. In an
+instant, as if caught by a whirlwind, the whole papistical trumpery was
+torn down and dashed into fragments. The cry of "Down with the idols!"
+became universal: hundreds on hundreds came rushing to the spot. The
+magistrates and the ministers came flying to beseech order and to soothe
+the multitude; but a Divine ire was upon the people, who heard no voice
+but only the cry of "Down with the idols!" and their answer was, "Burn,
+burn, and destroy!"</p>
+
+<p>The monasteries of the Black and the Grey Friars were sacked and
+rendered desolate, and the gorgeous edifice of the Carthusian monks
+levelled to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>So dreadful a tumult had never before been heard of within the realm.
+Many of the best of the Reformed deplored the handle it would give to
+the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with
+consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal
+outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and
+complete. Sober minds<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious
+overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the
+threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of
+leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light,
+and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. To
+no one did the event give pleasure but to John Knox. "The work," said
+he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the
+nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away."</p>
+
+<p>The thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which
+this intemperance would cause to the Queen Regent; and my grandfather,
+seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return
+the same evening by the Queensferry to the Lord James Stuart at
+Edinburgh. For the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of
+reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous
+offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to
+defend themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the Queen was the
+people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted
+quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their
+respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird
+themselves for battle.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+
+<p>It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations
+which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the
+wrath of the people against the images of the Romish idolatry; and
+therefore I shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what
+farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who,
+when he returned to Edinburgh, found the Lord James Stuart on the point
+of proceeding to the Queen Regent at Stirling, and he went with him
+thither.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the castle, they found the French soldiery all collected
+in the town, and her Highness, like another fiery Bellona, vowing to
+avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of Perth;
+and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of substance she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+could think of, to come with their vassals, that she might be enabled to
+chastise such sacrilegious rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>The Lord James Stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by
+his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward
+at a moment's warning, both in the West, and in Fife, Angus and Merns,
+entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge
+and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment.
+But she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of
+Providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked
+policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. So that the
+Lord James, seeing she was transported beyond reason, sent my
+grandfather and other secret emissaries to warn the Lords and leaders of
+the Congregation, and to tell them that her Highness was minded to
+surprise Perth as soon as she had gathered a sufficient array.</p>
+
+<p>The conduct of that great worthy was in this full of wisdom, and
+foresight, and policy. By staying with the Queen he incurred the
+suspicion of the Reformed, to whom he was a devoted friend; but he
+gained a knowledge of the intents of their enemies, by which he was
+enabled to turn aside the edge of vengeance when it was meant to be most
+deadly. Accordingly, reckless of the opinions of men, he went forward
+with the Queen's army towards Perth; but before they had crossed the
+Water of Earn, word was brought to her Highness that the Earl of
+Glencairn, at the head of two thousand five hundred of the Reformed, was
+advancing from the shire of Ayr.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the fruits of my grandfather's mission to the Lord Boyd, and
+he heard likewise that the bold and free lairds of Angus and Merns, with
+all their followers, had formed themselves in battle-array to defend the
+town. Still, however, her Highness was resolute to go on; for she was
+instigated by her feminine anger, even as much as by the wicked councils
+of the papist lords by whom she was surrounded.</p>
+
+<p>But when she reached the heights that overlooked the sweet valley of the
+Tay, whose green and gentle bosom was then sparkling with the glances of
+warlike steel, her heart was softened, and she called to her the Lord
+James Stuart and the young Earl of Argyle&mdash;the old Lord, his father, had
+died some time prior,&mdash;and sent them to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> army of the Congregation,
+that peace might still be preserved. They accordingly went into the
+town, and sending notice to the leaders of the Reformed to appoint two
+of their party to confer with them, John Knox and the Master Willocks
+were nominated. My grandfather, who attended the Lord James on this
+occasion, was directed by him to receive the two deputies at the door
+and to conduct them in; and when they came he was much troubled to
+observe the state of their minds; for Master Willocks was austere in his
+looks as if resolved on quarrel, and the Reformer was agitated and
+angry, muttering to himself as he ascended the stairs, making his staff
+often dirl on the steps. No sooner were they shown into the presence of
+the two lords, even before the door was shut, than John Knox began to
+upbraid the Lord James for having broken the covenant and forsaken the
+Congregation.</p>
+
+<p>Much to that effect, my grandfather afterwards learnt, passed; but the
+Lord James pacified him with the assurance that his heart and spirit
+were still true to the cause, and that he had come with Argyle to
+prevent, if possible, the shedding of blood; he likewise declared both
+for himself and the Earl, who had hitherto always abided by the Queen,
+that if she refused to listen to reasonable terms, or should break any
+treaty entered into, they would openly take part against her.</p>
+
+<p>Upon these assurances a treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed
+that both armies should retire peaceably to their respective
+habitations; that the town should be made accessible to the Queen
+Regent; that no molestation should be given to those who were then in
+arms for the Congregation, and no persecutions undertaken against the
+Reformed,&mdash;with other covenants calculated to soothe the Congregation
+and allay men's fears. But no sooner was this treaty ratified, the army
+of the Congregation dispersed, and her Highness in possession of the
+town, than it was manifest no vows nor obligations were binding towards
+the heretics, as the Reformed were called. The Queen's French guards,
+even when attending her into the town, fired into the house of a known
+zealous protestant and killed his son; the inhabitants were plundered
+and insulted with impunity, and the magistrates were dismissed to make
+way for men devoted to papistry.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stuart, filled with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> wrath and
+indignation at such open perfidy, went straight into her Highness'
+presence without asking audience, and reproached her with deceit and
+craftiness; and having so vented their minds, instanter quitted the
+court and the town, and, attended by my grandfather and a few other
+servants, departed for Fife, to which John Knox had also retired after
+the dispersion of the Congregation at Perth. The Lord James, in virtue
+of being Prior of St Andrews, went thither attended by the Earl, and
+sent my grandfather to Crail, where the Reformer was then preaching, to
+invite him to meet them and others of the Congregation with all
+convenient expedition.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather never having been before in Crail, and not knowing how
+the people there might stand affected, instead of inquiring for John
+Knox, bethought himself of his acquaintance with Bailie Kilspinnie, and
+so speired his way to his dwelling, little hoping, from the fearful
+nature of that honest man, he would find him within. But, contrary to
+his expectation, he was not only there, but he welcomed my grandfather
+as an old and very cordial friend, leading him into his house and making
+much of him, telling him, with a voice of cheerfulness, that the day of
+reckoning had at last overtaken the lascivious idolaters.</p>
+
+<p>Then he caused to be brought in before my grandfather the five pretty
+babies that his wife had abandoned for her papistical paramour, the
+eldest of whom was but turned of nine years. The thoughts of their
+mother's shame overcame their father at that moment, and the tears
+coming into his eyes he sobbed aloud as he looked at them, and wept
+bitterly, while they flocked around, and wreathed him, as it were, with
+their caresses and innocent blandishments. So tender a scene melted my
+grandfather's spirit into sadness; and he could not remain master of
+himself, when the eldest, a mild and meek little maiden, said to him, as
+if to excuse her father's sorrow, "A foul friar made my mother an
+ill-doer, and took her away ae night when she was just done wi'
+harkening our prayers."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, a blooming and modest-eyed damsel came into the room;
+but, seeing a stranger, she drew back and was going away, when the
+bailie, drying his eyes, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come ben, Elspa; this is the young man that ye hae heard me sae commend
+for his kind friendship to me, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> that dotage-dauner that I made in my
+distraction to St Andrews. This," he added, turning to my grandfather,
+"is <a name='TC_11'></a><ins title="Was Eslpa">Elspa</ins> Ruet, the sister of that misfortunate woman;&mdash;to my helpless
+bairns she does their mother's duty."</p>
+
+<p><a name='TC_12'></a><ins title="Was Elpsa">Elspa</ins> made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and,
+turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she
+leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that
+reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's
+shame.</p>
+
+<p>From that hour her image had a dear place in my grandfather's bosom, and
+after the settlement of the Reformation throughout the realm, he courted
+her, and she became his wife, and in process of time my grandmother. But
+of her manifold excellencies I shall have occasion to speak more at
+large hereafter, for she was no ordinary woman, but a saint throughout
+life, returning in a good old age to her Maker, almost as blameless as
+she came from His pure hands; and nothing became her more in all her
+piety, than the part she acted towards her guilty sister.</p>
+
+<p>Having taken away the children, she then brought in divers refreshments,
+and a flagon of posset; but she remained not with the bailie and my
+grandfather while they partook thereof; so that they were left free to
+converse as they listed, and my grandfather was glad to find, as I have
+already said, that the poor man had triumphed over his fond grief, and
+was reconciled to his misfortunes as well as any father could well be,
+with so many deserted babies, and three of them daughters.</p>
+
+<p>He likewise learnt, with no less solace and satisfaction, that the
+Reformed were strong in Crail, and that the magistrates and beinest
+burgesses had been present on the day before at the preaching of John
+Knox, and had afterwards suffered the people to demolish the images and
+all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so
+that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship
+of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan
+pageantry of masses and altars.</p>
+
+<p>After the repast was finished, the bailie conducted my grandfather to
+the house where John Knox then lodged, to whom he communicated his
+message from the Lord James Stuart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell your master," was the reply of the Reformer, "that I will be with
+him, God willing; and God is willing, for this invitation, and the state
+of men's minds, maketh His will manifest. Yea, I was minded myself to go
+thither; for that same city of St Andrews is the Zion of Scotland. Of
+old, the glad tidings of salvation were first heard there,&mdash;there,
+amidst the damps and the darkness of ages, the ancient Culdees, men
+whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life,
+supplied the oil of the lamp of the living God for a period of four
+hundred years, independent of pope, prelate, or any human supremacy.
+There it was that a spark of their blessed embers was, in our own day,
+first blown into a flame,&mdash;and there, please God, where I, His unworthy
+instrument, was condemned as a criminal for His truth's sake, shall I,
+in His strength, be the herald of His triumph and great victory."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>When my grandfather had returned to the bailie's house after delivering
+his message to the Reformer, he spent an evening of douce but pleasant
+pastime with him and the modest Elspa Ruet, whose conversation was far
+above her degree, and seasoned with the sweet savour of holiness. But
+ever and anon, though all parties strove to eschew the subject, they
+began to speak of her erring sister, the bailie compassionating her
+continuance in sin as a man and a Christian should, but showing no wish
+nor will to mind her any more as kith or kin to him or his; a temper
+that my grandfather was well content to observe he had attained. Not so
+was that of Elspa; but her words were few and well chosen, and they made
+a deep impression on my grandfather; for she seemed fain to hide what
+was passing in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Twice or thrice she spoke of the ties of nature, intimating that they
+were as a bond and obligation laid on by <span class="smcap">the Maker</span>, whereby kindred were
+bound to stand by one another in weal or in woe, lest those who sinned
+should be utterly abandoned by all the world. The which tender and
+Christian sentiment, though it was melodious to my grandfather's spirit,
+pierced it with a keen pain; for he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> thought of the manner in which he
+had left his own parents, even though it was for the blessed sake of
+religion, and his bosom was at the moment filled with sorrow. But, when
+he said how much he regretted and was yet unrepentant of that step,
+Elspa cheered him with a consolation past utterance, by reminding him,
+that he had neither left them to want nor to sin; that, by quitting the
+shelter of their wing, he had but obeyed the promptings of nature, and
+that if, at any time hereafter, father or mother stood in need of his
+aid or exhortation, he could still do his duty.</p>
+
+<p>Without well considering what he said, the bailie observed on this, that
+he was surprised to hear her say so, and yet allow her sister to remain
+so long unreproved in her offences.</p>
+
+<p>Elspa Ruet to this made no immediate reply,&mdash;she was indeed unable; and
+my grandfather sympathised with her, for the sting had plainly
+penetrated to the very marrow of her soul. At last, however, she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your reproach is just, I hae been to blame baith to Heaven and man&mdash;but
+the thing has na been unthought, only I kent na how to gang about the
+task; and yet what gars me say sae but a woman's weakness, for the
+road's no sae lang to St Andrews, and surely iniquity does not there so
+abound, that no ane would help me to the donsie woman's bower."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, on hearing this, answered, that if she was indeed minded
+to try to rescue her sister, he was ready and willing to do all with her
+and for her that she could desire; but, bearing in mind the light
+woman's open shame, he added, "I'm fearful it's yet owre soon to hope
+for her amendment: she'll hae to fin the evil upshot of her ungodly
+courses, I doubt, before she'll be wrought into a frame of sincere
+penitence."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless," replied Elspa Ruet, "I will try; it's my duty, and my
+sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." At which words she
+burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "Alas, alas! that she
+should have so fallen!&mdash;I loved her&mdash;oh! naebody can tell how
+dearly&mdash;even as I loved myself. When I first saw my ain face in a
+looking-glass I thought it was her, and kissed it for the likeness, in
+pity that it didna look sae fair as it was wont to be. But it's the
+Lord's pleasure, and in permitting her to sink so low <span class="smcap">He</span> has no doubt
+some lesson to teach."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Thus, from less to more, as they continued conversing, it was agreed
+that Elspa Ruet should ride on a pad ahint my grandfather next morning
+to St Andrews, in order to try if the thing could be to move her sister
+to the humiliation of contrition for her loose life. And some small
+preparations being needful, Elspa departed and left the bailie and my
+grandfather together.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said my grandfather to him, after she had been some time away,
+"is't your design to take the unfortunate woman back among your innocent
+lassie bairns?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the bailie; "that's no a thing to be now thought of;
+please Providence, she'll ne'er again darken my door; I'll no, however,
+allow her to want. Her mother, poor auld afflicted woman, that has ne'er
+refraint from greeting since her flight, she'll tak her in; but atween
+her and me there's a divorce for ever."</p>
+
+<p>By daylight my grandfather had his horse at the door; and Elspa having
+borrowed the provost's lady's pad overnight, it was buckled on, and they
+were soon after on the road.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sunny morning in June, and all things were bright, and blithe,
+and blooming. The spirits of youth, joy and enjoyment were spread about
+on the earth. The butterflies, like floating lilies, sailed from blossom
+to blossom, and the gowans, the bright and beautiful eyes of the summer,
+shone with gladness, as Nature walked on bank and brae, in maiden pride,
+spreading and showing her new flowery mantle to the sun. The very airs
+that stirred the glittering trees were soft and genial as the breath of
+life; and the leaves of the aspine seemed to lap the sunshine like the
+tongues of young and happy creatures that delight in their food.</p>
+
+<p>As my grandfather and Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of
+the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so
+graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that
+their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with
+success. But when they came in sight of the papal towers and gorgeous
+edifices of St Andrews, which then raised their proud heads, like Babel,
+so audaciously to the heavens, they both became silent.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather's thoughts ran on what might ensue if the Archbishop were
+to subject him to his dominion, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> he resolved, as early as possible,
+to make known his arrival to the Lord James Stuart, who, in virtue of
+being head of the priory, was then resident there, and to claim his
+protection. Accordingly he determined to ride with Elspa Ruet to the
+house of the vintner in the Shoegate, of which I have already spoken,
+and to leave her under the care of Lucky Kilfauns, as the hostess was
+called, until he had done so. But fears and sorrows were busy with the
+fancy of his fair companion; and it was to her a bitter thing, as she
+afterwards told him, to think that the purpose of her errand was to
+entreat a beloved sister to leave a life of shame and sin, and sadly
+doubting if she would succeed.</p>
+
+<p>Being thus occupied with their respective cogitations, they entered the
+city in silence, and reached the vintner's door without having exchanged
+a word for several miles. There Elspa alighted, and being commended to
+the care of Lucky Kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was
+a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait
+to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the
+porter, and was admitted to the Lord Prior, as the Lord James was there
+papistically called.</p>
+
+<p>Having told his Lordship that he had delivered his message to John Knox,
+and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related
+partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews,
+and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with
+him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection,
+for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his
+devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed,
+and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa
+had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and
+intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising
+with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she
+had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's
+side, had been wiled away from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> her home by the abbot of Melrose, and
+never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the
+condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
+But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for
+so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,
+after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa
+should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there
+for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on
+the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former
+guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at
+the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while
+Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa
+Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the
+priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.</p>
+
+<p>When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met
+with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's
+men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked
+after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much
+he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the
+seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire
+for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,
+he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein
+there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.</p>
+
+<p>After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the
+stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to
+search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my
+grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a
+groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he
+would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's,
+where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour
+or two.</p>
+
+<p>The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar
+towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to
+conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with
+all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'
+grace as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, they
+worked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her or
+my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon
+came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to
+keep the tryst.</p>
+
+<p>That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin
+might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky
+Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to
+prepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a milder
+mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the
+concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and
+blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many
+other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman
+deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her
+unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to St
+Andrews only to lay her head in the coffin.</p>
+
+<p>The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky
+Kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it
+was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till
+the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered
+along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds
+and imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderly
+shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid
+together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between
+two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with
+very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the
+causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at
+them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what
+they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends
+and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened
+much sadness of heart.</p>
+
+<p>The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,
+meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to
+a greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at one
+door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.
+One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> along, was often
+addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as
+awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been
+a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then
+somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she
+eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among
+the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and
+multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my
+grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's
+daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married
+some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.</p>
+
+<p>As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin
+mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young
+master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning
+on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders
+pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,
+scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was
+obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of
+no comfort.</p>
+
+<p>All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my
+grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not
+like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty
+were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's
+armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,
+and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and
+on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town,
+and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that
+they expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet to
+preach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so;
+for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit,
+had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer,
+made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.
+But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public
+nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour
+appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he
+found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> by herself,
+weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought
+of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind
+endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>As the time of appointment drew near, Elspa Ruet was enabled to call in
+her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the
+blessing of the tranquil mind was shed upon her. Her tears were dried
+up, and her countenance shone with a serene benignity. When she was an
+aged, withered woman, my grandfather has been heard to say that he never
+remembered her appearance without marvelling at the special effusion of
+holiness and beauty which beamed and brightened upon her in that trying
+hour, nor without thinking that he still beheld the glory of its
+twilight glowing through the dark and faded clouds of her old age.</p>
+
+<p>They had not sat long when a tapping was heard at the widow's door, and
+my grandfather, starting up, retired into a distant corner of the room,
+behind a big napery press, and sat down in the obscurity of its shadow.
+Elspa remained in her seat beside the table, on which a candle was
+burning, and, as it stood behind the door, she could not be seen by any
+coming in till they had passed into the middle of the floor.</p>
+
+<p>In little more than the course of a minute, the voice of her sister was
+heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. The door was then
+opened, and Marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. Elspa started
+from her seat. The guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but
+in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in
+her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore sobs, for
+some time on her bosom, which was wantonly unkerchiefed.</p>
+
+<p>After a short space of time, with confusion of face, and frowns of
+mortification, and glances of rage, the abandoned Marion disengaged
+herself from her sister's fond and sorrowful embraces, and, retreating
+to a chair, sat down, and seemed to muster all the evil passions of the
+guilty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> breast,&mdash;fierce anger, sharp hatred, and gnawing contempt; and a
+bad boldness of look that betokened a worse spirit than them all.</p>
+
+<p>"It was na to see the like of you I cam' here," said she, with a
+scornful toss of her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I ken that, Marion," replied Elspa, mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"And what business then hae ye to come to snool me?"</p>
+
+<p>Elspa for a little while made no answer to this, but, drying her eyes,
+she went to her seat composedly, and then said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause ye're my sister, and brought shame and disgrace on a' your
+family. O, Marion, I'm wae to say this! but ye're owre brave in your
+sin."</p>
+
+<p>"Do ye think I'll e'er gae back to that havering, daunering cuif o' a
+creature, the Crail bailie?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a man o' mair worth and conduct, Marion," replied her sister,
+firmly, "than to put that in your power&mdash;even, woman, if ye were
+penitent, and besought him for charity."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, weel, no to clishmaclaver about him. How's a' wi' the bairns?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are ye no frighted, Marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how
+ye left them, and what for ye did sae?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am na I their mither, have na I a right to speer?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they
+lost their mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye need na be sae snell wi' your taunts," exclaimed Marion, evidently
+endeavouring to preserve the arrogance she had assumed; "ye need na be
+sae snell; I'm far better off, and happier than e'er I was in James
+Kilspinnie's aught."</p>
+
+<p>"That's no possible," said her sister. "It would be an unco thing of
+Heaven to let wickedness be happier than honesty."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Marion, dinna deceive yoursel, ye hae nae sure footing on the
+steading where ye stan'. The Bishop will nae mair, than your guidman,
+thole your loose life to him. If he kent ye were here, I doubt he would
+let you bide, and what would become of you then?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's no sic a fool as to be angry that I am wi' my sister."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be," replied Elspa: "I'm thinking, however, if in my place
+here he saw but that young man," and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> pointed to my grandfather,
+whom her sister had not till then observed, "he would have some cause to
+consider."</p>
+
+<p>Marion attempted to laugh scornfully, but her heart gurged within her,
+and instead of laughter, her voice broke out into wild and horrid yells,
+and falling back in her chair, she grew stiff and ghastly to behold, in
+so much that both Elspa and my grandfather were terrified, and had to
+work with her for some time before they were able to recover her; nor
+indeed did she come rightly to herself till she got relief by tears; but
+they were tears of rage, and not shed for any remorse on account of her
+foul fault. Indeed, no sooner was she come to herself, than she began to
+rail at her sister and my grandfather, calling them by all the terms of
+scorn that her tongue could vent. At last she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But nae doubt ye're twa Reformers."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," replied Elspa, "in a sense we are sae, for we would fain help to
+reform you."</p>
+
+<p>But after a long, faithful, and undaunted endeavour on the part of
+Elspa, in this manner, to reach the sore of her sinful conscience, she
+saw that all her ettling was of no avail, and her heart sank, and she
+began to weep, saying, "O, Marion, Marion, ye were my dear sister ance;
+but frae this night, if ye leave me to gang again to your sins, I hope
+the Lord will erase the love I bear you utterly out of my heart, and
+leave me but the remembrance of what ye were when we were twa wee
+playing lassies, clapping our young hands, and singing for joy in the
+bonny spring mornings that will never, never come again."</p>
+
+<p>The guilty Marion was touched with her sorrow, and for a moment seemed
+to relent and melt, replying in a softened accent,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me, Eppie, for ye hae na telt me yet, how did ye leave my
+weans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to see them?" said Elspa, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"I would na like to gang to Crail," replied her sister, thoughtfully;
+"but if&mdash;" and she hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Marion," exclaimed Elspa, with indignation, "ye're no sae lost
+to all shame as to wish your innocent dochters to see you in the midst
+of your iniquities?"</p>
+
+<p>Marion reddened, and sat abashed and rebuked for a short time in
+silence, and then reverting to her children, she said, somewhat
+humbly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But tell me how they are&mdash;poor things!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are as weel as can be hoped for," replied Elspa, moved by her
+altered manner; "but they'll lang miss the loss of their mother's care.
+O, Marion, how could ye quit them! The beasts that perish are kinder to
+their young, for they nourish and protect them till they can do for
+themselves; but your wee May can neither yet gang nor speak. She's your
+very picture, Marion, as like you as&mdash;God forbid that she ever be like
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>The wretched mother was unable to resist the energy of her sister's
+appeal, and, bursting into tears, wept bitterly for some time.</p>
+
+<p>Elspa, compassionating her contrition, rose, and, taking her kindly by
+the hand, said, "Come, Marion, we'll gang hame&mdash;let us leave this guilty
+city&mdash;let us tarry no longer within its walls&mdash;the curse of Heaven is
+darkening over it, and the storm of the hatred of its corruption is
+beginning to lighten:&mdash;let us flee from the wrath that is to come."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll no gang back to Crail&mdash;I dare na gang there&mdash;everyone would haud
+out their fingers at me&mdash;I canna gang to Crail&mdash;Eppie, dinna bid
+me&mdash;I'll mak away wi' mysel' before I'll gang to Crail."</p>
+
+<p>"Dinna say that," replied her sister: "O, Marion, if ye felt within the
+humiliation of a true penitent, ye would na speak that way, but would
+come and hide your face in your poor mother's bosom; often, often,
+Marion, did she warn you no to be ta'en up wi' the pride an' bravery of
+a fine outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye may gang hame yoursel'," exclaimed the impenitent woman, starting
+from her seat; "I'll no gang wi' you to be looket down on by every one.
+If I should hae had a misfortune, nane's the sufferer but mysel'; and
+what would I hae to live on wi' my mother? She's pinched enough for her
+ain support. No; since I hae't in my power, I'll tak my pleasure o't.
+Onybody can repent when they like, and it's no convenient yet for me.
+Since I hae slippit the tether, I may as well tak a canter o'er the
+knowes. I won'er how I could be sae silly as to sit sae lang willy-waing
+wi' you about that blethering bodie, James Kilspinnie. He could talk o'
+naething but the town-council, the cost o' plaiding, and the price o'
+woo'. No, Eppie, I'll no gang wi' you, but I'll be glad if ye'll gang
+o'er the gait<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> and tak your bed wi' me. I hae a braw bower&mdash;and, let me
+tell you, this is no a house of the best repute."</p>
+
+<p>"Is yours ony better?" replied Elspa, fervently. "No, Marion; sooner
+would I enter the gates of death, than darken your guilty door. Shame
+upon you, shame!&mdash;But the sweet Heavens, in their gracious hour of
+mercy, will remember the hope that led me here, and some day work out a
+blessed change. The prayers of an afflicted parent, and the cries of
+your desolate babies, will assuredly bring down upon you the purifying
+fires of self-condemnation. Though a wicked pride at this time withholds
+you from submitting to the humiliation which is the just penalty of your
+offences, still the day is not far off when you will come begging for a
+morsel of bread to those that weep for your fall, and implore you to
+eschew the evil of your way."</p>
+
+<p>To these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the
+miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her
+sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger.
+My grandfather then conveyed the mournful Elspa back to the house of
+Lucky Kilfauns, and returned to the priory.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The next day, Elspa Ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was
+minded to have gone home to Crail, but the news that John Knox was to
+preach on the morrow at St Andrews had spread far and wide; no man could
+tell by what wonderful reverberation the tidings had awakened the whole
+land. From all quarters droves of the Reformed and the pious came
+pressing to the gates of the city, like sheep to the fold and doves to
+the windows. The Archbishop and the priests and friars were smitten with
+dread and consternation; the doom of their fortunes was evident in the
+distraction of their minds&mdash;but the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James
+Stuart, at the priory, remained calm and collected.</p>
+
+<p>Foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the
+wrath of the Queen Regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and
+my grandfather was ordered to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> hold himself in readiness for a journey.
+Thus was he prevented from going to Crail with Elspa Ruet, who, with a
+heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that
+brought the Reformer to the town. For John Knox, though under the ban of
+outlawry, was so encouraged with inward assurances from on High, that he
+came openly to the gate, and passed up the crown of the causey on to the
+priory, in the presence of the Archbishop's guards, of all the people,
+and of the astonished and dismayed priesthood.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the Antichrist heard of his arrival, he gave orders for all
+his armed retainers, to the number of more than a hundred men-at-arms,
+to assemble in the cloisters of the monastery of the Blackfriars; for he
+was a man of a soldierly spirit, and though a loose and immoral
+churchman, would have made a valiant warrior; and going thither himself,
+he thence sent word to the Lord James Stuart at the priory, that if John
+Knox dared to preach in the cathedral, as was threatened, he would order
+his guard to fire on him in the pulpit.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather, with others of the retinue of the two noblemen, had
+accompanied the Archbishop's messenger into the Prior's chamber, where
+they were sitting with John Knox when this bold challenge to the
+champion of Christ's cause was delivered; and it was plain that both
+Argyle and the Lord James were daunted by it, for they well knew the
+fearlessness and the fierceness of their consecrated adversary.</p>
+
+<p>After the messenger had retired, and the Lord James, in a particular
+manner, had tacitly signified to my grandfather to remain in the room,
+and had taken a slip of paper, he began to write thereon, while Argyle
+said to the Reformer,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Master Knox, this is what we could na but expect; and though it may
+seem like a misdooting of our cause now to desist, I'm in a swither if
+ye should mak the attempt to preach."</p>
+
+<p>The Reformer made no answer; and the Lord James, laying down his pen,
+also said, "My thoughts run wi' Argyle's,&mdash;considering the weakness of
+our train and the Archbishop's preparations, with his own regardless
+character,&mdash;I do think we should for a while rest in our intent. The
+Queen Regent has come to Falkland wi' her French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> force, and we are in
+no condition to oppose their entrance into the town; besides, your
+appearance in the pulpit may lead to the sacrifice of your own most
+precious life, and the lives of many others who will no doubt stand
+forth in your defence. Whether, therefore, you ought, in such a
+predicament, to think of preaching, is a thing to be well considered."</p>
+
+<p>"In the strength of the Lord," exclaimed John Knox, with the voice of an
+apostle, "I will preach. God is my witness that I never preached in
+contempt of any man, nor would I willingly injure any creature; but I
+cannot delay my call to-morrow if I am not hindered by violence. As for
+the fear of danger that may come to me, let no man be solicitous; for my
+life is in the custody of <span class="smcap">Him</span> whose glory I seek, and threats will not
+deter me from my duty when Heaven so offereth the occasion. I desire
+neither the hand nor the weapon of man to defend me; I only crave
+audience, which, if it be denied to me here at this time, I must seek
+where I may have it."</p>
+
+<p>The manner and confidence with which this was spoken silenced and
+rebuked the two temporal noblemen, and they offered no more
+remonstrance, but submitted as servants, to pave the way for this intent
+of his courageous piety. Accordingly, after remaining a short time, as
+if in expectation to hear what the Earl of Argyle might further have to
+say, the Lord James Stuart took up his pen again, and when he had
+completed his writing, he gave the paper to my grandfather (it was a
+list of some ten or twelve names) saying, "Make haste, Gilhaize, and let
+these, our friends in Angus, know the state of peril in which we stand.
+Tell them what has chanced; how the gauntlet is thrown; and that our
+champion has taken it up, and is prepared for the onset."</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather forthwith departed on his errand, and spared not the spur
+till he had delivered his message to every one whose names were written
+in the paper; and their souls were kindled and the spirit of the Lord
+quickened in their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>The roads sparkled with the feet of summoning horsemen, and the towns
+rung with the sound of warlike preparations.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day, towards the afternoon, my grandfather embarked at
+Dundee on his return, and was landed at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> Fife water-side. There were
+many in the boat with him; and it was remarked by some among them, that,
+for several days, no one had been observed to smile, and that all men
+seemed in the expectation of some great event.</p>
+
+<p>The weather being loun and very sultry, he travelled slowly with those
+who were bound for St Andrews, conversing with them on the troubles of
+the time, and the clouds that were gathering and darkening over poor
+Scotland; but every one spoke from the faith of his own bosom, that the
+terrors of the storm would not be of long duration&mdash;so confident were
+those unlettered men of the goodness of Christ's cause in that epoch of
+tribulation.</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus communing together, they came in sight of the city,
+with its coronal of golden spires, and Babylonian pride of idolatrous
+towers, and they halted for a moment to contemplate the gorgeous
+insolence with which Antichrist had there built up and invested the
+blood-stained throne of his blasphemous usurpation.</p>
+
+<p>"The walls of Jericho," said one of the travellers, "fell at the sound
+but of ram's horns, and shall yon Babel withstand the preaching of John
+Knox?"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he said the words, when the glory of its magnificence was
+wrapt with a shroud of dust; a dreadful peal of thunder came rolling
+soon after, though not a spark of vapour was seen in all the ether of
+the blue sky; and the rumble of a dreadful destruction was then heard.
+My grandfather clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped on towards the
+town. The clouds rose thicker and filled the whole air. Shouts and
+cries, as he drew near, were mingled with the crash of falling edifices.
+The earth trembled, and his horse stood still, regardless of the rowels,
+as if it had seen the angel of the Lord standing in his way. On all
+sides monks and nuns came flying from the town, wringing their hands as
+if the horrors of the last judgment had surprised them in their sins.
+The guards of the Archbishop were scattered among them like chaff in the
+swirl of the wind: then his Grace came himself on Sir David Hamilton's
+fleet mare, with Sir David and divers of his household fast following.
+The wrath of heaven was behind them, and they rattled past my
+grandfather like the distempered phantoms that hurry through the dreams
+of dying men.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather's horse at last obeyed the spur, and he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> rode on and into
+the city, the gates of which were deserted. There he beheld on all sides
+that the Lord had indeed put the besom of destruction into the hands of
+the Reformers; and that not one of all the buildings which had been
+polluted by the papistry&mdash;no, not one&mdash;had escaped the erasing
+fierceness of its ruinous sweep. The presence of the magistrates lent
+the grace of authority to the zeal of the people, and all things were
+done in order. The idols were torn down from the altars, and
+deliberately broken by the children with hammers into pieces. There was
+no speaking; all was done in silence; the noise of the falling churches,
+the rending of the shrines, and the breaking of the images were the only
+sounds heard. But for all that, the zeal of not a few was, even in the
+midst of their dread solemnity, alloyed with covetousness. My
+grandfather himself saw one of the town-council slip the bald head, in
+silver, of one of the twelve apostles into his pouch.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The triumph of the truth at St Andrews was followed by the victorious
+establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the Reformation in
+Scotland. The precautions taken by the deep forecasting mind of the Lord
+James Stuart, through the instrumentality of my grandfather and others,
+were of inexpressible benefit to the righteous cause. It was foreseen
+that the Queen Regent, who had come to Falkland, would be prompt to
+avenge the discomfiture of her sect, the papists; but the zealous
+friends of the Gospel, seconding the resolution of the Lords of the
+Congregation, enabled them to set all her power at defiance.</p>
+
+<p>With an attendance of few more than a hundred horse, and about as many
+foot, the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James set out from St Andrews to
+frustrate, as far as the means they had concerted might, the wrathful
+measures which they well knew her Highness would take. But this small
+force was by the next morning increased to full three thousand fighting
+men; and so ardently did the spirit of enmity and resistance against the
+papacy spread, that the Queen Regent, when she came with her French
+troops and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> her Scottish levies, under the command of the Duke of
+Chatelherault, to Cupar, found that she durst not encounter in battle
+the growing strength of the Congregation, so she consented to a truce,
+and, as usual in her dissimulating policy, promised many things which
+she never intended to perform. But the protestants, by this time knowing
+that the papists never meant to keep their pactions with them,
+discovering the policy of her Highness, silently moved onward. They
+proceeded to Perth, and having expelled the garrison, took the town, and
+fired the abbey of Scone. But as my grandfather was not with them in
+those raids, being sent on the night of the great demolition at St
+Andrews to apprise the Earl of Glencairn, his patron, of the extremities
+to which matters had come there, it belongs not to the scope of my story
+to tell what ensued, farther than that from Perth the Congregation
+proceeded to Stirling, where they demolished the monasteries;&mdash;then they
+went to Lithgow, and herret the nests of the locusts there; and
+proceeding bravely on, purging the realm as they went forward, they
+arrived at Edinburgh, and constrained the Queen Regent, who was before
+them with her forces there, to pack up her ends and her awls, and make
+what speed she could with them to Dunbar. But foul as the capital then
+was, and covered with the leprosy of idolatry, they were not long in
+possession till they so medicated her with the searching medicaments of
+the Reformation, that she was soon scrapit of all the scurf and kell of
+her abominations. There was not an idol or an image within her bounds
+that, in less than three days, was not beheaded like a traitor and
+trundled to the dogs, even with vehemence, as a thing that could be
+sensible of contempt. But as all these things are set forth at large in
+the chronicles of the kingdom, let suffice it to say that my grandfather
+continued for nearly two years after this time a trusted emissary among
+the Lords of the Congregation in their many arduous labours and perilous
+correspondencies, till the Earl of Glencairn was appointed to see
+idolatry banished and extirpated from the West Country; in which
+expedition his Lordship, being minded to reward my grandfather's
+services in the cause of the Reformation, invited him to be of his
+force; to which my grandfather, not jealousing the secularities of his
+patron's intents, joyfully agreed, hoping to see the corner-stone placed
+on the great edifice of the Reformation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> which all good and pious men
+began then to think near completion.</p>
+
+<p>Having joined the Earl's force at Glasgow, my grandfather went forward
+with it to Paisley. Before reaching that town, however, they were met by
+a numerous multitude of the people, half way between it and the castle
+of Cruikstone, and at their head my grandfather was blithened to see his
+old friend, the gentle monk Dominick Callender, in a soldier's garb, and
+with a ruddy and emboldened countenance, and by his side, with a sword
+manfully girded on his thigh, the worthy Bailie Pollock, whose nocturnal
+revels at the abbey had brought such dule to the winsome Maggy Napier.</p>
+
+<p>For some reason, which my grandfather never well understood, there was
+more lenity shown to the abbey here than usual; but the monks were
+rooted out, the images given over to destruction, and the old bones and
+miraculous crucifixes were either burnt or interred. Less damage,
+however, was done to the buildings than many expected, partly through
+the exhortations of the magistrates, who were desirous to preserve so
+noble a building for a protestant church, but chiefly out of some
+paction or covenant secretly entered into anent the distribution of the
+domains and property, wherein the house of Hamilton was concerned, the
+Duke of Chatelherault, the head thereof, notwithstanding the papistical
+nature of his blood and kin, having some time before gone over to the
+cause of the Congregation.</p>
+
+<p>The work of the Reformation being thus abridged at Paisley, the Earl of
+Glencairn went forward to Kilwinning, where he was less scrupulous; for
+having himself obtained a grant of the lands of the abbacy, he was fain
+to make a clean hand o't, though at the time my grandfather knew not of
+this.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the army reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to
+the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were
+chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come
+on. Dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to
+the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine
+linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery
+of the mass after him as he fled away in fear.</p>
+
+<p>This resolute act was the signal for the general demoli<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>tion, and it
+began on all sides; my grandfather giving a leap, caught hold of a fine
+effigy of the Virgin Mary by the leg to pull it down; but it proved to
+be the one which James Coom the smith had mended, for the leg came off,
+and my grandfather fell backwards, and was for a moment stunned by his
+fall. A band of the monks, who were standing trembling spectators, made
+an attempt, at seeing this, to raise a shout of a miracle; but my
+grandfather, in the same moment recovering himself, seized the Virgin's
+timber leg, and flung it with violence at them, and it happened to
+strike one of the fattest of the flock with such a bir, that it was said
+the life was driven out of him. This, however, was not the case; for,
+although the monk was sorely hurt, he lived many a day after, and was
+obligated, in his auld years, when he was feckless, to be carried from
+door to door on a hand-barrow begging his bread. The wives, I have heard
+tell, were kindly to him, for he was a jocose carl; but the weans little
+respected his grey hairs, and used to jeer him as auld Father
+Paternoster, for even to the last he adhered to his beads. It was
+thought, however, by a certain pious protestant gentlewoman of Irvine,
+that before his death he got a cast of grace; for one day, when he had
+been carried over to beg in that town, she gave him a luggie of kail
+ower het, which he stirred with the end of the ebony crucifix at his
+girdle, thereby showing, as she said, a symptom that it held a lower
+place in his spiritual affections than if he had been as sincere in his
+errors as he let wot.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he
+was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the
+demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. But in the evening, when
+he took up his quarters in the house of Theophilus Lugton with Dominick
+Callender, who had brought on a party of the Paisley Reformers, he was
+so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over
+next day with the force that the Earl missioned to herry the Carmelyte
+convent at Irvine.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> Dominick Callender had, however, among other things,
+learnt, in the abbey at Paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and
+how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed Dame
+Lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the
+anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather
+was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be
+lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed,
+no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient
+traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to
+the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion&mdash;and many were of the same
+mind&mdash;that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an
+art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpassed
+by the learning of the colleges. But it is not meet that I should detain
+the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which
+has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws,
+manners and conduct since the extirpation of the Roman idolatry, is,
+from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can
+scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, I have
+thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they
+proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of
+notation in the brief spaces which they happen herein to occupy. But
+now, returning from this digression, I will take up again the thread and
+clue of my story.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl of Glencairn, after the abbey of Kilwinning was sacked, went
+and slept at Eglinton Castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed
+with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a
+gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. And
+his Lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the
+morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a
+special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither
+accordingly, taking with him Dominick Callender and twelve godly lads
+from Paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from
+Glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he
+was admitted to the Earl his patron, his Lordship said to him, more as a
+friend than a master,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am in the hope, Gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and
+perilous errands on which, to the weal of Scotland and the true church,
+you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in
+my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in
+peace the reward you have earned so well, that I am better pleased in
+bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. But there is yet one task
+which I must put upon you. Hard by to this castle, less than a mile
+eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of
+mind under the protection of the Lord Eglinton's family, and he, having
+got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they
+should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in Irvine
+called the Kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. To do this
+kindly I have bethought myself of you, for I know not in all my force
+any one so well qualified. Have you provided yourself with the twenty
+douce men that I ordered you to bring hither?"</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather told his Lordship that he had done as he was ordered.
+"Then," resumed the Earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the
+superior, and one of Eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you
+have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me."</p>
+
+<p>So my grandfather did as he was directed by the Earl, and marched
+eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble
+and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times,
+when all the other buildings were erased, was called the Stane Castle,
+and is known by that name even unto this day. It stood within a high
+wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>Compassionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their
+sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a
+cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and
+going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman
+answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior,
+gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> chamber, on the one
+side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent
+matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon
+made her appearance within.</p>
+
+<p>He told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the
+purpose of his visit, and showed her the Earl's mandate; to all which,
+for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at
+last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the
+number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. Then ensued a dreadful
+tempest of all feminine passions and griefs, intermingled with
+supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their
+saints were abolished in Scotland, and they received no aid.</p>
+
+<p>Though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be
+recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears
+and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he
+was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures
+into the bad world; but it was his duty;&mdash;so, after soothing them as
+well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go
+would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be
+resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as
+that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became
+calm and prepared for the removal.</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in
+the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein.
+One was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had
+a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. One aged
+sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water
+which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them
+thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather
+reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold
+hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of Irvine.</p>
+
+<p>There was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little
+moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow
+by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took
+of anything. Of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have
+nothing to care for; and when they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> ready, and came forth to the
+gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their
+peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. No
+sooner, however, had she passed the yett, than, on seeing the armed
+company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill
+cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. Every one ran to her
+assistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, Dominick
+Callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was
+enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. She was indeed no other than
+the young maiden of Paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the
+heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and
+when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place
+between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and
+the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. But Magdalene Sauchie, for
+so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put
+down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her
+vows; and during the walk to Irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant
+upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, Dominick
+settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards
+earned both gold and reputation.</p>
+
+<p>But to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in
+this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the
+Kirkgate, where the Countess of Eglinton had provided a house for them,
+began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life
+was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the
+temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this
+mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the Tolbooth stair,
+and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands
+on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "Fear not, my
+chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, I have an
+assurance at this moment from the Virgin Mary herself, that the calamity
+of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the Kirkgate of Irvine, but
+that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein,
+shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men."
+Which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they
+dried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> their tears, and chanted their Ave Maria, joyfully proceeding
+towards their appointed habitation. It stood, as I have been told, on
+the same spot where King James the Sixth's school was afterwards
+erected, and endowed out of the spoils of Carmelytes' monastery, which,
+on the same day, was, by another division of the Earl of Glencairn's
+power, sacked and burnt to the ground.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>When my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those
+sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the
+afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn at Eglinton Castle to report what he
+had done; and his Lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended
+his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the Earl and
+Countess of Eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions
+wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his
+piety. And the Lady Eglinton, who was a household character, striving,
+with great frugality, to augment the substance of her Lord, by keeping
+her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their
+broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the
+castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to
+the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and
+degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would
+give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the
+meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the
+superior of the nuns. Then the Earl of Glencairn said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gilhaize, madam, is now his own master, and may choose a bride when it
+pleases himself; for I have covenanted with my friend, your Lord, to let
+him have the mailing of Quharist, in excambio for certain of the lands
+of late pertaining to the abbacy of Kilwinning, the which lie more
+within the vicinage of this castle; and, Gilhaize, here is my warrant to
+take possession."</p>
+
+<p>With which words the Earl rose and presented him with a charter for the
+lands, signed by Eglinton and himself, and he shook him heartily by the
+hand, saying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> that few in all the kingdom had better earned the guerdon
+of their service than he had done.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that our family came to be settled in the shire of Ayr; for
+after my grandfather had taken possession of his fee, and mindful of the
+vow he had made in the street of Edinburgh on that blessed morning when
+John Knox, the champion of the true church, arrived from Geneva, he went
+into the east country to espouse Elspa Ruet, if he found her thereunto
+inclined, which happily he soon did. For their spirits were in unison;
+and from the time they first met, they had felt toward one another as if
+they had been acquaint in loving-kindness before, which made him
+sometimes say, that it was to him a proof and testimony that the souls
+of mankind have, perhaps, a living knowledge of each other before they
+are born into this world.</p>
+
+<p>At their marriage, it was agreed that they should take with them into
+the west Agnes Kilspinnie, one of the misfortunate bailie's daughters.
+As for her mother, from the day of the overthrow and destruction of the
+papistry at St Andrews, she had never been heard of; all the tidings her
+sister could gather concerning her were, that the same night she had
+been conveyed away by some of the Archbishop's servants, but whither no
+one could tell. So they came with Agnes Kilspinnie to Edinburgh; and,
+for a ploy to their sober wedding, they resolved to abide there till the
+coming of Queen Mary from France, that they might partake of the shows
+and pastimes then preparing for her reception. They, however, during the
+season of their sojourn, feasted far better than on royal fare, in the
+gospel banquet of John Knox's sermons, of which they enjoyed the
+inexpressible beatitude three several Sabbath-days before the Queen
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Of the joyous preparations to greet Queen Mary withal neither my
+grandfather nor grandmother were ever wont to discourse much at large,
+for they were holy-minded persons, little esteeming the pageantries of
+this world. But my aunt, for Agnes Kilspinnie being in progress of time
+married to my father's fourth brother, became sib to me in that degree,
+was wont to descant and enlarge on the theme with much wonderment and
+loquacity, describing the marvellous fabrics that were to have been hung
+with tapestry to hold the ladies, and the fountains that were to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> have
+spouted wine, which nobody was to be allowed to taste, the same being
+only for an ostentation, in order that the fact thereof might be
+recorded in the chronicles for after-times. And great things have I
+likewise heard her tell of the paraphernalia which the magistrates and
+town-council were getting ready. No sleep, in a sense, she used to say,
+did Maccalzean of Cliftonhall, who was then provost, get for more than a
+fortnight. From night to morning the sagacious bailies sat in council,
+exercising their sagacity to contrive devices to pleasure the Queen, and
+to help the custom of their own and their neighbours' shops. Busy and
+proud men they were, and no smaller were the worshipful deacons of the
+crafts. It was just a surprise and consternation to everybody, to think
+how their weak backs could bear such a burden of cares. No time had they
+for their wonted jocosity. To those who would fain have speered the
+news, they shook their heads in a Solomon-like manner, and hastened by.
+And such a battle and tribulation as they had with their vassals, the
+magistrates of Leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted
+that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the Sovereign on
+the shore. This pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the
+provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with
+them, together with the help of their learned assessors, continued
+deliberating anent the same for hours together. It was a dreadful
+business that for the town of Edinburgh. And the opinions of the judges
+of the land, and the lords of the council, were taken, and many a device
+tried to overcome the upsetting, as it was called, of the Leith
+magistrates; but all was of no avail. And it was thought there would
+have been a fight between the bailies of Leith and the bailies of
+Edinburgh, and that blood would have been shed before this weighty
+question, so important to the dearest interests of the commonweal of
+Scotland, could be determined. But, in the midst of their contention,
+and before their preparations were half finished, the Queen arrived in
+Leith Roads; and the news came upon them like the cry to the foolish
+virgins of the bridegroom in the street. Then they were seen flying to
+their respective places of abode to dress themselves in their coats of
+black velvet, their doublets of crimson satin, and their hose of the
+same colour which they had prepared for the occasion. Anon they met in
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> council-chamber&mdash;what confusion reigned there! Then how they flew
+down the street! Provost Maccalzean, with the silver keys in his hand,
+and the eldest bailie with the crimson-velvet cod, whereon they were to
+be delivered to her Majesty, following as fast as any member of a city
+corporation could be reasonably expected to do. But how the provost
+fell, and how the bailies and town-council tumbled over him, and how the
+crowd shouted at the sight, are things whereof to understand the
+greatness it is needful that the courteous reader should have heard my
+aunty Agnes herself rehearse the extraordinary particularities.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the Queen left her galley in a small boat, and the bailies of
+Leith had scarcely time to reach the pier before she was on shore. Alas!
+it was an ill-omened landing. Few were spectators, and none cheered the
+solitary lady, who, as she looked around and heard no loyal greeting,
+nor beheld any show of hospitable welcome, seemed to feel as if the
+spirit of the land was sullen at her approach, and grudged at her return
+to the dark abodes of her fierce ancestors. In all the way from Leith to
+Holyrood she never spoke, but the tear was in her eye and the sigh in
+her bosom; and though her people gathered when it was known she had
+landed, and began at last to shout, it was owre late to prevent the
+mournful forebodings, which taught her to expect but disappointments and
+sorrows from subjects so torn with their own factions, as to lack even
+the courtesies due to their sovereign, a stranger, and the fairest lady
+of all her time.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Soon after Queen Mary's return from France, my grandfather, with his
+wife and Agnes Kilspinnie, came from Edinburgh and took up their
+residence on his own free mailing of Quharist, where the Lady Eglinton
+was as good as her word in presenting to them divers articles of fine
+napery, and sundry things of plenishing both for ornament and use; and
+there he would have spent his days in blame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>less tranquillity, serving
+the Lord, but for the new storm that began to gather over the church,
+whereof it is needful that I should now proceed to tell some of the
+circumstantials.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had that thoughtless Princess, if indeed one could be so
+called, who, though reckless of all consequences, was yet double beyond
+the imagination of man; no sooner, I say, had she found herself at home,
+than, with all the craft and blandishments of her winning airs and
+peerless beauty, she did set herself to seduce the Lords of the
+Congregation from the sternness wherewith they had thrown down, and were
+determined to resist, the restoration of the Roman idolatry; and with
+some of them she succeeded so far, that the popish priests were
+hearkened, and, knowing her avowed partiality for their sect, the Beast
+began to shoot out its horns again, and they dared to perform the
+abomination of the mass in different quarters of the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>It is, no doubt, true, that the Queen's council, by proclamation,
+feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words
+of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in
+the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of Ayr and in Galloway,
+who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction,
+the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and nourish in its
+pestiferous branches.</p>
+
+<p>When my grandfather heard of these things, his spirit was exceedingly
+moved, and he got no rest in the night, with the warsling of troubled
+thoughts and pious fears. Some new call, he foresaw, would soon be made
+on the protestants, to stand forth again in the gap that the Queen's
+arts had sapped in the bulwarks of their religious liberty, and he
+resolved to be ready against the hour of danger. So, taking his wife and
+Agnes Kilspinnie with him, he went in the spring to Edinburgh, and hired
+a lodging for them; and on the same night he presented himself at the
+lodging of the Lord James Stuart, who had some time before been created
+Earl of Murray; but the Earl was gone with the Queen to Loch Leven. Sir
+Alexander Douglas, however, the master of his Lordship's horse, was then
+on the eve of following him with John Knox, to whom the Queen had sent a
+peremptory message, requiring his attendance; and Sir Alexander invited
+my grandfather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> to come with them; the which invitation he very joyfully
+accepted, on account of the happy occasion of travelling in the
+sanctified company of that brave worthy.</p>
+
+<p>In the journey, however, save in the boat when they crossed the ferry,
+he showed but little of his precious conversation; for the knight and
+the Reformer rode on together some short distance before their train,
+earnestly discoursing, and seemingly they wished not to be overheard.
+But when they were all seated in the ferry-boat, the ardour of the
+preacher, which on no occasion would be reined in, led him to continue
+speaking, by which it would seem that they had been conversing anent the
+Queen's prejudices in matters of religion and the royal authority.</p>
+
+<p>"When I last spoke with her Highness," said John Knox, "she laid sore to
+my charge, that I had brought the people to receive a religion different
+from what their princes allowed, asking sharply, if this was not
+contrary to the Divine command, which enjoins that subjects should obey
+their rulers; so that I was obliged to contend plainly, that true
+religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from
+God; that princes were often most ignorant respecting it, and that
+subjects never could be bound to frame their religious sentiments
+according to the pleasure of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to
+have conformed to the idolatry of Pharaoh, and Daniel and his associates
+to that of Nebuchadnezzar, and the primitive Christians to that of the
+Roman emperors."</p>
+
+<p>"And what could her Highness answer to this?" said Sir Alexander.</p>
+
+<p>"She lacketh not the gift of a shrewd and ready wit," replied Master
+Knox; for she nimbly remarked, "That though it was as I had said, yet
+none of those men raised the sword against their princes;"&mdash;which
+enforced me to be more subtle than I was minded to have been, and to
+say, "that nevertheless, they did resist, for those who obey not the
+commandments given them, do in verity resist." "Ay," cried her Highness,
+"but not with the sword," which was a thrust not easy to be turned
+aside, so that I was constrained to speak out, saying, "God, madam, had
+not given them the means and the power." Then said she, still more
+eagerly, "Think you that subjects, having the power, may resist their
+princes?" And she looked with a triumphant smile, as if she had caught
+me in a trap; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> I replied, "If princes exceed their bounds, no doubt
+they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour or greater
+obedience is to be given to kings and princes than God has commanded to
+be given to father or mother. But the father may be struck with a
+frenzy, in which he would slay his children; in such a case, if the
+children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from
+him, bind his hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over,
+think you, madam," quo' I, "that the children do any wrong? Even so is
+it with princes that would slay the children of God that are subject to
+them. Their blind zeal is nothing but frenzy, and therefore to take the
+power from them till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no
+disobedience to princes, but a just accordance to the will of God. So I
+doubt not," continued the Reformer, "I shall again have to sustain the
+keen encounter of her Highness' wit in some new controversy."</p>
+
+<p>This was the chief substance of what my grandfather heard pass in the
+boat; and when they were again mounted, the knight and preacher set
+forward as before, some twenty paces or so in advance of the retinue.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching Kinross, Master Knox rode straight to the shore, and went
+off in the Queen's barge to the castle, that he might present himself to
+her Highness before supper, for by this time the sun was far down. In
+the meantime, my grandfather went to the house in Kinross where the Earl
+of Murray resided, and his Lordship, though albeit a grave and reserved
+man, received him with the familiar kindness of an old friend, and he
+was with him when the Reformer came back from the Queen, who had dealt
+very earnestly with him to persuade the gentlemen of the west country to
+desist from their interruption of the popish worship.</p>
+
+<p>"But to this," said the Reformer to the Earl, "I was obligated, by
+conscience and the fear of God, to say, that if her Majesty would exert
+her authority in executing the laws of the land, I would undertake for
+the peaceable behaviour of the protestants; but if she thought to evade
+them, there were some who would not let the papists offend with
+impunity."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you allow," exclaimed her Highness, "that they shall take my sword
+in their hands?"</p>
+
+<p>"The sword of justice is God's," I replied, "and is given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> to princes
+and rulers for an end, which if they transgress, sparing the wicked and
+oppressing the innocent, they who in the fear of God execute judgment
+where God has commanded, offend not God, although kings do it not. The
+gentlemen of the west, madam, are acting strictly according to law; for
+the act of parliament gave power to all judges within their jurisdiction
+to search for and punish those who transgress its enactments;" and I
+added, "it shall be profitable to your Majesty to consider what is the
+thing your Grace's subjects look to receive of your Majesty, and what it
+is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. They are bound to
+obey you, and that not but in God; ye are bound to keep laws to them&mdash;ye
+crave of them service, they crave of you protection and defence. Now,
+madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them (which especially craves
+that ye punish malefactors), can ye expect to receive full obedience of
+them? I fear, madam, ye shall not."</p>
+
+<p>"You have indeed been plain with her Highness," said the Earl,
+thoughtfully; "and what reply made she?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said the Reformer; "her countenance changed; she turned her head
+abruptly from me, and, without the courtesy of a good-night, signified
+with an angry waving of her hand, that she desired to be rid of my
+presence; whereupon I immediately retired, and, please God, I shall,
+betimes in the morning, return to my duties at Edinburgh. It is with a
+sad heart, my Lord, that I am compelled to think, and to say to you, who
+stand so near to her in kin and affection, that I doubt she is not only
+proud but crafty; not only wedded to the popish faith, but averse to
+instruction. She neither is nor will be of our opinion; and it is plain
+that the lessons of her uncle, the Cardinal, are so deeply printed in
+her heart, that the substance and quality will perish together. I would
+be glad to be deceived in this, but I fear I shall not; never have I
+espied such art in one so young; and it will need all the eyes of the
+Reformed to watch and ward that she circumvent not the strong hold in
+Christ, that has been but so lately restored and fortified in this
+misfortunate kingdom."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing farther passed that night; but the servants being called in, and
+the preacher having exhorted them in their duties, and prayed with even
+more than his wonted earnestness, each one retired to his chamber, and
+the Earl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> gave orders for horses to be ready early in the morning, to
+convey Master Knox back to Edinburgh. This, however, was not permitted;
+for by break of day a messenger came from the castle, desiring him not
+to depart until he had again spoken with her Majesty; adding, that as
+she meant to land by sunrise with her falconer, she would meet him on
+the fields where she intended to take her pastime, and talk with him
+there.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the morning, all those who were in the house with the Earl of Murray
+and John Knox were early afoot, and after prayers had been said, they
+went out to meet the Queen at her place of landing from the castle,
+which stands on an islet at some distance from the shore; but, before
+they reached the spot, she was already mounted on her jennet and the
+hawks unhooded, so that they were obligated to follow her Highness to
+the ground, the Reformer leaning on the Earl, who proffered him his left
+arm as they walked up the steep bank together from the brim of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen was on the upland when they drew near to the field, and on
+seeing them approach she came ambling towards them, moving in her
+beauty, as my grandfather often delighted to say, like a fair rose
+caressed by the soft gales of the summer. A smile was in her eye, and it
+brightened on her countenance like the beam of something more lovely
+than light; the glow, as it were, of a spirit conscious of its power,
+and which had graced itself with all its enchantments to conquer some
+stubborn heart. Even the Earl of Murray was struck with the unwonted
+splendour of her that was ever deemed so surpassing fair; and John Knox
+said, with a sigh, "<span class="smcap">The Maker</span> had indeed taken gracious pains with the
+goodly fashion of such perishable clay."</p>
+
+<p>When she had come within a few paces of where they were advancing
+uncovered, she suddenly checked her jennet, and made him dance proudly
+round till she was nigh to John Knox, where, seeming in alarm, she
+feigned as if she would have slipped from the saddle, laying her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> hand
+on his shoulder for support; and while he, with more gallantry than it
+was thought in him, helped her to recover her seat, she said, with a
+ravishing look, "The Queen thanks you, Master Knox, for this upholding,"
+dwelling on the word this in a special manner; which my grandfather
+noticed the more, as he as well as others of the retinue observed, that
+she was playing as it were in dalliance.</p>
+
+<p>She then inquired kindly for his health, grieving she had not given
+orders for him to bed in the castle; and turning to the Earl of Murray,
+she chided his Lordship with a gentleness that was more winning than
+praise, why he had not come to her with Master Knox, saying, "We should
+then perhaps have not been so sharp in our controversy." But, before the
+Earl had time to make answer, she noticed divers gentlemen by name, and
+taking off her glove, made a most sweet salutation with her lily hand to
+the general concourse of those who had by this time gathered around.</p>
+
+<p>In that gracious gesture, it was plain, my grandfather said, that she
+was still scattering her feminine spells; for she kept her hand for some
+time bare, and though enjoying the pleasure which her beautiful presence
+diffused, like a delicious warmth into the air, she was evidently
+self-collected, and had something more in mind than only the triumph of
+her marvellous beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Having turned her horse's head, she moved him a few paces, saying,
+"Master Knox, I would speak with you." At which he went towards her, and
+the rest of the spectators retired and stood aloof.</p>
+
+<p>They appeared for some time to be in an easy and somewhat gay discourse
+on her part; but she grew more and more earnest, till Mr Knox made his
+reverence and was coming away, when she said to him aloud, "Well, do as
+you will, but that man is a dangerous man."</p>
+
+<p>Their discourse was concerning the titular Bishop of Athens, a brother
+of the Earl of Huntly, who had been put in nomination for a
+superintendent of the church in the West Country, and of whose bad
+character her Highness, as it afterwards proved, had received a just
+account.</p>
+
+<p>But scarcely had the Reformer retired two steps when she called him
+back, and holding out to him her hand, with which, when he approached to
+do his homage, she familiarly took hold of his and held it, playing with
+his fingers as if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> she had been placing on a ring, saying, loud enough
+to be heard by many on the field,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me since I came
+into this realm to open to you, and I must have your help in it."</p>
+
+<p>Then, still holding him earnestly by the hand, she entered into a long
+discourse concerning, as he afterwards told the Earl of Murray, a
+difference subsisting between the Earl and Countess of Argyle.</p>
+
+<p>"Her Ladyship," said the Queen, for my grandfather heard him repeat what
+passed, "has not perhaps been so circumspect in everything as one could
+have wished, but her lord has dealt harshly with her."</p>
+
+<p>Master Knox having once before reconciled the debates of that honourable
+couple, told her Highness he had done so, and that not having since
+heard anything to the contrary, he had hoped all things went well with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"It is worse," replied the Queen, "than ye believe. But, kind sir, do
+this much for my sake, as once again to put them at amity, and if the
+Countess behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour
+of me; but in no wise let Argyle know that I have requested you in this
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>Then she returned to the subject of their contest the preceding evening,
+and said, with her sweetest looks and most musical accents, "I promise
+to do as ye required. I shall order all offenders to be summoned, and
+you shall see that I shall minister justice."</p>
+
+<p>To which he replied, "I am assured then, madam, that you shall please
+God, and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your
+Majesty is more profitable than all the Pope's power can be." And having
+said this much he made his reverence, evidently in great pleasure with
+her Highness.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, in speaking to the Earl of Murray, as they returned to
+Kinross, my grandfather noted that he employed many terms of soft
+courtliness, saying of her that she was a lady who might, he thought,
+with a little pains, be won to grace and godliness, could she be
+preserved from the taint of evil counsellors; so much had the winning
+sorceries of her exceeding beauty and her blandishments worked even upon
+his stern honesty and enchanted his jealousy asleep.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Master Knox had, with the Earl, partaken of some repast, he
+requested that he might be conveyed back to Edinburgh, for that it
+suited not with his nature to remain sorning about the skirts of the
+court; and his Lordship bade my grandfather be of his company, and to
+bid Sir Alexander Douglas, the master of his horse, choose for him the
+gentlest steed in his stable.</p>
+
+<p>But it happened before the Reformer was ready to depart, that Queen Mary
+had finished her morning pastime, and was returning to her barge to
+embark for the castle, which the Earl hearing, went down to the brim of
+the loch to assist at her embarkation. My grandfather, with others, also
+hastened to the spot.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing his Lordship, she inquired for "her friend," as she then
+called John Knox, and signified her regret that he had been so list to
+leave her, expressing her surprise that one so infirm should think so
+soon of a second journey; whereby the good Earl being minded to cement
+their happy reconciliation, from which he augured a great increase of
+benefits both to the realm and the cause of religion, was led to speak
+of his concern thereat likewise, and of his sorrow that all his own
+horses at Kinross being for the chase and road, he had none well-fitting
+to carry a person so aged, and but little used to the toil of riding.</p>
+
+<p>Her Highness smiled at the hidden counselling of this remark, for she
+was possessed of a sharp spirit; and she said, with a look which told
+the Earl and all about her that she discerned the pith of his Lordship's
+discourse, she would order one of her own palfreys to be forthwith
+prepared for him.</p>
+
+<p>When the Earl returned from the shore and informed Master Knox of the
+Queen's gracious condescension, he made no reply, but bowed his head in
+token of his sense of her kindness; and soon after, when the palfrey was
+brought saddled with the other horses to the door, he said, in my
+grandfather's hearing, to his Lordship, "It needs, you see, my Lord,
+must be so; for were I not to accept this grace, it might be thought I
+refused from a vain bravery of caring nothing for her Majesty's favour;"
+and he added, with a smile of jocularity, "whereas I am right well
+content to receive the very smallest boon from so fair and blooming a
+lady."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing of any particularity occurred in the course of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> the journey; for
+the main part of which Master Knox was thoughtful and knit up in his own
+cogitations, and when from time to time he did enter into discourse with
+my grandfather, he spoke chiefly of certain usages and customs that he
+had observed in other lands, and of things of indifferent import; but
+nevertheless there was a flavour of holiness in all he said, and my
+grandfather treasured many of his sweet sentences as pearls of great
+price.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Before the occurrence of the things spoken of in the foregoing chapter,
+the great Earl of Glencairn, my grandfather's first and constant patron,
+had been dead some time; but his son and successor, who knew the
+estimation in which he had been held by his father, being then in
+Edinburgh, allowed him, in consideration thereof, the privilege of his
+hall. It suited not, however, with my grandfather's quiet and sanctified
+nature to mingle much with the brawlers that used to hover there;
+nevertheless, out of a respect to the Earl's hospitality, he did
+occasionally go thither, and where, if he heard little to edify the
+Christian heart, he learnt divers things anent the Queen and court that
+made his fears and anxieties wax stronger and stronger.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him, as he often was heard to say, that there was a better
+knowledge of Queen Mary's true character and secret partialities among
+those loose varlets than among their masters; and her marriage being
+then in the parlance of the people, and much dread and fear rife with
+the protestants that she would choose a papist for her husband, he was
+surprised to hear many of the lewd knaves in Glencairn's hall speak
+lightly of the respect she would have to the faith or spirituality of
+the man she might prefer.</p>
+
+<p>Among those wuddy worthies he fell in with his ancient adversary
+Winterton, who, instead of harbouring any resentment for the trick he
+played him in the Lord Boyd's castle, was rejoiced to see him again: he
+himself was then in the service of David Rizzio, the fiddler, whom the
+Queen some short time before had taken into her particular service.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This Rizzio was by birth an Italian of very low degree; a man of
+crouched stature, and of an uncomely physiognomy, being yellow-skinned
+and black-haired, with a beak-nose, and little quick eyes of a free and
+familiar glance, but shrewd withal, and possessed of a pleasant way of
+winning facetiously on the ladies, to the which his singular skill in
+all manner of melodious music helped not a little; so that he had great
+sway with them, and was then winning himself fast into the Queen's
+favour, in which ambition, besides the natural instigations of his own
+vanity, he was spirited on by certain powerful personages of the
+papistical faction, who soon saw the great efficacy it would be of to
+their cause, to have one who owed his rise to them constantly about the
+Queen, and in the depths of all her personal correspondence with her
+great friends abroad. But the subtle Italian, though still true to his
+papal breeding, built upon the Queen's partiality more than on the
+favour of those proud nobles, and, about the time of which I am now
+speaking, he carried his head at court as bravely as the boldest baron
+amongst them. Still in this he had as yet done nothing greatly to
+offend. The protestant Lords, however, independent of their aversion to
+him on account his religion, felt, in common with all the nobility, a
+vehement prejudice against an alien, one too of base blood, and they
+openly manifested their displeasure at seeing him so gorgeous and
+presuming even in the public presence of the Queen, but he regarded not
+their anger.</p>
+
+<p>In this fey man's service Winterton then was, and my grandfather never
+doubted that it was for no good he came so often to the Earl of
+Glencairn's, who, though not a man of the same weight in the realm as
+the old Earl his father, was yet held in much esteem, as a sincere
+protestant and true nobleman, by all the friends of the Gospel cause;
+and, in the sequel, what my grandfather jealoused was soon very plainly
+seen. For Rizzio learning, through Winterton's espionage and that of
+other emissaries, how little the people of Scotland would relish a
+foreign prince to be set over them, had a hand in dissuading the Queen
+from accepting any of the matches then proposed for her; and the better
+to make his own power the more sicker, he afterwards laid snares in the
+water to bring about a marriage with that weak young prince, the Lord
+Henry Darnley. But it falls not within the scope of my narrative to
+enter into any more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> particulars here concerning that Italian, and the
+tragical doom which, with the Queen's imprudence, he brought upon
+himself; for, after spending some weeks in Edinburgh, and in visiting
+their friends at Crail, my grandfather returned with his wife and Agnes
+Kilspinnie to Quharist, where he continued to reside several years, but
+not in tranquillity.</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had they reached their home, when word came of quarrels among the
+nobility; and though the same sprung out of secular debates, they had
+much of the leaven of religious faction in their causes, the which
+greatly exasperated the enmity wherewith they were carried on. But even
+in the good Earl of Murray's raid, there was nothing which called on my
+grandfather to bear a part. Nevertheless, those quarrels disquieted his
+soul, and he heard the sough of discontents rising afar off, like the
+roar of the bars of Ayr when they betoken a coming tempest.</p>
+
+<p>After the departure of the Earl of Murray to France, there was a syncope
+in the land, and men's minds were filled with wonder and with
+apprehensions to which they could give no name; neighbours distrusted
+one another: the papists looked out from their secret places, and were
+saluted with a fear that wore the semblance of reverence. The Queen
+married Darnley, and discreet men marvelled at the rashness with which
+the match was concluded, there being seemingly no cause for such
+uncomely haste, nor for the lavish favours that she heaped upon him. It
+was viewed with awe, as a thing done under the impulses of fraud, or
+fainness, or fatality. Nor was their wedding-cheer cold when her eager
+love changed into aversion. Then the spirit of the times, which had long
+hovered in willingness to be pleased with her intentions, began to alter
+its breathings, and to whisper darkly against her. At last the murder of
+Rizzio, a deed which, though in the main satisfactory to the nation, was
+yet so foul and cruel in the perpetration, that the tidings of it came
+like a thunder-clap over all the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The birth of Prince James, which soon after followed, gave no joy; for
+about the same time a low and terrible whispering began to be heard of
+some hideous and universal conspiracy against all the protestants
+throughout Europe. None ventured to say that Queen Mary was joined with
+the conspirators; but many preachers openly prayed that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> she might be
+preserved from their leagues in a way that showed what they feared;
+besides this suspicion, mournful things were told of her behaviour, and
+the immoralities of her courtiers and their trains rose to such a pitch,
+compared with the chastity and plain manners of her mother's court, that
+the whole land was vexed with angry thoughts, and echoed to the rumours
+with stern menaces.</p>
+
+<p>No one was more disturbed by these things than my pious grandfather; and
+the apprehensions which they caused in him came to such a head at last,
+that his wife, becoming fearful of his health, advised him to take a
+journey to Edinburgh, in order that he might hear and see with his own
+ears and eyes; which he accordingly did, and on his arrival went
+straight to the Earl of Glencairn, and begged permission to take on
+again his livery, chiefly that he might pass unnoticed, and not be
+remarked as having neither calling nor vocation. That nobleman was
+surprised with his request; but, without asking any questions, gave him
+leave, and again invited him to use the freedom of his hall; so he
+continued as one of his retainers till the Earl of Murray's return from
+France. But, before speaking of what then ensued, there are some things
+concerning the murder of the the Queen's protestant husband&mdash;the
+blackest of the sins of that age&mdash;of which, in so far as my grandfather
+participated, it is meet and proper I should previously speak.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>While the cloud of troubles, whereof I have spoken in the foregoing
+chapter was thickening and darkening over the land, the event of the
+King's dreadful death came to pass; the which, though in its birth most
+foul and monstrous, filling the hearts of all men with consternation and
+horror, was yet a mean in the hands of Providence, as shall hereafter
+appear, whereby the kingdom of <span class="smcap">the Lord</span> was established in Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>Concerning that fearful treason, my grandfather never spoke without
+taking off his bonnet, and praying inwardly with such solemnity of
+countenance that none could behold him unmoved. Of all the remarkable
+passages of his long life it was indeed the most remarkable; and he has
+been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> heard to say that he could not well acquit himself of the actual
+sin of disobedience in not obeying an admonition of the Spirit which was
+vouchsafed to him on that occasion.</p>
+
+<p>For some time there had been a great variance between the King and
+Queen. He had given himself over to loose and low companions; and though
+she kept her state and pride, ill was said of her, if in her walk and
+conversation she was more sensible of her high dignity. All at once,
+however, when he was lying ill at Glasgow of a malady, which many
+scrupled not to say was engendered by a malignant medicine, there was a
+singular demonstration of returning affection on her part, the more
+remarkable and the more heeded of the commonality, on account of its
+suddenness, and the events that ensued; for while he was at the worst
+she minded not his condition, but took her delights and pastimes in
+divers parts of the country. No sooner, however, had his strength
+overcome the disease, than she was seized with this fond sympathy, and
+came flying with her endearments, seemingly to foster his recovery with
+caresses and love. The which excessive affection was afterwards ascribed
+to a guilty hypocrisy; for in the sequel it came to light that, while
+she was practising all those winning blandishments, which few knew the
+art of better, and with which she regained his confidence, she was at
+the same time engaged in unconjugal correspondence with the Earl of
+Bothwell. The King, however, was won by her kindness, and consented to
+be removed from among the friends of his family at Glasgow to Edinburgh,
+in order that he might there enjoy the benefits of her soft cares and
+the salutary attendance of the physicians of the capital. The house of
+the provost of Kirk o' Field, which stood not far from the spot where
+the buildings of the college now stand, was accordingly prepared for his
+reception, on account of the advantages which it afforded for the free
+and open air of a rising ground; but it was also a solitary place&mdash;a fit
+haunt for midnight conspirators and the dark purposes of mysterious
+crime.</p>
+
+<p>There, for some time, the Queen lavished upon him all the endearing
+gentleness of a true and loving wife, being seldom absent by day, and
+sleeping near his sick-chamber at night. The land was blithened with
+such assurances of their reconciliation; and the King himself, with the
+frank ardour of flattered youth, was contrite for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> his faults, and
+promised her the fondest devotion of all his future days. In this sweet
+cordiality, on Sunday, the 9th of February, <span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1567, she parted from
+him to be present at a masquing in the palace; for the Reformation had
+not so penetrated into the habits and business of men as to hallow the
+Sabbath in the way it has since done amongst us. But before proceeding
+farther, it is proper to resume the thread of my grandfather's story.</p>
+
+<p>He had passed that evening, as he was wont to tell, in pleasant gospel
+conversation with several acquaintances in the house of one Raphael
+Doquet, a pious lawyer in the Canongate; for even many writers in those
+days were smitten with the love of godliness; and as he was returning to
+his dry lodgings in an entry now called Baron Grant's Close, he
+encountered Winterton, who, after an end had been put to David Rizzio,
+became a retainer in the riotous household of the Earl of Bothwell. This
+happened a short way aboon the Netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to
+speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which
+made him rather eschew this civility. My grandfather at the time,
+however, did not much remark it; but scarcely had they parted ten paces
+when a sudden jealousy of some unknown guilt or danger, wherein
+Winterton was concerned, came into his mind like a flash of fire, and he
+felt as it were an invisible power constraining him to dog his steps, in
+so much that he actually did turn back. But on reaching the Bow he was
+obligated to stop, for the ward was changing; and observing that the
+soldiers then posting were of the Queen's French guard, his thoughts
+began to run on the rumour that was bruited of a league among the papist
+princes to cut off all the Reformed with one universal sweep of the
+scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to
+some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what
+he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable
+suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus,
+though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some
+bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom
+which is of this world to suppress and refuse obedience to the
+promptings of the inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching his chamber, he unbuckled his belt, as his custom was, and
+laid down his sword and began to undress,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> when again the same alarm
+from on high fell upon him, and the same warning spirit whispered to his
+mind's ear unspeakable intimations of dreadful things. Fear came upon
+him and trembling, which made all his bones to shake, and he lifted his
+sword and again buckled on his belt. But again the prudence of this
+world prevailed, and, heeding not the admonition to warn the Lords of
+the Congregation, he threw himself on his bed, without, however,
+unbuckling his sword, and in that condition fell asleep. But though his
+senses were shut, his mind continued awake, and he had fearful visions
+of bloody hands and glimmering daggers gleaming over him from behind his
+curtains, till in terror he started up, gasping like one that had
+struggled with a stronger than himself.</p>
+
+<p>When he had in some degree composed his thoughts, he went to the window
+and opened it, to see by the stars how far the night had passed. The
+window overlooked the North Loch and the swelling bank beyond, and the
+distant frith and the hills of Fife. The skies were calm and clear, and
+the air was tempered with a bright frost. The stars in their courses
+were reflected in the still waters of the North Loch, as if there had
+been an opening through the earth showing the other concave of the
+spangled firmament. But the dark outline of the swelling bank on the
+northern side was like the awful corpse of some mighty thing prepared
+for interment.</p>
+
+<p>As my grandfather stood in contemplation at the window, he heard the
+occasional churme of discourse from passengers still abroad, and now and
+then the braggart flourish of a trumpet resounded from the royal
+masquing at the palace,&mdash;breaking upon the holiness of the night with
+the harsh dissonance of a discord in some solemn harmony.&mdash;And as he was
+meditating on many things, and grieving in spirit at the dark fate of
+poor Scotland, and the woes with which the children of salvation were
+environed, he was startled by the apparition of a great blaze in the
+air, which for a moment lighted up all the land with a wild and fiery
+light, and he beheld in the glass of the North Loch, reflected from
+behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams
+and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the
+chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town
+like an earthquake.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was for an instant astounded; but soon roused by the clangour of an
+alarm from the castle; and while a cry rose from all the city, as if the
+last trumpet itself was sounding, he rushed into the street, where the
+inhabitants, as they had flown from their beds, were running in
+consternation like the sheeted dead startled from their graves. Drums
+beat to arms;&mdash;the bells rang;&mdash;some cried the wild cry of fire, and
+there was wailing and weeping, and many stood dumb with horror, and
+could give no answer to the universal question.&mdash;"God of the heavens,
+what is this?" Presently a voice was heard crying, "The King, the King!"
+and all, as if moved by one spirit, replied, "The King, the King!" Then
+for a moment there was a silence stiller than the midnight hour, and
+drum, nor bell, nor voice was heard, but a rushing of the multitude
+towards St Mary's Port, which leads to the Kirk o' Field.</p>
+
+<p>Among others, my grandfather hastened to the spot by Todrick's Wynd; and
+as he was running down towards the postern gate, he came with great
+violence against a man who was struggling up through the torrent of the
+people, without cap or cloak, and seemingly maddened with terrors. Urged
+by some strong instinct, my grandfather grasped him by the throat; for,
+by the glimpse of the lights that were then placing at every window, he
+saw it was Winterton. But a swirl of the crowd tore them asunder, and he
+had only time to cry, "It's ane of Bothwell's men."</p>
+
+<p>The people caught the Earl's name; but instead of seizing the fugitive,
+they repeated, "Bothwell, Bothwell, he's the traitor!" and pressed more
+eagerly on to the ruins of the house, which were still burning. The
+walls were rent, and in many places thrown down; the west gable was
+blown clean away, and the very ground, on the side where the King's
+chamber had been, was torn as with a hundred ploughshares. Certain trees
+that grew hard by were cleft and riven as with a thunderbolt, and stones
+were sticking in their timber like wedges and the shot of cannon.</p>
+
+<p>It was thought, that in such a sudden blast of desolation, nothing in
+the house could have withstood the shock, but that all therein must have
+been shivered to atoms. When, however, the day began to dawn, it was
+seen that many things had escaped unblemished by the fire; and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+King's body, with that of the servant who watched in his chamber, was
+found in a neighbouring garden, without having suffered any material
+change,&mdash;the which caused the greater marvelling; for it thereby
+appeared that they were the only sufferers in that dark treason, making
+the truth plain before the people, that the contrivance and firing
+thereof was concerted and brought to maturity by some in authority with
+the Queen,&mdash;and who that was the people answered by crying as the royal
+corpse was carried to the palace, "Bothwell, Lord Bothwell, he is the
+traitor!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>All the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the
+streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her
+dwelling-places. Multitudes stood in amazement from morning to night
+around the palace; for the Earl of Bothwell was within, and still
+honoured with all the homages due to the greatest public trusts. Ever
+and anon a cry was heard, "Bothwell is the murderer!" and the multitude
+shouted, "Justice, justice!" But their cry was not heard.</p>
+
+<p>Night after night the trembling citizens watched with candles at their
+casements, dreading some yet greater alarm; and in the stillness of the
+midnight hour a voice was heard crying, "The Queen and Bothwell are the
+murderers!" and another voice replied, "Vengeance, vengeance!&mdash;Blood for
+blood!"</p>
+
+<p>Every morning on the walls of the houses writings were seen, demanding
+the punishment of the regicides&mdash;and the Queen's name, and the name of
+Bothwell, and the names of many more, with the Archbishop of St Andrews
+at their head, were emblazoned on all sides as the names of the
+regicides. But Bothwell, with the resolute bravery of guilt in the
+confidence of power, heeded not the cry that thus mounted continually
+against him to Heaven, and the Queen feigned a widow's sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>The whole realm was as when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was
+removed from Israel and captive in the hands of the Philistines. The
+injured sought not the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> redress of their wrongs; even the guilty were
+afraid of one another, and by the very cowardice of their distrust were
+prevented from banding at a time when they might have rioted at will.
+What aggravated these portents of a kingdom falling asunder, was the
+mockery of law and justice which the court attempted. Those who were
+accused of the King's death ruled the royal councils, and were greatest
+in the Queen's favour. The Earl of Bothwell dictated the very
+proceedings by which he was himself to be brought to trial,&mdash;and when
+the day of trial arrived, he came with the pomp and retinue of a
+victorious conqueror&mdash;to be acquitted.</p>
+
+<p>But acquitted, as the guilty ever needs must be whom no one dares to
+accuse, nor any witness hazards to appear against, his acquittal served
+but to prove his guilt, and the forms thereof the murderous
+participation of the Queen. Thus, though he was assoilzied in form of
+law, the libel against him was nevertheless found proven by the
+universal verdict of all men. Yet, in despite of the world, and even of
+the conviction recorded within their own bosoms, did the infatuated Mary
+and that dreadless traitor, in little more than three months from the
+era of their crime, rush into an adulterous marriage; but of the
+infamies concerning the same, and of the humiliated state to which poor
+Scotland sank in consequence, I must refer the courteous reader to the
+histories and chronicles of the time&mdash;while I return to the narrative of
+my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>When the Earl of Bothwell, as I have been told by those who heard him
+speak of these deplorable blots on the Scottish name, had been created
+Duke of Orkney, the people daily expected the marriage. But instead of
+the ordinary ceremonials used at the marriages of former kings and
+princes, the Queen and all about her, as if they had been smitten from
+on high with some manifest and strange phrenzy, resolved, as it were in
+derision and blasphemy, notwithstanding her own and the notour popery of
+the Duke, to celebrate their union according to the strictest forms of
+the protestants; and John Knox being at the time in the West Country,
+his colleague, Master Craig, was ordered by the Queen in council to
+publish the bans three several Sabbaths in St Giles' kirk.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a
+vast concourse of the people were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> assembled, and the worthy minister,
+when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was
+pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and
+purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an
+awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. He then laid
+down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his
+eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,&mdash;"Lord God of the pure
+heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, I protest, as a minister
+of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and
+adulterous sin; and I call all the nobility and all of the Queen's
+council to remonstrate with her Majesty against a step that must cover
+her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." Three days did he
+thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim
+his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council,
+where the guilty Bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having
+exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic
+bravery,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My commission is from the word of God, good laws, and natural reason,
+to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. The Earl of Bothwell,
+there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,&mdash;the divorce that he
+has procured from his wife has been by collusion,&mdash;and he knows likewise
+that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the
+Queen's person."</p>
+
+<p>Yet, notwithstanding, Mr Craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested
+by the astonished and overawed Bothwell; but, as I have said, the
+marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of
+papistical device that the Lord suffered to see done within the bounds
+of Scotland. For the same night letters were sent to the Earl of Murray
+from divers of the nobility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my
+grandfather, at the incitement of the Earl of Argyle, was secretly sent
+by his patron Glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful
+prince, the son whom the Queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet
+without delay at Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, with the flower of their vassals and retainers, besides
+Argyle and Glencairn, came many of the nobles; and having protested
+their detestation of the conduct of the Queen, they entered into a
+Solemn League and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> Covenant, wherein they rehearsed, as causes for their
+confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled,
+that the Scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all
+Christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had
+revenged the foul murder of the King, rescued the Queen from her
+thraldom to the Earl of Bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious
+marriage.</p>
+
+<p>The Queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were
+panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. She issued a bold
+proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her
+defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. She fled with Bothwell
+from Edinburgh to the castle of Borthwick; but scarcely were they within
+the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her,
+and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the Queen of all
+Scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced
+paramour.</p>
+
+<p>The covenanting nobles in the meantime were mustering their clans and
+their vassals; and the Earls of Morton and Athol having brought the
+instrument of the League to Edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council
+signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the
+burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the
+city walls. The whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike
+preparations, and the ancient valour of the Scottish heart was blithened
+with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought
+upon the honour of the land.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the regicide and the Queen drew together what forces his power
+could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from Dunbar to
+Carberry Hill, where they encamped. The army of the Covenanters at the
+same time left Edinburgh to meet them. Mary appeared at the head of her
+troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to
+fight. She exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;&mdash;she wept,
+she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice,
+but still they stood sullen.</p>
+
+<p>To retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill
+on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with
+a voice of despair for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw
+at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having
+halted his horse and procured leave from his leaders, advanced toward
+her. Bothwell, with a few followers, during the interval, quitted the
+field; and, as soon as Kirkcaldy came up, she surrendered herself to
+him, and was conducted by him to the headquarters of the Covenanters, by
+whom she was received with all the wonted testimonials of respect, and
+was assured, if she forsook Bothwell and governed her kingdom with
+honest councils, they would honour and obey her as their sovereign. But
+the common soldiers overwhelmed her with reproaches, and on the march
+back to Edinburgh poured upon her the most opprobrious names.</p>
+
+<p>"Never was such a sight seen," my grandfather often said, "as the return
+of that abject Princess to her capital. On the banner of the League was
+depicted the corpse of the murdered king, her husband, lying under a
+tree, with the young prince, his son, kneeling before it, and the motto
+was, 'Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord.' The standard-bearer rode with
+it immediately before the horse on which she sat weeping and wild, and
+covered with dust, and as often as she raised her distracted eye the
+apparition of the murder in the flag fluttered in her face. In vain she
+supplicated pity&mdash;yells and howls were all the answers she received, and
+volleys of execrations came from the populace, with Burn her, burn her,
+bloody murderess! Let her not live!"</p>
+
+<p>In that condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which
+she was assisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she
+was conveyed a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was soon after
+compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the Earl of
+Murray, by whose great wisdom the Reformation was established in truth
+and holiness throughout the kingdom&mdash;though for a season it was again
+menaced when Mary effected her escape, and dared the cause of the Lord
+to battle at Langside. But of that great day of victory it becomes not
+me to speak, for it hath received the blazon of many an abler pen; it is
+enough to mention, that my grandfather was there, and after the battle
+that he returned with the army to Glasgow, and was present at the
+thanksgiving. The same night he paid his last respects to the Earl of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+Murray, who permitted him to take away, as a trophy and memorial, the
+gloves which his Lordship had worn that day in the field; and they have
+ever since been sacredly preserved at Quharist, where they may be still
+seen. They are of York buff; the palm of the one for the right hand is
+still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool
+is stained with the ink of a letter which the Earl wrote on the field to
+Argyle, who had joined the Queen's faction; the which letter, it has
+been thought, caused the swithering of that nobleman in the hour of the
+onset, by which Providence gave the Regent the victory&mdash;a conquest which
+established the Gospel in his native land for ever.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles and great personages of
+the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own
+demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of
+deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them,
+much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will
+that he thought was his due. But to all people of a lower degree, like
+those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and
+gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small
+courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that,
+being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his
+fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as
+the sweet odour of many blessings.</p>
+
+<p>Few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the
+base murder by the Hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the
+labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant
+to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the
+retribution with which their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken
+and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and
+kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just
+vengeance and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with
+all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my
+grandfather bore arms for the commonweal.</p>
+
+<p>Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow
+merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal,
+finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers
+lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times,
+the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil,
+he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my
+grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to
+see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the
+time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet. And it happened that
+Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous
+exploit against the castle of Dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in
+the Trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in
+which he was held by many noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him
+cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, among other
+things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the Reformation, the
+Archbishop of St Andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry
+pronounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of King
+Henry, the Queen's protestant husband, and of the good Regent Murray,
+taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress.</p>
+
+<p>Some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my
+grandfather while he was in communion with Jordanhill; but after parting
+from him, and going back to the Saracen's inn in the Gallowgait, where
+Bailie Kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the
+spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as I have
+heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise
+to balk the undertaking. So he was in consequence troubled in thought,
+and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the
+remainder of the day, wishing that he might be able to overcome the
+thirst which Captain Crawford had bred within him to join his company.</p>
+
+<p>Bailie Kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as
+a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my
+grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> great palpable Antichrist of Scotland, who had done the bailie's
+fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their
+taking, told him what had been propounded by Jordanhill.</p>
+
+<p>"Say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his
+family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly
+hand to grip him. Body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power
+of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the
+Lord permits justice to be done within the realm of Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>The which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of Crail
+kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and
+blazing flame, and he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then, sir, if you be so minded, I cannot perforce abide behind, but
+will go forth with you to the battle, and swither not with the sword
+till we have effected some notable achievement."</p>
+
+<p>They accordingly went forthwith to Captain Crawford and proffered to him
+their service; and he was gladdened that my grandfather had come to so
+warlike a purpose; but he looked sharply at the bailie, and twice smiled
+to my grandfather, as if in doubt of his soldiership, saying, "But,
+Gilhaize, since you recommend him, he must be a good man and true."</p>
+
+<p>So the same night they set out at dusk, with a chosen troop and band of
+not more than two hundred men. A boat, provided with ladders, dropped
+down the river with the tide, to be before them.</p>
+
+<p>By midnight the expedition reached the bottom of Dumbuckhill, where,
+having ascertained that the boat was arrived, Jordanhill directed those
+aboard to keep her close in with the shore, and move with their march.</p>
+
+<p>The evening when they left Glasgow was bright and calm, and the moon, in
+her first quarter, shed her beautiful glory on mountain and tower and
+tree, leading them as with the light of a heavenly torch; and when they
+reached the skirts of the river, it was soon manifest that their
+enterprise was favoured from on high. The moon was by that time set, and
+a thick mist came rolling from the Clyde and the Leven, and made the
+night air dim as well as dark, veiling their movements from all mortal
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Jordanhill's guide led them to a part of the rock which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> was seldom
+guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. He had been in
+the service of the Lord Fleming, the governor, but on account of
+contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver of the
+scheme.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was the first ladder placed when the impatience of the men
+brought it to the ground; but there was a noise in the ebbing waters of
+the Clyde that drowned the accident of their fall, and prevented it from
+alarming the soldiers on the watch. This failure disconcerted Jordanhill
+for a moment; but the guide fastened the ladder to the roots of an ash
+tree which grew in a cleft of the rock, and to the first shelf of the
+precipice they all ascended in safety.</p>
+
+<p>The first ladder was then drawn up and placed against the upper story,
+as it might be called, of the rock, reaching to the gap where they could
+enter into the fortress, while another ladder was tied in its place
+below. Jordanhill then ascended, leading the way, followed by his men,
+the bailie of Crail being before my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>They were now at a fearful height from the ground; but the mist was
+thick, and no one saw the dizzy eminence to which he had attained. It
+happened, however, that just as Jordanhill reached the summit, and while
+my grandfather and the bailie were about half-way up the ladder, the
+mist below rolled away, and the stars above shone out, and the bailie,
+casting his eyes downward, was so amazed and terrified at the eagle
+flight he had taken, that he began to quake and tremble, and could not
+mount a step farther.</p>
+
+<p>At that juncture delay was death to success. It was impossible to pass
+him. To tumble him off the ladder and let him be dashed to pieces, as
+some of the men both above and below roughly bade my grandfather do, was
+cruel. All were at a stand.</p>
+
+<p>Governed, however, by a singular inspiration, my grandfather took off
+his own sword-belt and also the bailie's, and fastened him with them to
+the ladder by the oxters and legs, and then turning round the ladder,
+leaving him so fastened pendent in the air on the lower side, the
+assailants ascended over his belly, and courageously mounted to their
+perilous duty.</p>
+
+<p>Jordanhill shouted as they mustered on the summit. The officers and
+soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> but sword in hand. The
+assailants seized the cannon. Lord Fleming, the governor, leaped the
+wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed
+away. The garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate
+was among the prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as order was in some degree restored, my grandfather went with
+two other soldiers to where the bailie had been left suspended, and
+having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight
+increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought
+him to Jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one
+of the guard appointed to conduct the Archbishop to Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>In that service the worthy magistrate proved more courageous, and
+upbraided the prisoner several times on the road for the ill he had done
+to him. But that traitorous high priest heard his taunts in silence, for
+he was a valiant and proud man; such, indeed, was his gallant bearing in
+the march that the soldiers were won by it to do him homage as a true
+knight: and had he been a warrior as he was but a priest, it was thought
+by many that, though both papist and traitor, they might have been
+worked upon to set him free. To Stirling, however, he was carried; and
+on the fourth day from the time he was taken he was executed on the
+gallows, where, notwithstanding his guilty life, he suffered with the
+bravery of a gentleman dying in a righteous cause, in so much that the
+papists honoured his courage as if it had been the virtue of a holy
+martyr; and Bailie Kilspinnie all his days never ceased to wonder how so
+wicked a man could die so well.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>Having thus set forth the main passages in my grandfather's life, I
+should now quit the public highway of history, and turn for a time into
+the pleasant footpath of his domestic vineyard, the plants whereof,
+under his culture, and the pious waterings of Elspa Ruet, my excellent
+<a name='TC_13'></a><ins title="Was progenitrex">progenitrix</ins>, were beginning to spread their green tendrils and goodly
+branches, and to hang out their clusters to the gracious sunshine, as it
+were in demonstration to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> heavens that the labourer was no sluggard,
+and as an assurance that in due season, under its benign favour, they
+would gratefully repay his care with sweet fruit. But there is yet one
+thing to be told, which, though it may not be regarded as germane to the
+mighty event of the Reformation, grew so plainly out of the signal
+catastrophe related in the foregoing chapter, that it were to neglect
+the instruction mercifully intended were I not to describe all its
+circumstances and particularities as they came to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly to proceed. In the winter after the storming of Dumbarton
+Castle, Widow Ruet, the mother of my grandmother, hearing nothing for a
+long time of her poor donsie daughter Marion, had, from the hanging of
+Archbishop Hamilton, the anti-Christian paramour of that misguided
+creature, fallen into a melancholy state of moaning and inward grief, in
+so much that Bailie Kilspinnie wrote a letter invoking my grandfather to
+come with his wife to Crail, that they might join together in comforting
+the aged woman; which work of duty and of charity they lost no time in
+undertaking, carrying with them Agnes Kilspinnie to see her kin.</p>
+
+<p>Being minded both in the going and the coming to partake of the feast of
+the heavenly and apostolic eloquence of the fearless Reformer's
+life-giving truths, they went by the way of Edinburgh; and in going
+about while there to show Agnes Kilspinnie the uncos of the town, it
+happened as they were coming down from the Castlehill, in passing the
+Weigh-house, that she observed a beggar woman sitting on a stair
+seemingly in great distress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and
+she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a
+rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry heaven are let loose
+upon't.</p>
+
+<p>What made this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant
+of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of
+garments that had once been costly. For, as she from time to time lifted
+her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of
+blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and
+lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without
+compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she
+had fallen into such abject poverty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My grandfather and his wife, with Agnes, stopped for a moment, and
+conferred together about what alms they would offer to a gentlewoman
+brought so low; when she, observing them, came wildly towards them
+crying, "For the Mother of God, to save a famishing outcast from death
+and perdition."</p>
+
+<p>Her frantic gesture, far more than her papistical exclamation, made
+their souls shudder; and before they had time to reply, she fell on her
+knees, and taking Elspa by the hand, repeated the same vehement prayer,
+adding, "Do, do, even though I be the vilest and guiltiest of
+womankind."</p>
+
+<p>"Marion Ruet!&mdash;O, my sister!&mdash;O, my dear Marion!" as wildfully and as
+wofully did my grandmother in that instant also cry aloud, falling on
+the beggar-woman's neck, and sobbing as if her heart would have burst;
+for it was indeed the bailie's wife, and the mother of Agnes, that
+supplicated for a morsel.</p>
+
+<p>This sad sight brought many persons around, among others a decent
+elderly carlin that kept a huxtry shop close by, who pitifully invited
+them to come from the public causey into her house; and with some
+difficulty my grandfather removed the two sisters thither. Agnes
+Kilspinnie, poor thing, following like a demented creature, not even
+able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from
+the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some
+extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone.</p>
+
+<p>When they had been some time in the house of old Ursie Firikins, as the
+kind carlin was called, Elspa Ruet all the while weeping like a constant
+fountain and repeating, "Marion, Marion!" with a fond and sorrowful
+tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having
+got a drink of meal and water prepared, gave it to the famished outcast,
+and she gradually recovered from her stupor.</p>
+
+<p>For many minutes, however, she sat still and said nothing, and when she
+did speak it was in a voice of such misery of soul that my grandfather
+never liked to tell what terrible thoughts the remembrance of it ever
+gave him. I shall therefore not venture to repeat what she said, farther
+than to mention that, having sunk down on her knees, she spread her
+hands aloft and exclaimed, "Ay,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> the time's come now, and the words of
+her prophecy, that never ceased to dirl in my soul, are fulfilled. I
+will go back to Crail&mdash;my penitence shall be seen in my shame;&mdash;I will
+go openly, that all may take warning&mdash;and before all, in the face of
+day, will I confess the wrongs I hae done to my gudeman and bairns."</p>
+
+<p>She then rose and said to her sister, "Elspa, ye hae heard my vow, and
+this very hour I will begin my pilgrimage."</p>
+
+<p>Some further conversation ensued, in which she told them that she had
+run a woful course after the havock at St Andrews; but, though humbled
+to the dust, and almost perishing of hunger, pride had still warsled
+with penitence, and would not let her return to seek shelter from her
+mother. "But at last," said she, "all has now come to pass, and it is
+meet I submit to what is so plainly required of me." Then turning to her
+daughter she looked at her for some time with a watery and inquiring
+eye, and would have spoken, but her heart filled full and she could only
+weep.</p>
+
+<p>By way of consolation my grandfather told her they were then on their
+way to Crail, and that as soon as they had procured for her some fit
+apparel, they would take her with them. At these words she lifted the
+skirt of her ragged gown, and looking at it for a moment, smiled, as if
+in contempt of all things, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, this is the livery of Him that I hae served so weel. It is fit that
+my friends should behold the coat of many colours, and the garment of
+praise wherewith He rewards all those that serve Him as I hae done." And
+no admonition, nor any affectionate petition, could shake her sad
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said she, "I ought not to shame you on the road; and yet, Elspa,
+at least till the entrance of the town, let me travel with you; for when
+I hae dreed my penance, we must part, never to meet again. Darkness and
+dule is my portion now in this world. I hae earnt them, and it is just
+that I should enjoy them. They are my ain conquest, bought wi' the price
+of everything but my soul, and wha kens but for this meeting that it
+might hae been bartered away too."</p>
+
+<p>In nothing, however, of all that then passed was there anything which so
+moved the tranquil heart of my grandfather<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> as the looks which, from
+time to time, the desolate woman cast at her daughter. Fain she seemed
+to speak and to catch her in her arms; but ever and anon the sense of
+her own condition came upon her, and she began to weep, crying, "No, no,
+I darena do that&mdash;I darena even mysel' to a parent's privilege after
+what I hae done."</p>
+
+<p>The poor lassie sat unable to make any answer; but at last, in a timid
+manner, she took her mother softly by the hand, and the fond and lowly
+penitent for a few moments allowed it to linger in her grip, willing to
+have left it there; but suddenly stung by her conscience she snatched it
+away, and again broke out into piercing lamentations and confessions of
+unworthiness.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the charitable Ursie Firikins had made ready a mess of
+porridge, and the mournful Magdalen being soothed and consoled, was
+persuaded to partake. And afterwards, when they had sat some time, and
+the crowd which had gathered out of doors in the street was dispersed,
+my grandfather went to his lodgings; and having paid his lawin, returned
+to the two sisters and Agnes Kilspinnie, and they all walked to the
+shore of Leith together, where they found a boat going to Kinghorn, into
+which they embarked; and having slept there, they hired a cart to take
+them to Crail next morning, everyone who saw them wondering at the
+dejected and ruinous appearance of the penitent. The particulars,
+however, of their journey and of her reception in her native place, will
+furnish matter for another chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>When they came within a mile of the town, where a small public stood
+that wayfaring men were wont to stop and refresh themselves at, my
+grandfather urged the disconsolate Marion, who had come all the way from
+Kinghorn without speaking a single word, to alight from the cart, and
+remain there till the cloud of night, when she might go to her mother's
+unafflicted by the gaze of the pitiless multitude.</p>
+
+<p>To this, at first, she made no answer; but leaping out of the cart, and
+standing still for a moment, she looked wist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>fully at her sister and
+daughter, and then began to weep, crying, "Gang ye awa, and no mind me;
+ye canna thole, and oughtna to share what I maun bear; and I'll never
+break another vow: so, in the face o' day, and of a' people, I'm
+constrained to enter Crail&mdash;first, to confess my guilt at the door of
+the honest man and his bairns that I hae sae disgraced; and syne to beg
+my mother to take in the limmer that was scofft frae door to door, till
+the blessed time when ye were sent to stop me laying desperate hands on
+mysel'."</p>
+
+<p>Elspa remonstrated with her for some time, but she was not to be
+entreated: "My guilt and my shamelessness were public," said she, "and
+it is meet that the world should behold what hae been the wages I hae
+earnt, and the depth of the humiliation to which my vain and proud heart
+has been brought; so, go ye on wi' your gudeman and Agnes, and let me
+come by mysel'."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Marion," replied her sister, "that sha'na be; I'll no let you do
+that. If you will make sic a pilgrimage, I'll bear you company, for I
+can ne'er be ashamed nor mortified in being wi' you, when ye are seeking
+again the path of righteousness that ye were sae beguil't to quit."</p>
+
+<p>"Say nae I was beguil't; say naething to gar me think less o' my fault
+than I should: there was nae beguiler but my ain vain and sinful
+nature."</p>
+
+<p>Her daughter, who had all this time stood silent with the tear in her
+e'e, then said, "I'll gang wi' you, mother, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!&mdash;O Agnes Kilspinnie, dinna sae wrang yoursel', and your honest
+father, as to ca' the like o' me mother. But did ye say ye would come
+wi' me?" and she dropped vehemently on her knees, and, spreading her
+arms to the skies, cried out with a loud and wild voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"God, God! is thy goodness so great, that thou canst already vouchsafe
+to me a mercy like this?"</p>
+
+<p>Seeing her so bent on going into the town in her miserable estate, and
+his wife and her daughter so mindit to go with her, my grandfather said
+it would be as well for him to run forward and prepare her mother for
+her coming; so he left them, and hastened into the town, thinking they
+would come in the cart; but when he was gone, Marion, still in the hope
+she might get her sister and daughter dissuaded from accompanying her,
+told them that she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> resolved to go on her bare feet, which, however,
+made them in pity still adhere the more closely to their determination;
+and, having paid the Kinghorn man for his cart, the three set forward
+together, Elspa on the right hand and Agnes on the left hand of the
+lowly penitent.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime my grandfather hastened to the dwelling of Widow Ruet,
+his gude-mother, to tell her who was coming, and to prepare her aged
+mind for the sore shock. For though she was a sectarian of the Roman
+seed, she was nevertheless a most devout character, and abided more in
+the errors of her religion, because she thought herself too old to learn
+a new faith, than from that obstinacy of spirit which in those days so
+abounded in the breasts of the papisticals.</p>
+
+<p>The news was at first as glad tidings to the humane old woman; but every
+now and then she began to start, and to listen&mdash;and a tear fell from her
+eye. When she heard the voice of anyone talking in the street, or the
+sound of a foot passing, she hurried to the window and looked hastily
+out. The struggle within her was great, and it grew every minute
+stronger and stronger; and after walking very wofully divers times
+across the floor, she went and closed the shutters of her window, and
+sitting down gave full vent to her grief. In that state she had not been
+long, when the sough of a din gathering at a distance was heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother of Christ!" she cried, starting up, clapping her hands; "Mother
+of Jesus, thou hast seen the fruit of thy womb exposed to ignominy. By
+thine own agonies in that hour, I implore thy support. O blessed Mary,
+thy sorrow was light compared to my burden, for thy bairn was holy, and
+meek, and kind, and without sin. But thou hast known what it was to sit
+by thy baby sleeping in its innocence; thou hast known what it was to
+love it for the very troubles it then gave thee. By the remembrance of
+that sweet watching and care, O pity me, and help me to receive my
+erring bairn!"</p>
+
+<p>My grandfather could not stand her lament and ejaculations, and hearing
+the sound drawing nearer and nearer, he went out of the house to see if
+his presence might be any protection; but the sight he saw was even more
+sorrowful than the aged mother's grief.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of the cart in which he expected to see the women, he beheld
+them coming along, side by side, together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> attended by a great
+multitude; doors and windows flew open as they came along, and old and
+young looked out. Many cried, "She has been well serv't for her shame."
+Some laughed; and the young turned aside their heads to hide their
+tears. Among others that ran from the causey-side to look in the face of
+Marion&mdash;still beautiful, though faded, but shining with something
+brighter than beauty&mdash;there was a little boy that went up close to her,
+and took her by the hand, without speaking, and led her along. He was
+her own son; but still she moved not her solemn heavenward eye, though a
+universal sobbing burst from ail the multitude; and my grandfather, at
+the piteous pageantry, was no longer able to remain master of his
+feelings. Seeing, however, that the mournful actors therein were going
+on towards Bailie Kilspinnie's, and not intending to stop, as he
+expected they would, at Widow Ruet's door, he ran forward to warn his
+old friend; but in this he was too late; some one had been already
+there; and he found the poor man, with his three other children,
+standing at the door, seemingly utterly at a loss to know what his duty
+should be; nor was my grandfather in any condition of mind to help him
+with advice.</p>
+
+<p>At that juncture the multitude came rushing on before the women, and
+halted in front of the bailie's house; for, seeing him and his bairns,
+they were taught, by some sense of gentle sympathy, to divide and retire
+to a distance, leaving an open and silent space for the penitent to go
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>When Agnes Kilspinnie and her brother saw their father and brother and
+sisters at the door, they quitted their mother and joined them, as if
+instructed by an instinct, while she slowly approached.</p>
+
+<p>Elspa Ruet, who had hitherto maintained a serene and resigned composure
+of countenance, was so moved at this sad spectacle, that my grandfather,
+seeing her distress, stepped out and caught her in his arms, and
+supported her from falling, she was so faint with anguish of heart.</p>
+
+<p>In the same moment, with a look that struck awe and consternation into
+every one around, Marion stepped on towards her husband and children,
+and gazed at them, and was dropping on her knees when the bailie caught
+her in his arms as if he would have carried her into the house. But he
+faltered in his purpose; and, casting his eyes on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> the five weans whom
+she had so deserted, he unloosed his embrace, and, gathering them before
+him, went in and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>The multitude uttered a fearful sough; Elspa Ruet, roused by it, rushed
+from my grandfather towards her sister, and stooping, tried to raise her
+up. Poor Marion, still kneeling, looked around to the people, who stood
+all as still as mourners at an interment, and her dark ringlets falling
+loose, made her pale face appear of an unearthly fairness. She seemed as
+if she would have said something to her sister, who had clasped her by
+the hand, but litherly swinging backwards, she laid her head down on her
+husband's threshold and gave a heavy sigh, and died.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>The burial of Marion Ruet was decently attended by Bailie Kilspinnie and
+all his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yet
+ordered their eldest son to do so, because, whatever her faults had
+been, she was still the youth's mother. And my grandfather, with his
+wife, having spent some time after with their friends at Crail, returned
+homeward by themselves, passing over to Edinburgh, that they might taste
+once more of the elixir of salvation as dispensed by John Knox, who had
+been for some time in a complaining way, and it was by many thought that
+the end of his preaching was drawing nigh.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that the dreadful tidings of the murder of the protestants
+in France, by the command of "the accursed king," reached Edinburgh in
+the night before my grandfather and wife returned thither; and he used
+to speak of the consternation that they found reigning in the city when
+they arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. Every shop was
+shut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, when
+death was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearance
+of the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign,
+the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead body
+was then lying in every family.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a terrifying solemnity in the streets;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> for, though they
+were as if all the people had come forth in panic and sad wonderment,
+many were clothed in black, and there was a funereal stillness&mdash;a dismal
+sense of calamity that hushed the voices of men, and friends meeting one
+another, lifted their hands, and shuddering, passed by without speaking.
+My grandfather saw but one, between Leith Wynd and the door of the house
+in the Lawnmarket, where he proposed to lodge, that wore a smile, and it
+was not of pleasure, but of avarice counting its gains.</p>
+
+<p>The man was one Hans Berghen, an armourer that had feathered his nest in
+the raids of the war with the Queen Regent. He was a Norman by birth,
+and had learnt the tempering of steel in Germany. In his youth he had
+been in the Imperator's service, and had likewise worked in the arsenal
+of Venetia. Some said he was perfected in his trade by the infidel at
+Constantinopolis; but, however this might be, no man of that time was
+more famous among roisters and moss-troopers, for the edge and metal of
+his weapons, than that same blasphemous incomer, who thought of nothing
+but the greed of gain, whether by dule to protestant or papist; so that
+the sight of his hard-favoured visage, blithened with satisfaction, was
+to my grandfather, who knew him well by repute, as an omen of portentous
+aspect.</p>
+
+<p>For two days the city continued in that dismal state, and on the third,
+which was Sabbath, the churches were so filled that my grandmother,
+being then in a tender condition, did not venture to enter the High
+Kirk, where the Reformer was waited for by many thirsty and languishing
+souls from an early hour in the morning, who desired to hear what he
+would say concerning the dark deeds that had been done in France. She
+therefore returned to the Lawnmarket; but my grandfather worked his way
+into the heart of the crowd, where he had not long been when a murmur
+announced that Master Knox was coming, and soon after he entered the
+kirk.</p>
+
+<p>He had now the appearance of great age and weakness, and he walked with
+slow and tottering steps, wearing a virl of fur round his neck, and a
+staff in one hand; godlie Richie Ballanden, his man, holding him up by
+the oxter. And when he came to the foot of the pulpit, Richie, by the
+help of another servant that followed with the Book, lifted him up the
+steps into it, where he was seemingly so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> exhausted that he was
+obligated to rest for the space of several minutes. No man who had never
+seen him before could have thought that one so frail would have had
+ability to have given out even the psalm; but when he began the spirit
+descended upon him, and he was so kindled that at last his voice became
+as awful as the thunders of wrath, and his arm was strengthened as with
+the strength of a champion's. The kirk dirled to the foundations; the
+hearts of his hearers shook, till the earth of their sins was shaken
+clean from them; and he appeared in the wirlwind of inspiration, as if
+his spirit was mounting, like the prophet Elijah, in a fiery chariot
+immediately to the gates of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>His discourse was of the children of Bethlehem slain by Herod, and he
+spoke of the dreadful sound of a bell and a trumpet heard suddenly in
+the midnight hour, when all were fast bound and lying defenceless in the
+fetters of sleep. He described the dreadful knocking at the doors&mdash;the
+bursting in of men with drawn swords&mdash;how babies were harled by the arms
+from their mothers' beds and bosoms, and dashed to death upon the marble
+floors. He told of parents that stood in the porches of their houses and
+made themselves the doors that the slayers were obliged to hew in pieces
+before they could enter in. He pictured the women flying along the
+street, in the nakedness of the bedchamber, with their infants in their
+arms, and how the ruffians of the accursed king, knowing their prey by
+their cries, ran after them, caught the mother by the hair and the bairn
+by the throat, and, in one act, flung the innocent to the stones and
+trampled out its life. Then he paused, and said, in a soft and thankful
+voice, that in the horrors of Bethlehem there was still much mercy; for
+the idolatrous dread of Herod prompted him to slay but young children,
+whose blameless lives were to their weeping parents an assurance of
+their acceptance into heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"What then," he cried, "are we to think of that night, and of that king,
+and of that people, among whom, by whom, and with whom, the commissioned
+murderer twisted his grip in the fugitive old man's grey hairs, to draw
+back his head that the knife might the surer reach his heart? With what
+eyes, being already blinded with weeping, shall we turn to that city
+where the withered hands of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> grandmother were deemed as weapons of
+war by the strong and black-a-vised slaughterer, whose sword was owre
+vehemently used for a' the feckless remnant of life it had to cut! But
+deaths like these were brief and blessed compared to other
+things&mdash;which, Heaven be praised, I have not the power to describe, and
+which, among this protestant congregation, I trust there is not one able
+to imagine, or who, trying to conceive, descries but in the dark and
+misty vision the pains of mangled mothers; babes, untimely and
+unquickened, cast on the dung-hills and into the troughs of swine; of
+black-iron hooks fastened into the mouths, and driven through the cheeks
+of brave men, whose arms are tied with cords behind, as they are dragged
+into the rivers to drown, by those who durst not in fair battle endure
+the lightning of their eyes. O, Herod!&mdash;Herod of Judea&mdash;thy name is
+hereafter bright, for in thy bloody business thou wast thyself nowhere
+to be seen. In the vouts and abysses of thy unstained palace, thou hidst
+thyself from the eye of history, and perhaps humanely sat covering thine
+ears with thy hands to shut out the sound of the wail and woe around
+thee. But this Herod&mdash;let me not call him by so humane a name. No: let
+all the trumpets of justice sound his own to everlasting infamy&mdash;Charles
+the Ninth of France! And let his ambassador that is here aye yet, yet to
+this time audaciously in this Christian land, let him tell his master
+that sentence has been pronounced against him in Scotland; that the
+Divine vengeance will never depart from him or his house until
+repentance has ensued, and atonement been made in their own race; that
+his name will remain a blot&mdash;a blot of blood, a stain never to be
+effaced&mdash;a thing to be pronounced with a curse by all posterity; and
+that none proceeding from his loins shall ever enjoy his kingdom in
+peace."</p>
+
+<p>The preacher, on saying these prophetic words, paused, and, with his
+eyes fixed upwards, he stood some time silent, and then, clasping his
+hands together, exclaimed with fear and trembling upon him, "Lord, Lord,
+thy will be done?"</p>
+
+<p>Many thought that he had then received some great apocalypse; for it was
+observed of all men that he was never after like the man he had once
+been, but highly and holily elevated above earthly cares and
+considerations, saving those only of his ministry, and which he
+hastened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> to close. He was as one that no longer had trust, portion, or
+interest in this temporal world, which in less than two months after he
+bade farewell, and was translated to a better. Yes, to a better; for
+assuredly, if there is aught in this life that may be regarded as the
+symbols of infeftment to the inheritance of Heaven, the labours and
+ministration of John Knox were testimonies that he had verily received
+the yird and stane of an heritage on High.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Shortly after my grandfather had returned with his wife to their quiet
+dwelling at Quharist on the Garnock side, he began, in the course of the
+winter following, to suffer an occasional pang in that part of his body
+which was damaged by the fall he got in rugging down the Virgin Mary out
+of her niche in the idolatrous abbeykirk of Kilwinning, and the anguish
+of his suffering grew to such an head by Candlemas that he was obligated
+to send for his old acquaintance, Dominick Callender, who had, after his
+marriage with the regenerate nun, settled as a doctor of physic in the
+godly town of Irvine. But for many a day all the skill and medicamenting
+of Doctor Callender did him little good, till Nature had, of her own
+accord, worked out the root of the evil in the shape of a sklinter of
+bone. Still, though the wound then closed, it never was a sound part,
+and he continued in consequence a lamiter for life. Yet were his days
+greatly prolonged beyond the common lot of man; for he lived till he was
+ninety-one years, seven months, and four days old, and his end at last
+was but a pleasant translation from the bodily to the spiritual life.</p>
+
+<p>For some days before the close he was calm and cheerful, rehearsing to
+the neighbours that came to speer for him, many things like those of
+which I have spoken herein. Towards the evening a serene drowsiness fell
+upon him, like the snow that falleth in silence, and froze all his
+temporal faculties in so gentle a manner, that it could not be said he
+knew what it was to die; being, as it were, carried in the downy arms of
+sleep to the portal door of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> Death, where all the pains and terrors that
+guard the same were hushed, and stood mute around, as he was softly
+received in.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt there was something of a providential design in the singular
+prolongation of such a pious and a blameless life; for through it the
+possessor became a blessed mean of sowing, in the hearts of his children
+and neighbours, the seeds of those sacred principles, which afterwards
+made them stand firm in their religious integrity when they were so
+grievously tried. For myself I was too young, being scant of eight years
+when he departed, to know the worth of those precious things which he
+had treasured in the garnel of his spirit for seed-corn unto the Lord;
+and therefore, though I often heard him speak of the riddling wherewith
+that mighty husbandman of the Reformation, John Knox, riddled the truths
+of the gospel from the errors of papistry, I am bound to say that his
+own exceeding venerable appearance, and the visions of past events,
+which the eloquence of his traditions called up to my young fancy,
+worked deeper and more thoroughly into my nature than the reasons and
+motives which guided and governed many of his other disciples. But,
+before proceeding with my own story, it is meet that I should still tell
+the courteous reader some few things wherein my father bore a part&mdash;a
+man of very austere character, and of a most godly, though, as some
+said, rather of a stubbornly affection for the forms of worship which
+had been established by John Knox and the pious worthies of his times;
+he was withal a single-minded Christian, albeit more ready for a raid
+than subtle in argument. He had, like all who knew the old people his
+parents, a by-common reverence for them; and spoke of the patriarchs
+with whom of old the Lord was wont to hold communion, as more favoured
+of Him than David or Solomon, or any other princes or kings.</p>
+
+<p>When he was very young, not passing, as I have heard him often tell,
+more than six or seven years of age, he was taken, along with his
+brethren, by my grandfather, to see the signing at Irvine of the
+Covenant, with which, in the lowering time of the Spanish armada, King
+James, the son of Mary, together with all the Reformed, bound themselves
+in solemn compact to uphold the protestant religion. Afterwards, when he
+saw the country rise in arms, and heard of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> the ward and watch, and the
+beacons ready on the hills, his imagination was kindled with some
+dreadful conceit of the armada, and he thought it could be nothing less
+than some awful and horrible creature sent from the shores of perdition
+to devour the whole land. The image he had thus framed in his fears
+haunted him continually; and night after night he could not sleep for
+thinking of its talons of brass, and wings of thunder, and nostrils
+flaming fire, and the iron teeth with which it was to grind and gnash
+the bodies and bones of all protestants, in so much that his parents
+were concerned for the health of his mind, and wist not what to do to
+appease the terrors of his visions.</p>
+
+<p>At last, however, the great Judith of the protestant cause, Queen
+Elizabeth of England, being enabled to drive a nail into the head of
+that Holofernes of the idolaters, and many of the host of ships having
+been plunged, by the right arm of the tempest, into the depths of the
+seas, and scattered by the breath of the storm, like froth over the
+ocean, it happened that, one morning about the end of July, a cry arose
+that a huge galley of the armada was driven on the rocks at Pencorse;
+and all the shire of Ayr hastened to the spot to behold and witness her
+shipwreck and overthrow. Among others my grandfather, with his three
+eldest sons, went, leaving my father at home; but his horrors grew to
+such a passion of fear that his mother, the calm and pious Elspa Ruet,
+resolved to take him thither likewise, and to give him the evidence of
+his eyes, that the dreadful armada was but a navy of vessels like the
+ship which was cast upon the shore. By this prudent thought of her, when
+he arrived at the spot his apprehensions were soothed; but his mind had
+ever after a strange habitude of forming wild and wonderful images of
+every danger, whereof the scope and nature was not very clearly
+discerned, and which continued with him till the end of his days.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the death of my grandfather, he had occasion to go into
+Edinburgh anent some matter of legacy that had fallen to us through the
+decease of an uncle of my mother, a bonnet-maker in the Canongate; and,
+on his arrival there, he found men's minds in a sore fever concerning
+the rash councils wherewith King Charles the First, then reigning, was
+mindit to interfere with the pure worship of God, and to enact a part in
+the kirk of Scot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>land little short of the papistical domination of the
+Roman Antichrist. To all men this was startling tidings; but to my
+father it was an enormity that fired his blood and spirit with the
+fierceness of a furnace. And it happened that he lodged with a friend of
+ours, one Janet Geddes, a most pious woman, who had suffered great
+molestation in her worldly substance, from certain endeavours for the
+restorations of the horns of the mitre, and the prelatic buskings with
+which that meddling and fantastical bodie, King James the Sixth, would
+fain have buskit and disguised the sober simplicity of gospel
+ordinances.</p>
+
+<p>No two persons could be more heartily in unison upon any point of
+controversy than was my worthy father and Janet Geddes, concerning the
+enormities that would of a necessity ensue from the papistical
+pretensions and unrighteous usurpation of King Charles; and they sat
+crooning and lamenting together all the Saturday afternoon and night
+about the woes of idolatry that were darkening again over Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt there was both reason and piety in their fears; but in the
+method of their sorrow, from what I have known of my father's earnest
+and simple character, I redde there might be some lack of the decorum of
+wisdom. But be this as it may, they heated the zeal of one another to a
+pitch of great fervour, and next morning, the Sabbath, they went
+together to the high Kirk of St Giles to see what the power of an
+infatuated government would dare to do.</p>
+
+<p>The kirk was filled to its uttermost bunkers; my father, however, got
+for Janet Geddes, she being an aged woman, a stool near the skirts of
+the pulpit; but nothing happened to cause any disturbance till the godly
+Mr Patrick Henderson had made an end of the morning prayer, when he
+said, with tears in his eyes, with reference to the liturgy, which was
+then to be promulgated, "Adieu, good people, for I think this is the
+last time of my saying prayers in this kirk;" and the congregation being
+much moved thereat, many wept.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had Mr Henderson retired, than Master Ramsay, that horn of the
+Beast, which was called the Dean of Edinburgh, appeared in the pulpit in
+the pomp of his abominations, and began to read the liturgy. At the
+first words of which Janet Geddes was so transported with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> indignation
+that, starting from her stool, she made it fly whirring at his head, as
+she cried, "Villain, dost thou say the mass at my lug?" Then such an
+uproar began as had not been witnessed since the destruction of the
+idols; the women screaming, and clapping their hands in terrification as
+if the legions of the Evil One had been let loose upon them; and the men
+crying aloud, "Antichrist! Antichrist! down wi' the Pope!" and all
+exhortation to quiet them was drowned in the din.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the beginning of those troubles in the church and state so
+wantonly provoked by the weak and wicked policy of the first King
+Charles, and which in the end brought himself to an ignominious death;
+and such the cause of that Solemn League and Covenant, to which, in my
+green years, my father, soon after his return home, took me to be a
+party, and to which I have been enabled to adhere, with unerring
+constancy, till the glorious purpose of it has all been fulfilled and
+accomplished.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>When my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved
+to see his sad and altered looks. We gathered around him, and she
+thought he had failed to get the legacy, and comforted him by saying
+they had hitherto fenn't without it, and so might they still do.</p>
+
+<p>To her tender condolements he however made no answer; but, taking a
+leathern bag, with the money in it, out of his bosom, he flung it on the
+table, saying, "What care I for this world's trash, when the ark of the
+Lord is taken from Israel?" which to hear daunted the hearts of all
+present. And then he told us, after some time, what was doing on the
+part of the King to bring in the worship of the Beast again, rehearsing,
+with many circumstances, the consternation and sorrow and rage and
+lamentations that he had witnessed in Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>I, who was the ninth of his ten children, and then not passing nine
+years old, was thrilled with an unspeakable fear; and all the dreadful
+things, which I had heard my grandfather tell of the tribulations of his
+time, came upon my spirit like visions of the visible scene, and I began
+to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> weep with an exceeding sorrow, in so much that my father was amazed,
+and caressed me, and thanked Heaven that one so young in his house felt
+as a protestant child should feel in an epoch of such calamity.</p>
+
+<p>It was then late in the afternoon, towards the gloaming, and having
+partaken of some refreshment, my father took the big Bible from the
+press-head, and, after a prayer uttered in great heaviness of spirit, he
+read a portion of the Revelations, concerning the vials and the woes,
+expounding the same like a preacher; and we were all filled with
+anxieties and terrors; some of the younger members trembled with the
+thought that the last day was surely at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning a sough and rumour of that solemn venting of Christian
+indignation which had been manifested at Edinburgh, having reached our
+country-side, and the neighbours hearing of my father's return, many of
+them came at night to our house to hear the news; and it was a meeting
+that none present thereat could ever after forget:&mdash;well do I mind
+everything as if it had happened but yestreen. I was sitting on a laigh
+stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old
+Nanse Snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we
+took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in
+silence, as of guests coming to a burial.</p>
+
+<p>The first was Ebenezer Muir, an aged man, whose grandson stood many a
+blast in the persecution of the latter days, both with the Blackcuffs
+and the bloody dragoons of the remorseless Graham of Claver. He was bent
+with the burden of time, and leaning on his staff, and his long white
+hair hung down from aneath his broad blue bonnet. He was one whom my
+grandfather held in great respect for the sincerity of his principles
+and the discretion of his judgment, and among all his neighbours, and
+nowhere more than in our house, was he considered a most patriarchal
+character.</p>
+
+<p>"Come awa, Ebenezer," said my father, "I'm blithe and I'm sorrowful to
+see you. This night we may be spar't to speak in peace of the things
+that pertain unto salvation; but the day and the hour is not far off,
+when the flock of Christ shall be scattered and driven from the pastures
+of their Divine Master."</p>
+
+<p>To these words of affliction Ebenezer Muir made no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> response, but went
+straight to the fireside, facing Nanse Snoddie, and sat down without
+speaking; and my father, then observing John Fullarton of Dykedivots
+coming in, stretched out his hand, and took hold of his, and drew him to
+sit down by his side.</p>
+
+<p>They had been in a manner brothers from their youth upward. An uncle of
+John Fullarton's, by whom he was brought up, had been owner, and he
+himself had heired, and was then possessor of, the mailing of Dykedivot,
+beside ours. He was the father of four brave sons, the youngest of whom,
+a stripling of some thirteen or fourteen years, was at his back: the
+other three came in afterwards. He was, moreover, a man of a stout and
+courageous nature, though of a much-enduring temper.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," said he to my father&mdash;"I hope, Sawners, a' this straemash and
+hobbleshow that fell out last Sabbath in Embro' has been seen wi' the
+glamoured een o' fear, and that the King and government canna be sae far
+left to themsels as to meddle wi' the ordinances of the Lord."</p>
+
+<p>"I doot, I doot, it's owre true, John," replied my father in a very
+mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, Nahum Chapelrig came
+ben. He was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster
+of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of
+country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and
+both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years
+he was greatly looked up to amang all his acquaintance, notwithstanding
+a small spicin of conceit that he was in with himself.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing him coming in, worthy Ebenezer Muir made a sign for him to
+draw near and sit by him; and when he went forward, and drew in a stool,
+the old man took hold of him by the hand, and said, "Ye're weel come,
+Nahum;" and my father added, "Ay, Nahum Chapelrig, it's fast coming to
+pass, as ye hae been aye saying it would; the King has na restit wi'
+putting the prelates upon us."</p>
+
+<p>"What's te prelates, Robin Fullarton?" said auld Nanse Snoddie, turning
+round to John's son, who was standing behind his father.</p>
+
+<p>"They're the red dragons o' unrighteousness," replied the sincere laddie
+with great vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>"Gude guide us!" cried Nanse with the voice of terror;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> "and has the
+King daur't to send sic accursed things to devour God's people?"</p>
+
+<p>But my mother, who was sitting behind me, touched her on the shoulder,
+bidding her be quiet; for the poor woman, being then doited, when left
+to the freedom of her own will, was apt to expatiate without ceasing on
+whatsoever she happened to discourse anent; and Nahum Chapelrig said to
+my father,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed, Sawners Gilhaize, we could look for nae better; prelacy is but
+the prelude o' papistry; but the papistry o' this prelude is a perilous
+papistry indeed; for its roots of rankness are in the midden-head of
+Arminianism, which, in a sense, is a greater Antichrist than Antichrist
+himself, even where he sits on his throne of thraldom in the Roman
+vaticano. But, nevertheless, I trust and hope, that though the virgin
+bride of protestantism be for a season thrown on her back, she shall not
+be overcome, but will so strive and warsle aneath the foul grips of that
+rampant Arminian, the English high-priest Laud, that he shall himself be
+cast into the mire, or choket wi' the stoure of his own bakiefu's of
+abominations, wherewith he would overwhelm and bury the Evangil. Yea,
+even though the shield of his mighty men is made red, and his valiant
+men are in scarlet, he shall recount his worthies, but they shall
+stumble in their walk."</p>
+
+<p>While Nahum was thus holding forth, the house filled even to the
+trance-door with the neighbours, old and young; and several from time to
+time spoke bitterly against the deadly sin and aggression which the King
+was committing in the rape that the reading of the liturgy was upon the
+consciences of his people. At last Ebenezer Muir, taking off his bonnet,
+and rising, laid it down on his seat behind him, and then resting with
+both his hands on his staff, looked up, and every one was hushed. Truly
+it was an affecting sight to behold that very aged, time-bent and
+venerable man so standing in the midst of all his dismayed and pious
+neighbours,&mdash;his grey hairs flowing from his haffets,&mdash;and the light of
+our lowly hearth shining upon his bald head and reverent countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Friens," said he, "I hae lived lang in the world; and in this house I
+hae often partaken the sweet repast of the conversations of that
+sanctified character, Michael Gilhaize, whom we a' revered as a parent,
+not more for his ain worth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> than for the great things to which he was a
+witness in the trials and troubles of the Reformation; and it seems to
+me, frae a' the experience I hae gatherit, that when ance kings and
+governments hae taken a step, let it be ne'er sae rash, there's a
+something in the nature of rule and power that winna let them confess a
+fau't, though they may afterwards be constrained to renounce the evil of
+their ways. It was therefore wi' a sore heart that I heard this day the
+doleful tidings frae Embro', and moreover, that I hae listened to the
+outbreathings this night of the heaviness wherewith the news hae
+oppressed you a'. Sure am I, that frae the provocation given to the
+people of Scotland by the King's miscounselled majesty, nothing but
+tears and woes can ensue; for by the manner in which they hae already
+rebutted the aggression, he will in return be stirred to aggrieve them
+still farther. I'm now an auld man, and may be removed before the woes
+come to pass; but it requires not the e'e of prophecy to spae bloodshed
+and suffering, and many afflictions in your fortunes. Nevertheless,
+friens, be of good cheer, for the Lord will prosper his own cause.
+Neither king, nor priest, nor any human authority has the right to
+interfere between you and your God; and allegiance ends where
+persecution begins. Never, therefore, in the trials awaiting you, forget
+that the right to resist in matters of conscience is the
+foundation-stone of religious liberty; O see, therefore, that you guard
+it weel!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice and manner of the aged speaker melted every heart. Many of the
+women sobbed aloud, and the children were moved, as I was myself, and as
+I have often heard them in their manhood tell, as if the spirit of faith
+and fortitude had entered into the very bones and marrow of their
+bodies; nor ever afterwards have I heard psalm sung with such melodious
+energy of holiness as that pious congregation of simple country folk
+sung the hundred and fortieth psalm before departing for their lowly
+dwellings on that solemn evening.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was on the Wednesday that my father came home from Edinburgh. On
+Friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our
+house to hear the news, and all their discourse was concerning the
+manifest foretaste of papistry which was in the praying of the prayers,
+that an obdurate prince and an alien Arminian prelate were attempting to
+thrust into their mouths, and every one spoke of renewing the Solemn
+League and Covenant, which, in the times of the Reformation and the
+dangers of the Spanish Armada, had achieved such great things for <span class="smcap">the
+Truth and the Word</span>.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturday, Mr Sundrum, our minister, called for my father about twelve
+o'clock. He had heard the news, and also that my father had come back. I
+was doing something on the green, I forget now what it was, when I saw
+him coming towards the door, and I ran into the house to tell my father,
+who immediately came out to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>Little passed in my hearing between them, for, after a short inquiry
+concerning how my father had fared in the journey, the minister took
+hold of him by the arm, and they walked together into the fields, where,
+when they were at some distance from the house, Mr Sundrum stopped, and
+began to discourse in a very earnest and lively manner, frequently
+touching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right, as he
+spoke to my father, and sometimes lifting both his hands as one in
+amaze, ejaculating to the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus reasoning together, worthy Ebenezer Muir came
+towards the house, but, observing where they were, he turned off and
+joined them, and they continued all three in vehement deliberation, in
+so much that I was drawn by the thirst of curiosity to slip so near
+towards them that I could hear what passed; and my young heart was
+pierced at the severe terms in which the minister was condemning the
+ringleaders of the riot, as he called the adversaries of popedom in
+Edinburgh, and in a manner rebuking my honest father as a sower of
+sedition.</p>
+
+<p>My father, however, said stiffly, for he was not a man to controvert
+with a minister, that in all temporal things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> he was a true and leil
+subject, and in what pertained to the King as king, he would stand as
+stoutly up for as any man in the three kingdoms; but against a
+usurpation of the Lord's rights, his hand, his heart, and his father's
+sword, that had been used in the Reformation, were all alike ready.</p>
+
+<p>Old Ebenezer Muir tried to pacify him, and reasoned in great gentleness
+with both, expressing his concern that a presbyterian minister could
+think that the attempt to bring in prelacy, and the reading of
+court-contrived prayers, was not a meddling with things sacred and
+rights natural, which neither prince nor potentate had authority to do.
+But Mr Sundrum was one of those that longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt,
+and the fat things of a lordly hierarchy; and the pacific remonstrances
+of the pious old man made him wax more and more wroth at what he
+hatefully pronounced their rebellious inclinations; at which bitter
+words both my father and Ebenezer Muir turned from him, and went
+together to the house with sadness in their faces, leaving him to return
+the way he had come alone&mdash;a thing which filled me with consternation,
+he having ever before been treated and reverenced as a pastor ought
+always to be.</p>
+
+<p>What comment my father and the old man made on his conduct when they
+were by themselves I know not; but on the Sabbath morning the kirk was
+filled to overflowing, and my father took me with him by the hand, and
+we sat together on the same form with Ebenezer Muir, whom we found in
+the church before us.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr Sundrum mounted into the pulpit, and read the psalm and said the
+prayer, there was nothing particular; but when he prepared to preach,
+there was a rustle of expectation among all present, for the text he
+chose was from Romans, chapter xiii. and verses 1 and 2; from which he
+made an endeavour to demonstrate, as I heard afterwards, for I was then
+too young to discern the matter of it myself, the duty and advantages of
+passive obedience&mdash;and, growing warm with his ungospel rhetoric, he
+began to rail and to daud the pulpit in condemnation of the spirit which
+had kithed in Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>Ebenezer Muir and my father tholed with him for some time; but at last
+he so far forgot his place and office, that they both rose and moved
+towards the door. Many others did the same, and presently the whole
+congregation, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> the exception of a very few, also began to move, so
+that the kirk skayled; and from that day, so long as Mr Sundrum
+continued in the parish, he was as a leper and an excommunicant.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the alarm was spreading far and wide, and a blessed thing it
+was for the shire of Ayr, though it caused its soil to be soakened with
+the blood of martyrs, that few of the ministers were like the
+time-serving Mr Sundrum, but trusty and valiant defenders of the green
+pastures whereon they had delighted, like kind shepherds, to lead their
+confiding flocks, and to cherish the young lambs thereof with the tender
+embraces of a holy ministry. Among the rest, that godly and great saint,
+Mr Swinton of Garnock, our neighbour parish, stood courageously forward
+in the gap of the broken fence of the vineyard, announcing, after a most
+weighty discourse, on the same day on which Mr Sundrum preached the
+erroneous doctrine of passive obedience, that next Sabbath he would
+administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, not knowing how long it
+might be in the power of his people to partake of it. Every body around
+accordingly prepared to be present on that occasion, and there was a
+wonderful congregation. All the adjacent parishes in succession did the
+same thing Sabbath after Sabbath, and never was there seen, in the
+memory of living man, such a zealous devotion and strictness of life as
+then reigned throughout the whole West Country.</p>
+
+<p>At last the news came, that it was resolved among the great and faithful
+at Edinburgh to renew the Solemn League and Covenant; and the ministers
+of our neighbourhood having conferred together concerning the same, it
+was agreed among them, that the people should be invited to come forward
+on a day set apart for the purpose, and that as the kirk of Irvine was
+the biggest in the vicinage, the signatures both for the country and
+that town should be received there. Mr Dickson, the minister, than whom
+no man of his day was more brave in the Lord's cause, accordingly made
+the needful preparation, and appointed the time.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile the young men began to gird themselves for war. The
+swords that had rested for many a day were drawn from their idle places;
+and the women worked together, that their brothers and their sons might
+be ready for the field; but at their work, instead of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> ancient
+lilts, they sung psalms and godly ballads. However, as I mean not to
+enter upon the particulars of that awakening epoch, but only to show
+forth the pure and the holy earnestness with which the minds of men were
+then actuated, I shall here refer the courteous reader to the annals and
+chronicles of the time,&mdash;albeit the truth in them has suffered from the
+alloy of a base servility.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+
+<p>The sixteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1638, was appointed
+for the renewal at Irvine of the Solemn League and Covenant. On the
+night before, my five elder brothers, who were learning trades at
+Glasgow and Kilmarnock, came home that they might go up with their
+father to the house of God, in order to set down their names together;
+me and my four sisters, the rest of his ten children, were still biding
+with our mother and him at the mailing.</p>
+
+<p>From my grandfather's time there had been a by-common respect among the
+neighbours for our family on his account; and that morning my brother
+Jacob, who happened to be the first that went, at break of day, to the
+door, was surprised to see many of the cotters and neighbouring farmer
+lads already assembled on the lone, waiting to walk with us to the town,
+as a token of their reverence for the principles and the memory of that
+departed worthy; and they were all belted and armed with swords like men
+ready for battle.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing such a concourse of the neighbours, instead of making exercise in
+the house, my father, as the morning was bright and lown, bade me carry
+the Bible and a stool to the dykeside, that our friends might have room
+to join us in worship,&mdash;which I did accordingly, placing the stool under
+the ash-tree, at the corner of the stack-yard, and by all those who were
+present on that occasion the spot was ever afterwards regarded as a
+hallowed place. Truly there was a scene and a sight there not likely to
+be soon forgotten; for the awful cause that had brought together that
+meeting was a thing which no man who had a part therein could ever in
+all his days forget.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>My father chose the seventy-sixth psalm, and when it was sung, he opened
+the Scriptures in Second Kings, and read aloud, with a strong voice, the
+twenty-third chapter, and every one likened Josiah to the old King, and
+Jehoahaz to his son Charles, by whose disregard of the Covenant the
+spirit of the land was then in such tribulation; and at the conclusion,
+instead of kneeling to pray, as he was wont, my father stood up, and, as
+if all temporal things were then of no account, he only supplicated that
+the work they had in hand for that day might be approved and sanctified.</p>
+
+<p>The worship being over, the family returned into the house, and having
+partaken of a repast of bread and milk, my father put on his father's
+sword, and my brothers, who had brought weapons of their own home with
+them, also belted themselves for the road. I was owre young to be yet
+trysted for war, so my father led me out by the hand, and walking
+forward, followed by my brothers, the neighbours, two and two, fell into
+the rear, and the women, in their plaids, came mournful and in tears at
+some short distance behind.</p>
+
+<p>As we were thus proceeding towards the main road, we heard the sound of
+a drum and fife, and saw over the hedge of the lane that leads to the
+clachan, a white banner waving aloft with the words, "<span class="smcap">Solemn League and
+Covenant</span>" painted thereon; at the sight of which my father was much
+disturbed, saying,&mdash;"This is some silly device of Nahum Chapelrig, that,
+if we allow to proceed, may bring scoff and scorn upon the cause as we
+enter the town;" and with that, dropping my hand, he ran forward and
+stopped their vain bravery; for it was, as he had supposed, the work of
+Nahum, who was marching, like a man of war, at the head of his band.
+However, on my father's remonstrance, he consented to send away his
+sounding instruments and idle banner, and to walk composedly along with
+us.</p>
+
+<p>As we reached the town-end port, we fell in with a vast number of other
+persons, from different parts of the country, going to sign the
+Covenant, and, on a cart, worthy Ebenezer Muir and three other aged men
+like himself, who, being all of our parish, it was agreed that they
+should alight and walk to the kirk at the head of those who had come
+with my father. While this was putting in order, other men and lads
+belonging to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> parish came and joined us, so that, to the number of
+more than a hundred, we went up the town together.</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at the Tolbooth, we were obligated, with others, to halt
+for some time, by reason of the great crowd at the Kirkgatefoot waiting
+to see if the magistrates, who were then sitting in council, would come
+forth and go to the kirk; and the different crafts and burgesses, with
+their deacons, were standing at the Cross in order to follow them, if
+they determined, in their public capacity, to sign the Covenant,
+according to the pious example which had been set to all in authority by
+the magistrates and town-council of Edinburgh three days before. We had
+not, however, occasion to be long detained; for it was resolved, with a
+unanimous heart, that the provost should sign in the name of the town,
+and that the bailies and councillors should, in their own names, sign
+each for himself; so they came out, with the town-officers bearing their
+battle-axes before them, and the crafts, according to their privilege,
+followed them to the kirk.</p>
+
+<p>The men of our parish went next; but on reaching the kirk-yard yett, it
+was manifest that, large as the ancient fabric was, it would not be able
+to receive a moité of the persons assembled. Godly Mr David Dickson, the
+minister, had, however, provided for this; and on one of the old tombs,
+on the south side of the kirk, he had ordered a table and chair to be
+placed, where that effectual preacher, Mr Livingstone, delivered a great
+sermon,&mdash;around him the multitude from the country parishes were
+congregated; but my father being well acquainted with Deacon Auld of the
+wrights, was invited by him to come into his seat in the kirk, where he
+carried me in with him, and we heard Mr Dickson himself.</p>
+
+<p>Of the strain and substance of his discourse I remember nothing, save
+only the earnestness of his manner; but well do I remember the awful
+sough and silence that was in the kirk when, at the conclusion of the
+sermon, he prepared to read the words of the Covenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, when he had come to the end, and was rolling it up, "as
+no man knoweth how long, after this day, he may be allowed to partake of
+the sacrament of the Supper, the elders will bring forward the elements;
+and it is hoped that sisters in Christ will not come to communion till
+the brethren are served, who, as they take their seats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> at the Lord's
+table, are invited to sign their names to this solemn charter of the
+religious rights and liberties of God's people in Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>He then came down from the pulpit with the parchment in his hand, and
+going to the head of the sacramental table, he opened it again, and laid
+it down over the elements of the bread and wine which the elders had
+just placed there; and a minister, whose name I do not well recollect,
+sitting at his right hand, holding an inkstand, presented him with a
+pen, which, when he had taken, he prayed in silence for the space of a
+minute, and then, bending forward, he signed his name; having done so,
+he raised himself erect and said, with a loud voice, holding up his
+right hand, "Before God and these witnesses, in truth and holiness, I
+have sworn to keep this Covenant." At that moment a solemn sound rose
+from all the congregation, and every one stood up to see the men, as
+they sat at the table, put down their names.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+
+<p>From the day on which the Covenant was signed, though I was owre young
+to remember the change myself, I have heard it often said that a great
+alteration took place in the morals and manners of the Covenanters. The
+Sabbath was observed by them with far more than the solemnity of times
+past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them,
+which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated
+Christians. The company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was
+eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were
+suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because
+of the danger with which the Truth and the Word were threatened by the
+Arminian Antichrist of the King's government.</p>
+
+<p>But the more immediate effect of the renewal of the Solemn League and
+Covenant was the preparation for defence and resistance, which the
+deceitful policy of that false monarch, King Charles the First, taught
+every one to know would be required. The men began to practise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> firing
+at butts and targets, and to provide themselves with arms and munitions
+of war; while, in order to maintain a life void of offence in all
+temporal concerns, they were by ordinare obedient and submissive to
+those in authority over them, whether holding jurisdiction from the
+King, or in virtue of baronies and feudalities.</p>
+
+<p>In this there was great wisdom; for it left the sin of the provocation
+still on the heads of the King and his evil counsellors, in so much that
+even, when the General Assembly, holden at Glasgow, vindicated the
+independence and freedom of Christ's kingdom, by continuing to sit in
+despite of the dissolution pronounced by King Charles' commissioner, the
+Marquis Hamilton, and likewise by decreeing the abolition of prelacy as
+an abomination, there was no political blame wherewith the people, in
+their capacity of subjects to their earthly prince, could be wyted or
+brought by law to punishment.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the King, who was as fey as he was false, mustered his
+forces, and his rampant high-priest, Laud, was, with all the voices of
+his prelatic emissaries, inflaming the honest people of England to wage
+war against our religious freedom. The papistical Queen of Charles was
+no less busy with the priesthood of her crafty sect, and aids and
+powers, both of men and money, were raised wherever they could be had,
+in order to reinstall the discarded episcopacy of Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>The Covenanters, however, were none daunted, for they had a great ally
+in the Lord of Hosts; and, with Him for their captain, they neither
+sought nor wished for any alien assistance, though they sent letters to
+their brethren in foreign parts, exhorting them to unite in the
+Covenant, and to join them for the battle. General Lesley, in Gustavus
+Adolphus' army, was invited by his kinsman, the Lord Rothes, to come
+home, that, if need arose, he might take the temporal command of the
+Covenanters.</p>
+
+<p>The King having at last, according to an ancient practice of the English
+monarchs, when war in old times was proclaimed against the Scots,
+summoned his nobles to attend him with their powers at York, the
+Covenanters girded their loins, and the whole country rung with the din
+of the gathering of an host for the field.</p>
+
+<p>One Captain Bannerman, who had been with Lesley in the armies of
+Gustavus, was sent from Edinburgh to train<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> the men in our part; and our
+house being central for the musters of the three adjacent parishes, he
+staid a night in the week with us at Quharist for the space of better
+than two months, and his military discourse greatly instructed our
+neighbours in the arts and stratagems of war.</p>
+
+<p>He was an elderly man, of a sedate character, and had gone abroad with
+an uncle from Montrose when he was quite a youth. In his day he had seen
+many strange cities, and places of wonderful strength to withstand the
+force of sieges. But, though bred a soldier, and his home in the camp,
+he had been himself but seldom in the field of battle. In appearance he
+was tall and lofty, and very erect and formal; a man of few words, but
+they were well chosen; and he was patient and pains-taking; of a
+contented aspect, somewhat hard-favoured, and seldom given to smile. To
+little children he was, however, bland and courteous; taking a pleasure
+in setting those that were of my age in battle array, for he had no
+pastime, being altogether an instructive soldier; or, as William, my
+third brother, used to say, who was a free out-spoken lad, Captain
+Bannerman was a real dominie o' war.</p>
+
+<p>Besides him, in our country-side, there was another officer, by name
+Hepburn, who had also been bred with the great Gustavus, sent to train
+the Covenanters in Irvine; but he was of a more mettlesome humour, and
+lacked the needful douceness that became those who were banding
+themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not
+just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the
+case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the
+Golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at
+them as if he had been himself one of the King's cavaliers, and they no
+better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the
+Covenant. In sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature,
+and about seven months after he left the town twa misfortunate creatures
+gave him the wyte of their bairns.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, for all the regardlessness of his ways and moral conduct, he was
+much beloved by the men he had the training of; and, on the night before
+he left the town, lies were told of a most respectit and pious officer
+of the town's power, if he did not find the causey owre wide when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+was going home, after partaking of Captain Hepburn's pay-way supper. But
+how that may have been is little of my business at present to
+investigate; for I have only spoken of Hepburn, to notify what happened
+in consequence of a brag he had with Bannerman, anent the skill of their
+respective disciples, the which grew to such a controversy between them,
+that nothing less would satisfy Hepburn than to try the skill of the
+Irvine men against ours, and the two neighbouring parishes of Garnock
+and Stoneyholm. Accordingly a day was fixt for that purpose, and the
+Craiglands-croft was the place appointed for this probation of
+soldiership.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the appointed day the country folk assembled far and
+near, and Nahum Chapelrig, at the head of the lads of his clachan, was
+the first on the field. The sight to my young eyes was as the greatest
+show of pageantry that could be imagined; for Nahum had, from the time
+of the covenanting, been gathering arms and armour from all quarters,
+and had thereby not only obtained a glittering breastplate for himself,
+but three other coats of mail for the like number of his fellows; and
+when they were coming over the croft, with their fife and drum, and the
+banner of the Covenant waving aloft in the air, every one ran to behold
+such splendour and pomp of war; many of the women, that were witnesses
+among the multitude, wept at such an apparition of battles dazzling our
+peaceful fields.</p>
+
+<p>My father, with my five brothers, headed the Covenanters of our parish.
+There was no garnish among that band. They came along with austere looks
+and douce steps, and their belts were of tanned leather. The hilts of
+many of their swords were rusty, for they had been the weapons of their
+forefathers in the raids of the Reformation. As my father led them to
+their station on the right flank of Nahum Chapelrig's array, the crowd
+of onlookers fell back, and stood in silence as they passed by.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had they halted, when there was a rushing among the onlookers,
+and presently the townsmen, with Hepburn on horseback, were seen coming
+over the brow of the Gowan-brae. They were scant the strength of the
+country folk by more than a score; but there was a band of sailor boys
+with them that made the number greater; so that, when they were all
+drawn up together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> forenent the countrymen, they were more than man for
+man.</p>
+
+<p>It is not to be suppressed nor denied, that, in the first show of the
+day, Hepburn got far more credit and honour than old sedate Bannerman;
+for his lads were lighter in the heel, glegger in the eye, and brisker
+in the man&oelig;uvres of war: moreover, they were all far more similar in
+their garb and appearance, which gave them a seeming compactness that
+the countrymen had nothing like. But when the sham contest began, it was
+not long till Bannerman's disciples showed the proofs of their master's
+better skill to such a mark, that Hepburn grew hot, and so kindled his
+men by reproaches, that there was like to have been fighting in true
+earnest; for the blood of the country folk was also rising. Their eyes
+grew fierce, and they muttered through their teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Old Ebenezer Muir, who was among the multitude, observing that their
+blood was heating, stepped forward, and lifting up his hand, cried,
+"Sirs, stop;" and both sides instanter made a pause. "This maunna be,"
+said he. "It may be sport to those who are by trade soldiers to try the
+mettle o' their men, but ye're a covenanted people, obligated by a
+grievous tyranny to quit your spades and your looms only for a season;
+therefore be counselled, and rush not to battle till need be, which may
+the Lord yet prevent."</p>
+
+<p>Hepburn uttered an angry ban, and would have turned the old man away by
+the shoulder; but the combatants saw they were in the peril of a
+quarrel, and many of them cried aloud, "He's in the right, and we're
+playing the fool for the diversion o' our adversaries." So the townsmen
+and the country folk shook hands; but instead of renewing the contest,
+Captain Bannerman proposed that they should all go through their
+discipline together, it being manifest that there were little odds in
+their skill, and none in their courage. The which prudent admonition
+pacified all parties, and the remainder of the day was spent in
+cordiality and brotherly love. Towards the conclusion of the exercises,
+worthy Mr Swinton came on the field; and when the business of the day
+was over, he stepped forward, and the trained men being formed around
+him, the onlookers standing on the outside, he exhorted them in prayer,
+and implored a blessing on their covenanted union,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> which had the effect
+of restoring all their hearts to a religious frame and a solemnity
+befitting the spirituality of their cause.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+
+
+<p>One night, about a month after the ploy whereof I have spoken in the
+foregoing chapter, just as my father had finished the worship, and the
+family were composing themselves round the fireside for supper, we were
+startled by the sound of a galloping horse coming to the door; and
+before any one had time to open it, there was a dreadful knocking with
+the heft of the rider's whip. It was Nahum Chapelrig, who being that day
+at Kilmarnock, had heard, as he was leaving the town, the cry get up
+there that the Aggressor was coming from York with all the English
+power, and he had flown far and wide on his way home publishing the
+dismal tidings.</p>
+
+<p>My father, in a sober manner, bade him alight and partake of our supper,
+questioning him sedately anent what he had heard; but Nahum was raised,
+and could give no satisfaction in his answers; he, however, leapt from
+his horse, and drawing the bridle through the ring at the door-cheek,
+came ben to the fire where we had all so shortly before been
+harmoniously sitting. His eyes were wide and wild; his hair, with the
+heat he was in, was as if it had been pomated; his cheeks were white,
+his lips red, and he panted with haste and panic.</p>
+
+<p>"They're coming," he cried, "in thousands o' thousands; never sic a
+force has crossed the Border since the day o' Flodden Field. We'll a'
+either be put to the sword, man, woman, and child, or sent in slavery to
+the plantations."</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied my father, "things are no just come to that pass; we have
+our swords yet, and hearts and hands to use them."</p>
+
+<p>The consternation, however, of Nahum Chapelrig that night was far ayont
+all counsel; so, after trying to soothe and reason him into a more
+temperate frame, my father was obligated to tell him, that since the
+battle was coming so near our gates, it behoved the Covenanters to be
+in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> readiness for the field, advising Nahum to go home, and be over with
+him betimes in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus speaking, James Newbigging also came to the door
+with a rumour of the same substance, which his wife had brought from
+Eglinton Castle, where she had been with certain cocks and hens, a
+servitude of the Eglintons on their mailing; so that there was no longer
+any dubiety about the news, though matters were not in such a desperate
+condition as Nahum Chapelrig had terrified himself with the thought of.
+Nevertheless, the tidings were very dreadful; and it was a judgment-like
+thing to hear that an anointed king was so far left to himself as to be
+coming with wrath, and banners, and trampling war-horses, to destroy his
+subjects for the sincerity of their religious allegiance to that
+Almighty Monarch, who has but permitted the princes of the earth to be
+set up as idols by the hands of men.</p>
+
+<p>James Newbigging, as well as Nahum, having come ben to the fireside, my
+father called for the Books again, and gave out the eight first verses
+of the forty-fourth psalm, which we all sung with hearts in holy unison
+and zealous voices.</p>
+
+<p>When James Newbigging and Nahum Chapelrig were gone away home, my father
+sat for some time exhorting us, who were his youngest children, to be
+kind to one another, to cherish our mother, and no to let auld doited
+aunty want, if it was the Lord's will that he should never come back
+from the battle. The which to hear caused much sorrow and lamentation,
+especially from my mother, who, however, said nothing, but took hold of
+his hand and watered it with her tears. After this he walked out into
+the fields, where he remained some time alone; and during his absence,
+me and the three who were next to me, were sent to our beds; but, young
+as we then were, we were old enough to know the danger that hung over
+us, and we lay long awake, wondering and woful with fear.</p>
+
+<p>About two hours after midnight the house was again startled by another
+knocking, and on my father inquiring who was at the door, he was
+answered by my brother Jacob, who had come with Michael and Robin from
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, on hearing the news, and had thence brought
+William and Alexander with them to go with their father to the war. For
+they had returned to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> their respective trades after the day of the
+covenanting, and had only been out at Hepburn's raid, as the ploy with
+the Irvine men was called in jocularity, in order that the neighbours,
+who venerated their grandfather, might see them together as Covenanters.</p>
+
+<p>The arrival of her sons, and the purpose they had come upon, awakened
+afresh the grief of our mother; but my father entreated us all to be
+quiet, and to compose ourselves to rest, that we might be the abler on
+the morn to prepare for what might then ensue. Yet, though there was no
+sound in the house, save only our mother's moaning, few closed their
+eyes, and long before the sun every one was up and stirring, and my
+father and my five brothers were armed and belted for the march.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely were they ready, when different neighbours in the like trim
+came to go with them; presently also Nahum Chapelrig, with his banner,
+and fife, and drum, at the head of some ten or twelve lads of his
+clachan, came over; and on this occasion no obstacle was made to that
+bravery which was thought so uncomely on the day of the covenanting.</p>
+
+<p>While the armed men were thus gathering before our door, with the intent
+of setting forward to Glasgow, as the men of the West had been some time
+before trysted to do, by orders from General Lesley, on the first alarm,
+that godly man and minister of righteousness, the Reverend Mr Swinton,
+made his appearance with his staff in his hand, and a satchel on his
+back, in which he carried the Bible.</p>
+
+<p>"I am come, my friens," said he, "to go with you. Where the ensigns of
+Christ's Covenant are displayed, it is meet that the very lowest of his
+vassals should be there;" and having exhorted the weeping women around
+to be of good cheer, he prayed for them and for their little children,
+whom the Aggressor was, perhaps, soon to make fatherless. Nahum
+Chapelrig then exalted his banner, and the drum and fife beginning to
+play, the venerable man stepped forward, and heading the array with his
+staff in his hand, they departed amidst the shouts of the boys, and the
+loud sorrow of many a wife and mother.</p>
+
+<p>I followed them, with my companions, till they reached the high road,
+where, at the turn that led them to Glasgow, a great concourse of other
+women and children belonging to the neighbouring parishes were
+assembled, having there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> parted from their friends. They were all
+mourning and weeping, and mingling their lamentations with bitter
+predictions against the King and his evil counsellors; but seeing Mr
+Swinton, they became more composed, and he having made a sign to the
+drum and fife to cease, he stopped, and earnestly entreated them to
+return home and employ themselves in the concerns of their families,
+which, the heads being for a season removed, stood the more in need of
+all their kindness and care.</p>
+
+<p>This halt in the march of their friends brought the onlookers, who were
+assembled round our house, running to see what was the cause; and, among
+others, it gave time to the aged Ebenezer Muir to come up, whom Mr
+Swinton no sooner saw than he called on him by name, and bade him
+comfort the women, and invite them away from the high road, where their
+presence could only increase the natural grief that every covenanted
+Christian, in passing to join the army, could not but suffer, on seeing
+so many left defenceless by the unprovoked anger of the Aggressor. He
+then bade the drum again beat, and, the march being resumed, the band of
+our parish soon went out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>While our men continued in view Ebenezer Muir said nothing; but as soon
+as they had disappeared behind the brow of the Gowan-brae, he spoke to
+the multitude in a gentle and paternal manner, and bade them come with
+him into the neighbouring field, and join him in prayer; after which he
+hoped they would see the wisdom of returning to their homes. They
+accordingly followed him, and he having given out the twenty-third
+psalm, all present joined him, till the lonely fields and silent woods
+echoed to the melody of their pious song.</p>
+
+<p>As we were thus standing around the old man in worship and unison of
+spirit, the Irvine men came along the road; and seeing us, they hushed
+their drums as they passed by, and bowed down their banners in reverence
+and solemnity. Such was the outset of the worthies of the renewed
+Covenant, in their war with the first Charles.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>After my father and brothers, with our neighbours that went with them,
+had returned from the bloodless raid of Dunse Law, as the first
+expedition was called, a solemn thanksgiving was held in all the
+country-side; but the minds of men were none pacified by the treaty
+concluded with the King at Berwick. For it was manifest to the world,
+that coming in his ire, and with all the might of his power, to punish
+the Covenanters as rebels, he would never have consented to treat with
+them on anything like equal terms, had he not been daunted by their
+strength and numbers; so that the spirit awakened by his Ahab-like
+domination continued as alive and as distrustful of his word and
+pactions as ever.</p>
+
+<p>After the rumours of his plain juggling about the verbals of the
+stipulated conditions, and his arbitrary prorogation of the parliament
+at Edinburgh, a thing which the best and bravest of the Scottish
+monarchs had never before dared to do without the consent of the States
+then assembled, the thud and murmur of warlike preparation was renewed
+both on anvil and in hall. And when it was known that the King, fey and
+distempered with his own weak conceits and the instigations of cruel
+counsellors, had, as soon as he heard that the Covenanters were
+disbanded, renewed his purposes of punishment and oppression, a gurl of
+rage, like the first brush of the tempest on the waves, passed over the
+whole extent of Scotland, and those that had been in arms fiercely
+girded themselves again for battle.</p>
+
+<p>As the King's powers came again towards the borders, the Covenanters,
+for the second time, mustered under Lesley at Dunse; but far different
+was this new departure of our men from the solemnity of their first
+expedition. Their spirits were now harsh and angry, and their drums
+sounded hoarsely on the breeze. Godly Mr Swinton, as he headed them
+again, struck the ground with his staff, and, instead of praying, said,
+"It is the Lord's pleasure, and he will make the Aggressor fin' the
+weight of the arm of flesh. Honest folk are no ever to be thus obligated
+to leave their fields and families by the provocations of a prerogative
+that has so little regard for the people. In the name and strength of
+God, let us march."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>With six-and-twenty thousand horse and foot Lesley crossed the Tweed,
+and in the first onset the King's army was scattered like chaff before
+the wind. When the news of the victory arrived among us, every one was
+filled with awe and holy wonder; for it happened on the very day which
+was held as a universal fast throughout the land; on that day, likewise,
+even in the time of worship, the castle of Dumbarton was won, and the
+covenanted Earl of Haddington repelled a wasteful irruption from the
+garrison of Berwick.</p>
+
+<p>Such disasters smote the King with consternation; for the immediate
+fruit of the victory was the conquest of Newcastle, Tynemouth, Shields
+and Durham.</p>
+
+<p>Baffled and mortified, humbled but not penitent, the rash and vindictive
+monarch, in a whirlwind of mutiny and desertion, was obligated to
+retreat to York, where he was constrained, by the few sound and
+sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another
+negotiation with his insulted and indignant subjects. But as all the
+things which thence ensued are mingled with the acts of perfidy and
+aggression by which, under the disastrous influence of the fortunes of
+his doomed and guilty race, he drew down the vengeance of his English
+subjects, it would lead me far from this household memorial to enter
+more at large on circumstances so notour, though they have been
+strangely palliated by the supple spirit of latter times, especially by
+the sordid courtliness of the crafty Clarendon. I shall therefore skip
+the main passages of public affairs, and hasten forward to the time when
+I became myself enlisted on the side of our national liberties, briefly,
+however, noticing, as I proceed, that after the peace which was
+concluded at Ripon my father and my five brothers came home. None of
+them received any hurt in battle; but in the course of the winter the
+old man was visited with a great income of pains and aches, in so much
+that, for the remainder of his days, he was little able to endure
+fatigue or hardship of any kind; my second brother, Robin, was therefore
+called from his trade in Glasgow to look after the mailing, for I was
+still owre young to be of any effectual service; Alexander continued a
+bonnet-maker at Kilmarnock; but Michael, William and Jacob, joined and
+fought with the forces that won the mournful triumph of Marston Moor,
+where fifty thousand subjects of the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> King and laws contended with
+one another, and where the Lord, by showing himself on the side of the
+people, gave a dreadful admonition to the government to recant and
+conciliate while there was yet time.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the worthy Mr Swinton, having observed in me a curiosity
+towards books of history and piety, had taken great pains to instruct me
+in the rights and truths of religion, and to make it manifest alike to
+the ears and eyes of my understanding, that no human authority could, or
+ought to, dictate in matters of faith, because it could not discern the
+secrets of the breast, neither know what was acceptable to Heaven in
+conduct or in worship. He likewise expounded to me in what manner the
+Covenant was not a temporal but a spiritual league, trenching in no
+respect upon the natural and contributed authority of the kingly office.
+But, owing to the infirm state of my father's health, neither my brother
+Robin nor I could be spared from the farm, in any of the different raids
+that germinated out of the King's controversy with the English
+parliament; so that in the whigamore expedition, as it was profanely
+nicknamed, from our shire, with the covenanted Earls of Cassilis and
+Eglinton, we had no personality, though our hearts went with those that
+were therein.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, the hideous tidings came of the condemnation and
+execution of the King, there was a stop in the current of men's minds,
+and as the waters of Jordan, when the ark was carried in, rushed back to
+their fountain-head, every true Scot on that occasion felt in his heart
+the ancient affections of his nature returning with a compassionate
+horror. Yet even in this they were true to the Covenant; for it was not
+to be hidden that the English parliament, in doing what it did in that
+tragical event, was guided by a speculative spirit of political
+innovation and change, different and distinct, both in principle and
+object, from the cause which made our Scottish Covenanters have recourse
+to arms. In truth, the act of bringing kings to public condign
+punishment was no such new thing in the chronicles of Scotland, as that
+brave historian, George Buchanan, plainly shows, to have filled us with
+such amazement and affright, had the offences of King Charles been
+proven as clearly personal, as the crimes for which the ancient tyrants
+of his pedigree suffered the death;&mdash;but his offences were shared with
+his counsellors, whose duty it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> was to have bridled his arbitrary
+pretensions. He was in consequence mourned as a victim, and his son, the
+second Charles, at once proclaimed and acknowledged King of Scotland.
+How he deported himself in that capacity, and what gratitude he and his
+brother showed the land for its faith and loyalty in the wreck and
+desperation of their royal fortunes, with a firm and a fearless pen I
+now purpose to show. But as the tale of their persecutions is ravelled
+with the sorrows and the sufferings of my friends and neighbours, and
+the darker tissue of my own woes, it is needful, before proceeding
+therein, that I should entreat the indulgence of the courteous reader to
+allow a few short passages of my private life now to be here recorded.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>Some time before the news of King Charles' execution reached us in the
+West, the day had been set for my marriage with Sarah Lochrig; but the
+fear and consternation which the tidings bred in all minds, many
+dreading that the event would be followed by a total breaking up of the
+union and frame of society, made us consent to defer our happiness till
+we saw what was ordained to come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>When, however, it was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of an
+anointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon the
+tides of the time than the death of a sparrow,&mdash;and that men were called
+as usual to their daily tasks and toils,&mdash;and that all things moved
+onward in their accustomed courses,&mdash;and that laws and jurisdictions,
+and all the wonted pacts and processes of community between man and man,
+suffered neither molestation nor hindrance, godly Mr Swinton bestowed
+his blessing on our marriage, and our friends their joyous countenance
+at the wedding feast.</p>
+
+<p>My lot was then full of felicity, and I had no wish to wander beyond the
+green valley where we established our peaceful dwelling. It was in a
+lown holm of the Garnock, on the lands of Quharist, a portion of which
+my father gave me in tack; and Sarah's father likewise bestowed on us
+seven rigs, and a cow's grass of his own mailing, for her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> tocher, as
+the beginning of a plenishment to our young fortunes. Still, like all
+the neighbours, I was deeply concerned about what was going on in the
+far-off world of conflicts and negotiations; and this was not out of an
+idle thirst of curiosity, but from an interest mingled with sorrows and
+affections; for, after the campaign in England, my three brothers,
+Michael, William and Alexander, never domiciled themselves at any civil
+calling. Having caught the roving spirit of camps, they remained in the
+skirts of the array which the covenanted Lords at Edinburgh continued to
+maintain; and here, poor lads! I may digress a little, to record the
+brief memorials of their several unhappy fates.</p>
+
+<p>When King Charles the Second, after accepting and being sworn to abide
+by the Covenant, was brought home, and the crown of his ancient
+progenitors placed upon his head at Scoone, by the hands of the Marquis
+of Argyle, in the presence of the great and the godly Covenanters, my
+brothers went in the army that he took with him into England. Michael
+was slain at the battle of Worcester, by the side of Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, who carried that day the royal banner. Alexander was wounded
+in the same fight, and left upon the field, where he was found next
+morning by the charitable inhabitants of the city, and carried to the
+house of a loyal gentlewoman, one Mrs Deerhurst, that treated him with
+much tenderness; but after languishing in agony, as she herself wrote to
+my father, he departed this life on the third day.</p>
+
+<p>Of William I have sometimes wished that I had never heard more; for
+after the adversity of that day, it would seem he forgot the Covenant
+and his father's house. Ritchie Minigaff, an old servant of the Lord
+Eglinton's, when the Earl his master was Cromwell's prisoner in the
+Tower of London, saw him there among the guard, and some years after the
+Restoration he met him again among the King's yeomen at Westminster,
+about the time of the beginning of the persecution. But Willy then
+begged Ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor was
+ever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought of
+such backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us at
+home, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become of
+blithe light-hearted Willy. No doubt he died in the servitude of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> the
+faithless tyrant; but the storm that fell among us, soon after Ritchie
+had told me of his unfortunate condition, left us neither time nor
+opportunity to inquire about any distant friend. But to return to my own
+story.</p>
+
+<p>From my marriage till the persecution began, I took no part in the
+agitations of the times. It is true, after the discovery of Charles
+Stuart's perfidious policy, so like his father's, in corresponding with
+the Marquis of Montrose for the subjection of Scotland by the tyranny of
+the sword, at the very time he was covenanting with the commissioners
+sent from the Lords at Edinburgh with the offer of the throne of his
+ancestors, that with my father and my brother Robin, together with many
+of our neighbours, I did sign the Remonstrance against making a prince
+of such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. But in that we only
+delivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; for
+it was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation to
+arm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of the
+spirit in which it was conceived and understood. For when the prince had
+received the crown and accepted the Covenant, we submitted ourselves as
+good subjects. Fearing God, we were content to honour in all rights and
+prerogatives, not contrary to Scripture, him whom, by His grace in the
+mysteries of His wisdom, He had, for our manifold sins as a nation and a
+people, been pleased to ordain and set over us for king. And verily no
+better test of our sincerity could be, than the distrust with which our
+whole country-side was respected by Oliver Cromwell, when he thought it
+necessary to build that stronghold at Ayr, by which his Englishers were
+enabled to hold the men of Carrick, Kyle and Cunningham in awe,&mdash;a race
+that, from the days of Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce,
+have ever been found honest in principle, brave in affection, and
+dauntless and doure in battle. But it is not necessary to say more on
+this head; for full of griefs and grudges as were the hearts of all true
+Scots, with the thought of their country in southern thraldom, while
+Cromwell's Englishers held the upper hand amongst us, the season of
+their dominion was to me and my house as a lown and pleasant spring. All
+around me was bud, and blossom, and juvenility, and gladness, and hope.
+My lot was as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> the lot of the blessed man. I ate of the labour of my
+hands, I was happy, and it was well with me; my wife, as the fruitful
+vine that spreads its clusters on the wall, made my lowly dwelling more
+beautiful to the eye of the heart than the golden palaces of crowned
+kings, and our pretty bairns were like olive plants round about my
+table;&mdash;but they are all gone. The flood and the flame have passed over
+them;&mdash;yet be still, my heart; a little while endure in silence; for I
+have not taken up the avenging pen of history, and dipped it in the
+blood of martyrs, to record only my own particular woes and wrongs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+
+
+<p>It has been seen, by what I have told concerning the part my grandfather
+had in the great work of the Reformation, that the heads of the house of
+Argyle were among the foremost and the firmest friends of the
+resuscitated Evangil. The aged Earl of that time was in the very front
+of the controversy as one of the Lords of the Congregation; and though
+his son, the Lord of Lorn, hovered for a season, like other young men of
+his degree, in the purlieus and precincts of the Lady Regent's court,
+yet when her papistical counsels broke the paction with the protestants
+at Perth, I have rehearsed how he, being then possessed of the
+inheritance of his father's dignities, did, with the bravery becoming
+his blood and station, remonstrate with her Highness against such
+impolitic craft and perfidy, and, along with the Lord James Stuart,
+utterly eschew her presence and method of government.</p>
+
+<p>After the return of Queen Mary from France, and while she manifested a
+respect for the rights of her covenanted people, that worthy Earl was
+among her best friends; and even after the dismal doings that led to her
+captivity in Lochleven Castle, and thence to the battle of Langside, he
+still acted the part of a true nobleman to a sovereign so fickle and so
+faithless. Whether he rued on the field that he had done so, or was
+smitten with an infirmity that prevented him from fighting against his
+old friend and covenanted brother, the good Regent Murray, belongs not
+to this history to inquire; but certain it is, that in him the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+protestant principles of his honourable house suffered no dilapidation;
+and in the person of his grandson, the first marquis of the name, they
+were stoutly asserted and maintained.</p>
+
+<p>When the first Charles, and Laud, that ravenous Arminian Antichrist,
+attempted to subvert and abrogate the presbyterian gospel worship, not
+only did the Marquis stand forth in the van of the Covenanters to stay
+the religious oppression then meditated against his native land, but
+laboured with all becoming earnestness to avert the pestilence of civil
+war. In that doubtless Argyle offended the false counsellors about the
+King; but when the English parliament, with a lawless arrogance, struck
+off the head of the miscounselled and bigoted monarch, faithful to his
+covenants and the loyalty of his race, the Marquis was amongst the
+foremost of the Scottish nobles to proclaim the Prince of Wales king.
+With his own hands he placed on Charles the Second's head the ancient
+diadem of Scotland. Surely it might therefore have been then supposed
+that all previous offence against the royal family was forgotten and
+forgiven; yea, when it is considered that General Monk himself, the
+boldest in the cause of Cromwell's usurpation, was rewarded with a
+dukedom in England for doing no more for the King there than Argyle had
+done for him before in greater peril here, it could not have entered
+into the imagination of Christian men, that Argyle, for only submitting
+like a private subject to the same usurped authority when it had become
+supreme, would, after the Restoration, be brought to the block. But it
+was so; and though the machinations of political enemies converted that
+submission into treasons to excuse their own crime, yet there was not an
+honest man in all the realm that did not see in the doom of Argyle a
+dismal omen of the cloud and storm which so soon after burst upon our
+religious liberties.</p>
+
+<p>Passing, however, by all those afflictions which took the colour of
+political animosities, I hasten to speak of the proceedings which, from
+the hour of the Restoration, were hatched for the revival of the
+prelatic oppression. The tyranny of the Stuarts is indeed of so fell a
+nature that, having once tasted of blood in any cause, it will return
+again and again, however so often baffled, till it has either devoured
+its prey, or been itself mastered; and so it showed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> in this instance.
+For, regardless of those troubles which the attempt of the first Charles
+to exercise an authority in spiritual things beyond the rights of all
+earthly sovereignty caused to the realm and to himself, the second no
+sooner felt the sceptre in his grip than he returned to the same
+enormities; and he found a fit instrument in James Sharp, who, in
+contempt of the wrath of God, sold himself to Antichrist for the prelacy
+of St Andrews.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not among the ambitious and mercenary members of the clergy
+that the evidences of a backsliding generation were alone to be seen;
+many of the people, nobles and magistrates were infected with the sin of
+the same reprobation; and in verity, it might have been said of the
+realm that the restoration of King Charles the Second was hailed as an
+advent ordained to make men forget all vows, sobriety and solemnities.
+It is, however, something to be said in commendation of the constancy of
+mind and principle of our West Country folk that the immorality of that
+drunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to God and man among
+them, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemorate
+the anniversary of the King's restoration, it was nevertheless done with
+humiliation and anxiety of spirit. But a vain thing it would be of me to
+attempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner that
+the Covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourable
+to religious Scotland, were treated in the town of Lithgow on that
+occasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of old
+it was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone to
+lick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruption
+abiding there.</p>
+
+<p>Had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to such
+mockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of Lithgow,
+we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; but
+they were soon followed by more palpable enormities. Middleton, the
+King's commissioner, coming on a progress to Glasgow, held a council of
+state there, at which was present the apostate Fairfoul, who had been
+shortly before nominated Archbishop of that city; and at his wicked
+incitement, Middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strong
+drink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> that memorable act
+of council which bears the date of the 1st of October, 1662,&mdash;an
+anniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in Scotland, if
+such things might be, for by it all the ministers that had received
+Gospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who still
+refused to bend the knee to Baal, were banished, with their families,
+from their kirks and manses.</p>
+
+<p>But to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causing
+proclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, before
+proceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember the
+preaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-serving
+pastor, Mr Sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion;
+because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly Mr
+Swinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inducted
+according to the apostolic ordination of Presbytery, fell, of course,
+like many of his Gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaid
+proclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on the
+Friday after it was framed.</p>
+
+<p>At first the particulars were not known, for it was described as the
+muttering of unclean spirits against the purity of the Truth; but the
+tidings startled us like the growl of some unknown and dreadful thing,
+and I dreamt that night of my grandfather, with his white hair and the
+comely venerableness of his great age, appearing pale and sorrowful in a
+field before me, and pointing with a hand of streaming light to
+horsemen, and chariots, and armies with banners, warring together on the
+distant hills.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday was then the market-day at Irvine; and though I had but little
+business there, I yet went in with my brother Robin, chiefly to hear the
+talk of the town. In this I but partook of the common sympathy of the
+whole country-side; for, on entering the town-end port, we found the
+concourse of people there assembled little short of the crowd at Marymas
+Fair, and all eager to learn what the council held at Glasgow had done;
+but no one could tell. Only it was known that the Earl of Eglinton, who
+had been present at the council, was returned home to the castle, and
+that he had sent for the provost that morning on very urgent business.</p>
+
+<p>While we were thus all speaking and marvelling one with another, a cry
+got up that a band of soldiers was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> coming into the town from Ayr, the
+report of which, for the space of several minutes, struck every one with
+awe and apprehension. And scarcely had the sough of this passed over us,
+when it was told that the provost had privately returned from Eglinton
+Castle by the Gallows-knowes to the backsides, and that he had sent for
+the minister and the bailies, with others of the council, to meet him in
+the clerk's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>No one wist what the meaning of such movements and mysteries could be;
+but all boded danger to the fold and flock, none doubting that the
+wolves of episcopalian covetousness were hungering and thirsting for the
+blood of the covenanted lambs. Nor were we long left to our guesses;
+for, soon after the magistrates and the minister had met, a copy of the
+proclamation of the council held at Glasgow was put upon the Tolbooth
+door, by which it was manifested to every eye that the fences of the
+vineyard were indeed broken down, and that the boar was let in and
+wrathfully trampling down and laying waste.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>The proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of the
+Covenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly in
+prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing <a name='TC_14'></a><ins title="Was is">in</ins>
+his discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore and
+solemn business. On the Friday night, however, before the last Lord's
+day of that black October, he sent for my brother, who was one of his
+elders, and told him that he had received a mandatory for conformity to
+the proclamation, and to acknowledge the prelatic reprobation that the
+King's government had introduced into the church; but that it was his
+intention, strengthened of the Lord, to adhere to his vows and
+covenants, even to the uttermost, and not to quit his flock, happen what
+would.</p>
+
+<p>"The beild of the kirk and the manse," said he, "being temporalities,
+are aneath the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in the
+things that pertain to the allegiance I owe to the King of Kings, I will
+act, with His heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This determination being known throughout the parish, and the first of
+November being the last day allowed for conforming, on the Sabbath
+preceding we had a throng kirk and a solemneezed congregation. According
+to their wonted custom, the men, before the hour of worship, assembled
+in the kirk-yard, and there was much murmuring and marvelling among us,
+that nobody in all the land would stand forth to renew the Covenant, as
+was done in the year thirty-eight; and we looked around and beheld the
+green graves of many friends that had died since the great day of the
+covenanting, and we were ashamed of ourselves and of our time, and
+mourned for the loss of the brave spirits which, in the darkness of His
+mysterious wisdom, the Lord had taken away.</p>
+
+<p>The weather, for the season, was bright and dry; and the withered leaf
+still hung here and there on the tree, so that old and young, the infirm
+and the tender, could come abroad; and many that had been bed-rid were
+supported along by their relations to hear the word of Truth, for the
+last time, preached in the house of God.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Swinton came, followed by his wife and family. He was, by this time,
+a man well stricken in years, but Mrs Swinton was of a younger
+generation; and they had seven children,&mdash;Martha, the eldest, a fine
+lassie, was not passing fourteen years of age. As they came slowly up
+the kirk-stile, we all remarked that the godly man never lifted his eyes
+from the ground, but came along perusing, as it were, the very earth for
+consolation.</p>
+
+<p>The private door which, at that epoch, led to the minister's seat and
+the pulpit, was near to where the bell-rope hung on the outer wall, and
+as the family went towards it, one of the elders stepped from the plate
+at the main door to open it. But after Mrs Swinton and the children were
+gone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, instead
+of then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, and
+laying his hand on the shoulder of old Willy Shackle, who was ringing
+the bell, he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, my auld frien,&mdash;they that in this parish need a bell this day to
+call them to the service of their Maker winna come on the summons o'
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>He then walked in; and the old man, greatly affected, mounted the stool,
+and tied up the rope to the ring in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> wall in his usual manner, that
+it might be out of the reach of the school weans. "But," said he, as he
+came down, "I needna fash; for after this day little care I wha rings
+the bell; since it's to be consecrat to the wantonings o' prelacy, I wis
+the tongue were out o' its mouth and its head cracket, rather than that
+I should live to see't in the service of Baal and the hoor o' Babylon."</p>
+
+<p>After all the congregation had taken their seats, Mr Swinton rose and
+moved towards the front of the pulpit, and the silence in the church was
+as the silence at the martyrdom of some holy martyr. He then opened <span class="smcap">the
+Book</span>, and having given out the ninety-fourth psalm, we sang it with
+weeping souls; and during the prayer that followed there was much
+sobbing and lamentations, and an universal sorrow. His discourse was
+from the fifth chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, verse first, and
+first clause of the verse; and with the tongue of a prophet, and the
+voice of an apostle, he foretold, as things already written in the
+chronicles of the kingdom, many of those sufferings which afterwards
+came to pass. It was a sermon that settled into the bottom of the hearts
+of all that heard it, and prepared us for the woes of the vial that was
+then pouring out.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of the discourse, when the precentor rose to read the
+remembering prayer, old Ebenezer Muir, then upwards of fourscore and
+thirteen, who had been brought into the church on a barrow by two of his
+grandsons, and was, for reason of his deafness, in the bench with the
+elders, gave him a paper, which, after rehearsing the names of those in
+distress and sickness, he read, and it was "The persecuted kirk of
+<span class="smcap">Scotland</span>."</p>
+
+<p>"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning,"
+cried Mr Swinton at the words, with an inspiration that made every heart
+dirl; and surely never was such a prayer heard as that with which he
+followed up the divine words.</p>
+
+<p>Then we sang the hundred and fortieth psalm, at the conclusion of which
+the minister came again to the front of the pulpit, and with a calm
+voice, attuned to by ordinare solemnity, he pronounced the blessing;
+then, suddenly turning himself, he looked down to his family and said,
+"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
+of man hath not where to lay his head." And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> he covered his face with
+his hands, and sat down and wept.</p>
+
+<p>Never shall I forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not a
+cry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow,
+nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadful
+rustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, in
+passing by, had shaken all his wings.</p>
+
+<p>The kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family came
+out into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by some
+sacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to the
+manse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever the
+Lord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart for
+His servant. I was the spokesman on that occasion, and verily do I think
+that, as I said the words, a glorious light shone around me, and that I
+felt a fanning of the inward life, as if the young cherubims were
+present among us, and fluttering their wings with an exceeding great joy
+at the piety of our kind intents.</p>
+
+<p>So passed that memorable Sabbath in our parish; and here I may relate,
+that we had the satisfaction and comfort to know, in a little time
+thereafter, that the same Christian faithfulness with which Mr Swinton
+adhered to his gospel-trusts and character, was maintained on that day
+by more than three hundred other ministers, to the perpetual renown of
+our national worth and covenanted cause. And therefore, though it was an
+era of much sorrow and of many tears, it was thus, through the
+mysterious ways of Providence, converted into a ground of confidence in
+our religion, in so much that it may be truly said, out of the ruins and
+the overthrow of the first presbyterian church the Lord built up among
+us a stronghold and sanctuary for his truth and law.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Nothing particular happened till the second week of November, when a
+citation came from Irvine, commanding the attendance of Mr Swinton, on a
+suffragan of Fairfoul's, under the penalties of the proclamation. In the
+meantime<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> we had been preparing for the event; and my father having been
+some time no more, and my brother with his family in a house of their
+own, it was settled between him and me, that I should take our mother
+into mine, in order that the beild of Quharist might be given up to the
+minister and his houseless little ones; which all our neighbours much
+commended; and there was no slackness on their part in making a
+provision to supply the want of his impounded stipend.</p>
+
+<p>As all had foreseen, Mr Swinton, for not appearing to the citation, was
+pronounced a non-conformist; and the same night, after dusk, a party of
+the soldiers, that were marched from Ayr into Irvine on the day of the
+proclamation, came to drive him out of the manse.</p>
+
+<p>There was surely in this a needless and exasperating severity, for the
+light of day might have served as well; but the men were not to blame,
+and the officer who came with them, having himself been tried in the
+battles of the Covenant, and being of a humane spirit, was as meek and
+compassionate in his tyrannical duty as could reasonably be hoped for.
+He allowed Mrs Swinton to take away her clothes, and the babies, that
+were asleep in their beds, time to be awakened and dressed, nor did he
+object to their old ploughman, Robin Harrow, taking sundry articles of
+provision for their next morning's repast; so that, compared with the
+lewd riots and rampageous insolence of the troopers in other places, we
+had great reason to be thankful for the tenderness with which our
+minister and his small family of seven children were treated on that
+memorable night.</p>
+
+<p>It was about eight o'clock when Martha, the eldest daughter, came flying
+to me like a demented creature, crying the persecutors were come, with
+naked swords and dreadful faces; and she wept and wrung her hands,
+thinking they were then murdering her parents and brothers and sisters.
+I did, however, all that was in my power to pacify her, saying our lots
+were not yet laid in blood, and, leaving her to the consolatory
+counsellings of my wife, I put on my bonnet and hastened over to the
+manse.</p>
+
+<p>The night was troubled and gusty. The moon was in her first quarter, and
+wading dim and low through the clouds on the Arran hills. Afar off, the
+bars of Ayr, in their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> roaring, boded a storm, and the stars were
+rushing through a swift and showery south-west carry. The wind, as it
+hissed over the stubble, sounded like the whisperings of desolation; and
+I was thrice startled in my walk by passing shapes and shadows, whereof
+I could not discern the form.</p>
+
+<p>At a short distance from the manse door I met the godly sufferer and his
+destitute family, with his second youngest child in his arms. Mrs
+Swinton had their baby at her bosom, and the other four poor, terrified,
+helpless creatures were hirpling at their sides, holding them by the
+skirts, and often looking round in terror, dreading the persecutors, by
+whom they were in that dismal and inclement night so cast upon the mercy
+of the elements. But He that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb was
+their protector.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Ringan Gilhaize," said the minister, "how it fares with them
+in this world whose principles are at variance with the pretensions of
+man. But we are mercifully dealt by&mdash;a rougher manner and a harder
+heart, in the agent of persecution that has driven us from house and
+home, I had laid my account for; therefore, even in this dispensation, I
+can see the gentle hand of a gracious Master, and I bow the head of
+thankfulness."</p>
+
+<p>While we were thus speaking and walking towards Quharist, several of the
+neighbours, who had likewise heard the alarm of what had thus come to
+pass, joined us on the way; and I felt within myself that it was a proud
+thing to be able to give refuge and asylum to an aged gospel minister
+and his family in such a time and on such a night.</p>
+
+<p>We had not been long in the house when a great concourse of his friends
+and people gathered around, and among others Nahum Chapelrig, who had
+been some time his father's successor in the school. But all present
+were molested and angry with him, for he came in battle array, with the
+sword and gun that he had carried in the raids of the civil war, and was
+bragging of valorous things then needful to be done.</p>
+
+<p>"Nahum Chapelrig," said the Worthy to him with severity, "this is no
+conduct for the occasion. It would hae been a black day for Scotland had
+her children covenanted themselves for temporal things. No, Nahum; if
+the prelatic reprobation now attempted on the kirk gang<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> nae farther
+than outing her ministers from their kirks and manses, it maun be
+tholet; so look to it, that ye give not the adversary cause to reproach
+us with longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt when we are free to taste of
+the heavenly manna. I redde ye, therefore, Nahum Chapelrig, before these
+witnesses, to unbuckle that belt of war, and lay down thae weapons of
+offence. The time of the shield and banner may come owre soon upon us.
+Let us not provoke the smiter, lest he draw his sword against us, and
+have law and reason on his side. Therefore, I say unto thee, Peter, put
+up thy sword."</p>
+
+<p>The zealous dominie, being thus timeously rebuked, unharnessed himself,
+and the minister having returned thanks for the softness with which the
+oppression was let down upon him, and for the pious affection of his
+people, we returned home to our respective dwellings.</p>
+
+<p>But though by this Christian submission the power of cruelty was at that
+time rendered innocent towards all those who did as Mr Swinton had done,
+we were, nevertheless, not allowed to remain long unvisited by another
+swirl of the rising storm. Before the year was out, Fairfoul, the
+Glasgow Antichrist, sent upon us one of the getts that prelacy was then
+so fast adopting for her sons and heirs. A lang, thin, bare lad he was,
+that had gotten some spoonful or two of pagan philosophy at college, but
+never a solid meal of learning, nor, were we to judge by his greedy
+gaping, even a satisfactory meal of victuals. His name was Andrew
+Dornock; and, poor fellow, being eschewed among us on account of his
+spiritual leprosy, he drew up with divers loose characters, that were
+nae overly nice of their company.</p>
+
+<p>This made us dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of
+his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his
+parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught I ken to the
+contrary, that, instead of believing the Gospel according to Charles
+Stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called Matthew, Mark,
+Luke and John, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew more
+than the names. But be that as it may, to a surety he did grievously
+yell and cry, because we preferred listening to the Gospel melody of Mr
+Swinton under a tree to his feckless havers in the kirk; as if it was
+nae a more glorious thing to worship God in the free<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>dom and presence of
+universal Nature, beneath the canopy of all the heavens, than to bow the
+head in the fetters of episcopal bondage below the stoury rafters of an
+auld bigging, such as our kirk was, a perfect howf of cloks and spiders.
+Indeed, for that matter, it was said that the only sensible thing Andrew
+Dornock ever uttered from the pulpit was, when he first rose to speak
+therein, and which was caused by a spider, that just at the moment
+lowered itself down into his mouth: "O Lord," cried the curate, "we're
+puzhened wi' speeders!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>It might have been thought, considering the poor hand which the prelatic
+curates made of it in their endeavours to preach, that they would have
+set themselves down content with the stipend, and allowed the flocks to
+follow their own shepherds in peace; but their hearts were filled with
+the bitterness of envy at the sight of the multitudes that went forth to
+gather the manna in the fields, and their malice was exasperated to a
+wonderful pitch of wickedness by the derision and contempt with which
+they found themselves regarded. No one among them all, however, felt
+this envy and malice more stirring within him, than did the
+arch-apostate James Sharp; for the faithfulness of so many ministers was
+a terror and a reproach to his conscience and apostacy, and made him
+labour with an exceeding zeal and animosity to extirpate so many
+evidences of his own religious guilt. Accordingly, by his malignant
+counsellings, edicts and decrees came out against our tabernacle in the
+wilderness, and under the opprobrious name of conventicles, our holy
+meetings were made prohibited offences, and our ministers subjected to
+pains and penalties, as sowers of sedition.</p>
+
+<p>It is a marvellous thing to think of the madness with which the minds of
+those in authority at that time were kindled; first, to create causes of
+wrong to the consciences of the people, and afterwards to enact laws for
+the natural fruit of that frantic policy. The wanton imposition of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
+prelatic oppression begat our field preachings, and the attempts to
+disperse us by the sword brought on resistance. But it belongs not to me
+and my story to treat of the folly of a race and government, upon whom a
+curse was so manifestly pronounced; I shall therefore return from this
+generality to those particulars wherein I was myself a witness or a
+sufferer.</p>
+
+<p>During the greater part of the year after the banishment of Mr Swinton
+from the manse and kirk, we met with little molestation; but from time
+to time rumours came over us like the first breathings of the cold
+blasts in autumn, that forerun the storms of winter. All thoughts of
+innocent pastimes and pleasures passed away, like the yellow leaves that
+fall from the melancholy trees; and there was a heaviness in the tread,
+and a solemnity in the looks of every one, that showed how widely the
+shadows of coming woes were darkening the minds of men.</p>
+
+<p>But though the Court of Commission, which the apostate James Sharp
+procured to be established for the cognisance of those who refused to
+acknowledge the prelatic usurpation, was, in its proceedings, guided by
+as little truth or principle as the Spanish inquisition, the violence
+and tyranny of its awards fell less on those of my degree than on the
+gentry; and it was not till the drunkard Turner was appointed general of
+the West Country that our personal sufferings began.</p>
+
+<p>The curates furnished him with lists of recusants; and power having been
+given unto him to torment men for many days, he was as remorseless as
+James Sharp's own Court in the fines which he levied, and in eating the
+people up, by sending his men to live upon them at free quarters, till
+the fines were paid.</p>
+
+<p>In our neighbourhood we were for some time gently dealt with; for the
+colonel who, at Ayr, had the command under Turner, was of a humane
+spirit, and for a season, though the rumour of the oppressions in
+Dumfries-shire and Galloway, where the drunkard himself reigned and
+ruled, dismayed and troubled us beyond utterance, we were still
+permitted to taste of the Gospel pastures with our own faithful
+shepherd.</p>
+
+<p>But this was a blessing too great in those days to be of a continuance
+to any flock. The mild and considerate gentleman, who had softened the
+rigour of the prelatic rage, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> removed from his command, and in his
+place came certain cruel officers, who, like the serpents that were sent
+among the children of Israel in the desert, defiled our dwellings, and
+afflicted many of us even unto death. The change was the more bitterly
+felt, because it was sudden, and came upon us in an unexpected manner,
+of which I will here set down some of the circumstantials.</p>
+
+<p>According to the usage among us, from the time when Mr Swinton was
+thrust from the ministry, the parish had assembled, on the third Lord's
+Day of May, in the year 1665, under the big sycamore-tree at Zachariah
+Smylie's gable, and which has ever since been reverenced by the name of
+the Poopit Tree. A cart served him for the place of lecture and
+exhortation; and Zachariah Smylie's daughter, Rebecca Armour, a godly
+widow, who resided with him, had, as her custom was in fine weather,
+ordered and arranged all the stools and chairs in the house, with the
+milk and washing-boynes upside down, around the cart as seats for the
+aged. When the day was wet or bleak, the worship was held in the barn;
+but on this occasion the morning was lown and the lift clear, and the
+natural quietude of the Sabbath reigned over all the fields. We had sung
+a portion of the psalm, and the harmonious sound of voices and spirits
+in unison was spreading into the tranquil air, as the pleasant fragrancy
+of flowers diffuses itself around, and the tune, to which we sung the
+divine inspiration, was the sweet and solemn melody of the Martyrs.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely, however, had we proceeded through the second verse, when Mr
+Swinton, who was sitting on a stool in the cart, with his back to the
+house, started up and said, "Christians, dinna be disheartened, but I
+think I see yonder the glimmerin' of spears coming atween the hedges."</p>
+
+<p>At these words we all rose alarmed, and, on looking round, saw some
+eight or ten soldiers, in the path leading from the high road, coming
+towards us. The children and several of the women moved to run away, but
+Mr Swinton rebuked their timerarious fear, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O! ye of little faith, wherefore are ye thus dismayed? Let us put our
+trust in Him, who is mightier than all the armies of all the kings of
+all the earth. We are here doing homage to Him, and He will protect His
+true vassals and faithful people. In His name, therefore, Christians, I
+charge you to continue His praises in the psalm; for in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> His strength I
+will, to the end of my intent, this day fulfil the word and the
+admonition; yea, even in the very flouting of the adversary's banner."</p>
+
+<p>The vehemence of Elijah was in his voice; we resumed our former
+postures; and he himself leading on the psalm, we began to sing anew in
+a louder strain, for we were fortified and encouraged by his holy
+intrepidity. No one moved as it were an eyelid; the very children were
+steadfast; and all looked towards the man of God as he sat in his humble
+seat, serene, and more awful than ever was Solomon on the royal throne
+of the golden lions, arrayed in all his glory.</p>
+
+<p>The rough soldiers were struck for a time with amazement at the
+religious bravery with which the worshipping was continued, and they
+halted as they drew near, and whispered together, and some of them spoke
+as if the fear of the Lord had fallen upon them. During the whole time
+that we continued singing, they stood as if they durst not venture to
+disturb us; but when the psalm was finished, their sergeant, a lewd
+roister, swore at them, and called on them to do their duty.</p>
+
+<p>The men then advanced, but with one accord we threw ourselves in between
+them and the cart, and cried to Mr Swinton to make his escape; he,
+however, rose calmly from his seat and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Soldiers, shed no blood; let us finish our prayer,&mdash;the worst of men
+after condemnation are suffered to pray,&mdash;ye will, therefore, not surely
+refuse harmless Christians the boon that is aloo't to malefactors? At
+the conclusion I will go peaceably with you, for we are not rebels; we
+yield all bodily obedience to the powers that be, but the upright mind
+will not bend to any earthly ordinance. Our bodies are subject to the
+King's authority, and to you as his servants, if ye demand them, we are
+ready to deliver them up."</p>
+
+<p>But the sergeant told him harshly to make haste and come down from the
+cart. Two of the men then went into the house, and brought out the churn
+and bread and cheese, and with much ribaldry began to eat and drink, and
+to speak profane jests to the young women. But my brother interposed,
+and advised all the women and children to return to their homes. In the
+meantime, Zachariah Smylie had gone to the stable and saddled his horse,
+and Rebecca<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> Armour had made a small providing of provisions for Mr
+Swinton to take with him to the Tolbooth of Irvine; for thither the
+soldiers were intending to carry him that night, in order that he might
+be sent to Glasgow next day with other sufferers. When, however, the
+horse was brought out, and the godly man was preparing to mount the
+sergeant took him by the sleeve, and pulled him back, saying, "The horse
+is for me."</p>
+
+<p>Verily at this insult I thought my heart would have leapt out; and every
+one present gurled and growled; but the soldiers laughed at seeing the
+sergeant on horseback. Mr Swinton, however, calmly advised us to make no
+obstacle: "Good," said he, "will come of this, and though for a season
+we are ordained to tribulation, and to toil through the slough of
+despond, yet a firm footing and a fair and green path lies in a peaceful
+land beyond."</p>
+
+<p>The soldiers then took him away, the blasphemous sergeant riding, like a
+Merry Andrew, on Zachariah Smylie's horse before them, and almost the
+whole congregation following with mournful and heavy hearts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton in
+following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a
+tumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, on
+the second day after he was sent from Irvine to Glasgow, a gang of
+Turner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. None
+suffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house and
+mine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we had
+committed the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring our
+minister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their home
+in a wild and wintry night.</p>
+
+<p>We were both together, with old Zachariah Smylie, fined each in a heavy
+sum.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and our
+neighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, our
+friends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us the
+means, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> we had not a sufficiency of our own. But this, instead of
+mitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over us
+to persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in that
+neighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that he
+not only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with which
+it was paid to double his severity. Sixteen domineering camp reprobates
+were quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine.</p>
+
+<p>What an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth I
+need not attempt to describe. For some days they rampaged as if we had
+been barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for their
+ravenous wastrie;&mdash;but I was resolved to keep a uniform and steady
+abstinence from all cause of offence. So seeing they were passing from
+insolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her two
+servant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn.</p>
+
+<p>This silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; and
+in the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless and
+peaceful demeanour that I could discern more than one of them beginning
+to be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment.
+But their officer, Lieutenant Swaby, an Englisher by birth, and a sinner
+by education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. He happened to
+cast his eye on Martha Swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then but
+in her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that she
+was in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertain
+fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,
+however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her
+fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only
+made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust
+herself unguarded out of the house,&mdash;and the ire of every man and woman
+was rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace and
+human charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made
+him fain to be removed from among us.</p>
+
+<p>For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of
+their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was
+discerned that they were as much under the common fears and
+superstitions as the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> credulous of our simple country folk, in so
+much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and
+warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,
+they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,
+however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless
+partook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it was
+thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.</p>
+
+<p>But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not
+daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old
+Mysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he
+entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and
+from less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend a
+cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the
+bonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.</p>
+
+<p>Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the
+proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's
+daughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and
+said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst
+with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of
+furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of
+her <a name='TC_15'></a><ins title="Was acquaintaces">acquaintances</ins>, in what manner she could take revenge upon the
+profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,
+merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.</p>
+
+<p>Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,
+when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led in
+the times of the civil war to the raid of Dunse-hill. He was sib to
+herself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though not
+without a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree;
+besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home a
+heart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasons
+and occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called Swaby by any
+other name than the cavalier.</p>
+
+<p>Between Mysie and Robin, with some of his companions, a paction was made
+that she should keep her tryst with Swaby, and settle on a time and
+place for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find Martha
+Swinton; Robin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> covenanting that between him and his friends the
+cavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. Accordingly, at
+the time appointed, when she met Swaby on the road where they had
+foregathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house on
+Hallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no to
+bring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief.</p>
+
+<p>After parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin the
+other, Robin Finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with a
+seeming respectfulness, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; I hope ye hae gi'en her nae
+offence?"</p>
+
+<p>The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed the
+gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirpling
+homeward&mdash;"The devil! is she one of that sort?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robin
+with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her
+liking."</p>
+
+<p>Swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was then
+nearly out of sight. Robin at the same time moved onward.</p>
+
+<p>"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with you
+about the old&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I would
+na for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o'
+her cantrips."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low and
+apprehensive voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin very
+seriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world
+were I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a pious
+wife, sir,&mdash;deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to be
+hang'd if she was a witch,&mdash;an' it could be proven upon her."</p>
+
+<p>But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the
+contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil take
+her, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."</p>
+
+<p>"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal.
+Surely she did na sae beglamour your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> senses as to appear like a winsome
+young lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever,
+that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;&mdash;and what I hae heard tell
+of was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain,
+that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye were
+sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that
+ye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your
+judgment,&mdash;the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye
+could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her
+to the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae
+farther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye
+respek yoursel."</p>
+
+<p>In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the
+clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore
+state o' dread and wonderment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L</h2>
+
+
+<p>It seems that shortly after Robin Finnie had departed from the gallant
+cavalier, a lad, called Sandy Macgill, who was colleagued with him in
+the plot, came towards the captain with looks cast to the earth, and so
+full of thought, that he seemingly noticed nothing. Going forward in
+this locked-up state of the outward sense, he came close upon Swaby,
+when, affecting to be startled out of his meditations, he stopped
+suddenly short, and looked in the lieutenant's broad face, with all the
+alarm he could put into his own features, till he saw he was frightened
+out of his judgment, when he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Gude be about us, sir, ye hae gotten scaith; the blighting blink o' an
+ill e'e has lighted upon you.&mdash;O, sir; O, sir! tak tent o' yoursel!"</p>
+
+<p>Sandy had prepared a deal more to say, but finding himself overcome with
+an inward inclination to risibility at the sight of Swaby's
+terrification, he was obligated to flee as fast as he could from the
+spot; the which wild-like action of his no doubt dismayed the cavalier
+fully as meikle as all he had said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But it's the nature of man to desire to do whatever he is forbidden.
+Notwithstanding all their mystical admonitions, Swaby still persevered
+in his evil intents, and accordingly he was seen lurking, without his
+sword, about the heel of the evening, on Hallowe'en, near the skirts of
+the clachan where Mysie Gilmour lived. And, as it had been conspired
+among her friends, Mungo Affleck, her gude-brother, a man weel stricken
+in years, but of a youthy mind, and a perfect pen-gun at a crack, came
+across the cavalier in his path, and Swaby having before some slight
+acquaintance with his garb and canny observes, hovered for a little in
+discourse with Mungo.</p>
+
+<p>"I counsel you, sir," said the pawkie auld carl as they were separating,
+"no to gang far afield this night, for this is a night that there is na
+the like o' in a' the year round. It's Hallowe'en, sir, so be counselled
+by me, and seek your hame betimes; for mony a ane has met with things on
+Hallowe'en that they never after forgot."</p>
+
+<p>Considering the exploit on which the cavalier was then bowne, it's no to
+be thought that this was very heartening music; but for all that, he
+said blithely, as Mungo told me himself, "Nae, not so fast, governor,
+tell us what you mean by Hallowe'en!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hallowe'en!" cried Mungo Affleck, with a sound o' serious sincerity.
+"Do ye no ken Hallowe'en? but I need na say that. Ye'll excuse me,
+captain, what can you Englishers, that are brought up in the darkness o'
+human ordinances in Gospel things, and who live in the thraldom of
+episcopalian ignorance, ken o' Hallowe'en, or o' any other solemn day
+set apart for an occasion?&mdash;O, sir, Hallowe'en among us is a dreadful
+night! Witches and warlocks, and a' lang-nebbit things, hae a power and
+a dominion unspeakable on Hallowe'en. The de'il at other times gi'es,
+it's said, his agents a mutchkin o' mischief, but on this night it's
+thought they hae a chappin; and one thing most demonstrable is;&mdash;but,
+sir, the sun's down&mdash;the blessed light o' day is ayont the hill, and
+it's no safe to be subjek to the whisking o' the mildew frae the tails
+o' the benweed ponies that are saddled for yon awfu' carnavaulings,
+where Cluty plays on the pipes! so I wis you, sir, gude night and weel
+hame.&mdash;O, sir, an ye could be persuaded!&mdash;Tak an auld man's advice, and
+rather read a chapter of <span class="smcap">the Book</span>, an it should even be the unedyfying
+tenth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> Nehemiah, than be seen at the gloaming in this gait, about the
+dyke-sides, like a wolf yearning for some tender lamb of a defenceless
+fold."</p>
+
+<p>Mungo having thus delivered himself, went away, leaving Swaby as it were
+in a swither; for, on looking back, the old man saw him standing half
+turned round as if he was minded to go home. The power of the sin was,
+however, strong upon him, and shortly after the dusk had closed in, when
+the angels had lighted their candles at their windows in the sky, to
+watch over the world in the hours of sleep, Swaby, with stealthy steps,
+came to Mysie Gilmour's door, and softly tirling at the pin was
+admitted; for all within was ready for his reception.</p>
+
+<p>Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill having carried thither Zachariah Smylie's
+black ram, a condumacious and outstropolous beast, which they had laid
+in Mysie's bed, and keepit frae baaing with a gude fothering of
+kail-blades and a cloute soaken in milk.</p>
+
+<p>Mysie, on opening the door, said to the gallant cavalier,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Just step in, ye'll fin' a' ready," and she blew out her crusie which
+she had in her hand, and letting the captain grope in by himself,
+hirpled as fast as she could to one of the neighbours; for, although she
+had covenanted with him to come without his sword, she was terrified
+with the fear of some dreadful upshot.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was in, Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill went and hearkened
+at the window, where they heard the gay gallant stumbling in the floor,
+churming sweet and amorous words as he went groping his way towards the
+bed where the auld toop was breathing thickly, mumbling and crunching
+the kail-blades in a state of as great sensual delight and satisfaction
+as any beast could well be. But no sooner had the cavalier placed his
+hand on the horned head of the creature than he uttered a yell of
+despair; in the same moment the toop, in little less fright, jumpit out
+of the bed against him and knocked him down over a stool with a lounder.
+Verily Providence might be said, with reverence, to have had a hand in
+the mirth of his punishment; for the ram recovering its senses before
+the cavalier, and being in dread of danger, returned to the charge, and
+began to butt him as if it would have been his death. The cries that
+ensued are not to be told; all the neigh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>bours came running to the door,
+to see what was the matter, some with lighted sticks in their hands, and
+some with burning coals in the tongs. Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill
+were like to die of laughing; but fearing the wrathful ram might dunt
+out the bowels or the brains, if he had any, of the poor young cavalier,
+they opened the door, and so delivered him from its horns. He was,
+however, by this time, almost in a state of distraction, believing the
+beast was the real Evil One; so that he no sooner felt himself free and
+saw the lights, than he flew to his quarters as if he had been pursued
+by a legion.</p>
+
+<p>Some of his own soldiers that were lying in the clachan, and who had
+come out with the rest of the folk, saw through the stratagem, and,
+forgetting all reverence for their afflicted commander, laughed louder
+and longer than any body. In short, the story was o'er the whole parish
+next day, and the very weans, wherever the cavalier appeared, used to
+cry ba at him, by which his very life was made a shame and a burden to
+him, insomuch that he applied for leave to give up his commission, and
+returned home to his kindred in the south of England, and we never heard
+tell of him after.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI</h2>
+
+
+<p>But although in the exploit of Mysie Gilmour, and Robin Finnie with his
+confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of
+lessening the dread and fear in which our simple country folk held his
+Majesty's ungracious fine-levers, the cavalier captains and soldiers,
+still there was a gradual ingrowth of the weight of the oppression,
+wherewith we were laden more as bondsmen and slaves than as subjects;
+and, in the meantime, the spirit of that patriarch, my apostolic
+grandfather, was gathering to heart and energy within the silent
+recesses of my afflicted bosom.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the murmuring, deep and sad, of my neighbours, at the insult and
+the contumely which they were obligated to endure from the irresponsible
+licentiousness of military domination,&mdash;but I said nothing; I was
+driven, with my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> pious wife and our simple babies, from my own hearth by
+the lewd conversation of the commissioned freebooters, and obligated to
+make our home in an outhouse, that we might not be molested in our
+prayers by their wicked ribaldry,&mdash;but I said nothing; I saw my honest
+neighbours plundered&mdash;their sons insulted&mdash;and their daughters put to
+shame,&mdash;but I said nothing; I was a witness when our godly minister,
+after having been driven with his wife and family out to the mercy of
+the winter's wind, was seized in the very time while he was worshipping
+the Maker of us all, and taken like a malefactor to prison,&mdash;but I said
+nothing; and I was told the story of the machinations against his
+innocent virgin daughter, when she was left defenceless among us,&mdash;and
+still I said nothing. Like the icy winter, tyranny had so encrusted my
+soul that my taciturnity seemed as hard, impenetrable, cold and cruel as
+the frozen river's surface, but the stream of my feelings ran stronger
+and fiercer beneath; and the time soon came when, in proportion to the
+still apathy that made my brother and my friends to wonder how I so
+quietly bore the events of so much, my inward struggles burst through
+all outward passive forms, and, like the hurling and the drifting ice,
+found no effectual obstacle to its irresistible and natural destination.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Swinton, the worthy lady of that saint, our pastor, on hearing what
+had been plotted against the chaste innocence of her fair and blooming
+child, came to me, and with tears, in a sense the tears of a widow, very
+earnestly entreated of me that I would take the gentle Martha to her
+cousin, the Laird of Garlins, in Dumfries-shire, she having heard that
+some intromissions, arising out of pacts and covenants between my wife's
+cousin and the Laird of Barscob, obligated me to go thither. This was on
+the Monday after the battering that the cavalier got from Zachariah
+Smylie's black ram; and I, reasonably thinking that there was judgment
+in the request, and that I might serve, by my compliance, the helpless
+residue, and the objects of a persecuted Christian's affections, I
+consented to take the damsel with me as far as Garlins, in Galloway; the
+which I did.</p>
+
+<p>When I had left Martha Swinton with her friends, who, being persons of
+pedigree and opulence, were better able to guard her, I went to the end
+of my own journey; and here,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> from what ensued, it is needful I should
+relate that, in this undertaking, I left my own house under the care of
+my brother, and that I was armed with my grandfather's sword.</p>
+
+<p>It happened that, on Tuesday the 13th November 1666, as I was returning
+homeward from Barscob, I fell in with three godly countrymen, about a
+mile south of the village of Dalry, in Galloway, and we entered into a
+holy and most salutary conversation anent the sufferings and the
+fortitude of God's people in that time of trouble. Discoursing with
+great sobriety on that melancholious theme, we met a gang of Turner's
+blackcuffs, driving before them, like beasts to the slaughter, several
+miserable persons to thrash out the corn, that it might be sold, of one
+of my companions, who, being himself a persecuted man, and unable to pay
+the fine forfeited by his piety, had some days before been forced to
+flee his house.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing the soldiers and their prey coming towards us, the poor man
+would have run away; but we exhorted him not to be afraid, for he might
+pass unnoticed, and so he did; for, although those whom the military
+rabiators were driving to thrash his corn knew him well, they were
+enabled to bear up, and were so endowed with the strength of martyrdom,
+that each of them, only by a look, signified that they were in the
+spirit of fellowship with him.</p>
+
+<p>After they had gone by, his heart, however, was so afflicted that so
+many worthy persons should be so harmed for his sake, that he turned
+back, and, in despite of all our entreaties, went to them, while we went
+forward to Dalry, where we entered a small public, and, having ordered
+some refreshment, for we were all weary, we sat meditating on what could
+be the upshot of such tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>While we were so sitting, a cry got up that our companion was seized by
+the soldiers, and that they were tormenting him on a red-hot gridiron
+for not having paid his fine.</p>
+
+<p>My blood boiled at the news. I rose, and those who were with me
+followed, and we ran to the house&mdash;his own house&mdash;where the poor man
+was. I beseeched two of the soldiers who were at the door to desist from
+their cruelty; but while I was speaking, other two that were within came
+raging out, like curs from a kennel, and flew at me; and one of them
+dared to strike me with his nieve in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> mouth. My grandfather's sword
+flew out at the blow, and the insulter lay wounded and bleeding at my
+feet. My companions in the same moment rushed on the other soldiers,
+dashed their teeth down their throats, and, twisting their firelocks
+from their hands, set the prisoner free.</p>
+
+<p>In this there was rashness, but there was also redemption and glory. We
+could not stop at what we had done;&mdash;we called on those who had been
+brought to thrash the corn to join with us, and they joined;&mdash;we
+hastened to the next farm;&mdash;the spirit of indignation was there before
+us, and master and man, and father and son, there likewise found that
+the hilts of their fathers' covenanted swords fitted their avenging
+grasps. We had now fired the dry stubble of the land&mdash;the flame
+spread&mdash;we advanced, and grew stronger and stronger. The hills, as it
+were, clapped their hands, and the valleys shouted of freedom. From all
+sides men and horse came exulting towards us; the gentleman and the hind
+knew no distinction. The cry was, "Down with tyranny&mdash;we are and we will
+make free!" The fields rejoiced with the multitude of our feet as we
+advanced towards Dumfries, where Turner lay. His blackcuffs flung down
+their arms and implored our mercy. We entered Dumfries, and the
+Oppressor was our prisoner.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Hitherto the rising at Dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire.
+The strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms
+became our weapons; but when we had gained possession of Dumfries, and
+had set a ward over the house where we had seized Turner, I saw that we
+had waded owre far into the river to think of returning, and that to go
+on was safer than to come back. It was indeed manifest that we had been
+triumphant rather by our haste than by the achievements of victorious
+battle; and it could be hidden from no man's thought that the power and
+the vengeance both of the government and the prelacy would soon be set
+in array against us. I therefore bethought myself, in that peril of our
+lives and cause, of two things which seemed most needful; first, Not to
+falter in our enterprise until we had proved the utmost of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> the Lord's
+pleasure in our behalf; and second, To use the means under Him which, in
+all human undertakings, are required to bring whatsoever is ordained to
+pass.</p>
+
+<p>Whether in these things I did well or wisely, I leave to the
+adjudication of the courteous reader; but I can lay my hand upon my
+heart, and say aloud, yea, even to the holy skies, "I thought not of
+myself nor of mine, but only of the religious rights of my
+sorely-oppressed countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>From the moment in which I received the blow of the soldier, up till the
+hour when Turner was taken, I had been the head and leader of the
+people. My sword was never out of my grip, and I marched as it were in a
+path of light, so wonderful was the immediate instinct with which I was
+directed to the accomplishment of that adventure, the success of which
+overwhelmed the fierce and cruel Antichrists at Edinburgh with
+unspeakable consternation and panic. But I lacked that knowledge of the
+art of war by which men are banded into companies and ruled, however
+manifold their diversities, to one end and effect, so that our numbers,
+having by this time increased to a great multitude, I felt myself
+utterly unable to govern them. We were as a sea of billows, that move
+onward all in one way, obedient to the impulse and deep fetchings of the
+tempestuous breath of the awakened winds of heaven, but which often
+break into foam, and waste their force in a roar of ineffectual rage.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing this, and dreading the consequences thereof, I conferred with
+some of those whom I had observed the most discreet and considerate in
+the course of the raid, and we came to a resolve to constitute and
+appoint Captain Learmont our chief commander, he having earned an
+experience of the art and stratagems of war under the renowned Lesley.
+Had we abided by that determination, some have thought our expedition
+might have come to a happier issue; but no human helps and means could
+change what was evidently ordained otherwise. It happened, however, that
+Colonel Wallace, another officer of some repute, also joined us, and his
+name made him bright and resplendent to our enthusiasm. While we were
+deliberating whom to choose for our leader, Colonel Wallace was in the
+same breath, for his name's sake, proposed, and was united in the
+command with Learmont. This was a deadly error, and ought in all time
+coming to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> be a warning and an admonition to people and nations in their
+straits and difficulties, never to be guided, in the weighty shocks and
+controversies of disordered fortunes, by any prejudice or affection so
+unsubstantial as the echo of an honoured name. For this Wallace, though
+a man of questionless bravery, and a gentleman of good account among all
+who knew him, had not received any gift from Nature of that spirit of
+masterdom without which there can be no command; so that he was no
+sooner appointed to lead us on, with Learmont as his second, than his
+mind fell into a strange confusion, and he heightened disorder into
+anarchy by ordering over much. We could not, however, undo the evil,
+without violating the discipline that we were all conscious our forces
+so grievously lacked; but, from the very moment that I saw in what
+manner he took upon him the command, I augured of nothing but disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Learmont was a collected and an urbane character, and did much to temper
+and turn aside the thriftless ordinances of his superior. He, seeing how
+much our prosperity was dependent on the speed with which we could reach
+Edinburgh, hastened forward everything with such alacrity that we were
+ready on the morrow by mid-day to set out from Dumfries. But the element
+of discord was now in our cause, and I was reproached by many for having
+abdicated my natural right to the command. It was in vain that I tried
+to redeem the fault by taking part with Learmont, under the
+determination, when the black hour of defeat or dismay should come upon
+us, to take my stand with him, and, regardless of Wallace, to consider
+him as the chief and champion of our covenanted liberties. But why do I
+dwell on these intents? Let me hasten to describe the upshot of our
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as we had formed, in the manner herein related, something like a
+head and council for ourselves, we considered, before leaving Dumfries,
+what ought to be done with General Turner, and ordered him to be brought
+before us; for those who had suffered from his fell orders and
+licentious soldiery were clamorous for his blood. But when the man was
+brought in, he was so manifestly mastered by his wine, as his vice often
+made him, that we thought it would be as it were to ask a man mad, or
+possessed, to account for his actions, as at that time to put the
+frantic drunkard on his defence; so we heeded not his obstrep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>erous
+menaces, but ordered him to be put into bed, and his papers to be
+searched for and laid before us.</p>
+
+<p>In this moderation there was wisdom; for, by dealing so gently by one
+who had proved himself so ruthless an agent of the prelatic aggressions,
+we bespoke the good opinion even of many among our adversaries; and in
+the end it likewise proved a measure of justice as well as of mercy.
+For, on examining his papers, it appeared, that pitiless as his
+domineering had been, it was far short of the universal cruelty of his
+instructions from the apostate James Sharp, and those in the council
+with him, who had delivered themselves over as instruments to the
+arbitrary prerogatives and tyrannous pretensions of the court. We
+therefore resolved to proceed no farther against him, but to keep him as
+an hostage in our hands. Many, however, among the commonalty complained
+of our lenity; for they had endured in their persons, their gear and
+their families, great severities; and they grudged that he was not
+obligated to taste the bitterness of the cup of which he had forced them
+to drink so deeply.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime all the country became alive with the news of our
+exploit. The Covenanters of the shire of Ayr, headed by several of their
+ejected ministers, whom they had cherished in the solitary dens and
+hidings in the moors and hills, to which they had been forced to flee
+from the proclamation against the field-preachings, advanced to meet us
+on our march. Verily it was a sight that made the heart of man dinle at
+once with gladness and sorrow to behold, as the day dawned on our
+course, in crossing the wide and lonely wilderness of Cumnock-moor,
+those religious brethren coming towards us, moving in silence over the
+heath, like the shadows of the slowly-sailing clouds of the summer sky.</p>
+
+<p>As we were toiling through the deep heather on the eastern skirts of the
+Mearns-moor, a mist hovered all the morning over the pad of Neilston,
+covering like a snowy fleece the sides of the hills down almost to the
+course of our route, in such a manner that we could see nothing on the
+left beyond it. We were then within less than fourteen miles of Glasgow,
+where General Dalziel lay with the King's forces, keeping in thraldom
+the godly of that pious city and its neighbourhood. Captain Learmont,
+well aware, from the eager character of the man, that he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> be fain
+to intercept us, and fearful of being drawn into jeopardy by the mist,
+persuaded Wallace to halt us some time.</p>
+
+<p>As November was far advanced, it was thought by the country folk that
+the mist would clear away about noon. We accordingly made a pause, and
+sat down on the ground; for many were weary, having over-fatigued
+themselves in their zeal to come up with the main body, and we all stood
+in need of rest.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely, however, had we cast ourselves in a desultory manner on the
+heather, when some one heard the thud of a distant drum in the mist, and
+gave the alarm; at which we all again suddenly started to our feet, and
+listening, were not long left in doubt of the sound. Orders were
+accordingly given to place ourselves in array for battle; and while we
+were obeying the command in the best manner our little skill allowed,
+the beating of the drum came louder and nearer, intermingled with the
+shrill war-note of the spirity fife.</p>
+
+<p>Every one naturally thought of the King's forces; and the Reverend Mr.
+Semple, seeing that we were in some measure prepared to meet them,
+stepped out in front with all his worthy brethren in the camp, and
+having solemneezed us for worship, gave out a psalm.</p>
+
+<p>By the time we had sung the first three verses the drum and fife sounded
+so near, that I could discern they played the tune of "John, come kiss
+me now," which left me in no doubt that the soldiers in the mist were my
+own friends and neighbours; for it was the same tune which was played
+when the men of our parish went to the raid of Dunse-hill, and which, in
+memorial of that era, had been preserved as a sacred melody amongst us.</p>
+
+<p>Being thus convinced, I stepped out from my place to the ministers, and
+said, "They are friends that are coming." The worship was in consequence
+for a short space suspended, and I presently after saw my brother at the
+head of our neighbours coming out of the cloud; whereupon I went forward
+to meet him, and we shook hands sorrowfully.</p>
+
+<p>"This is an unco thing, Ringan," were his first words; "but it's the
+Lord's will, and <span class="smcap">He</span> is able to work out a great salvation."</p>
+
+<p>I made no answer; but inquiring for my family, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> whom it was a
+cheering consolation to hear as blithe an account as could reasonably be
+hoped for, I walked with him to our captains, and made him known to them
+as my brother.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk
+was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was
+agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with
+us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and,
+to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and
+intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our
+adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities;
+that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so
+grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked
+and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of
+worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights
+and privileges.</p>
+
+<p>The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a
+day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the
+Lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a
+sacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on the
+occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, we
+had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those
+whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as
+blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbath
+morning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.</p>
+
+<p>But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation
+of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate James
+Sharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to be
+then in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew the
+deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes
+he had made us suffer. The sough, therefore, of our approach was to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>
+consternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of an
+avenging God, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of the
+engines of wrath and doom. Some said that he sat in the midst of the
+counsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying to
+and fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his
+teeth. But though all power of forethought and policy was taken from
+him, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were more
+governed, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. They
+commanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrors
+of the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were never
+committed, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection of
+their lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress,
+in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in their
+desire to come with the aid of their helps and means.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings of the preparations for the security of Edinburgh, with the
+unhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, between
+the captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting the
+raid, had, even before we left Lanerk, bred much sedition among us, and
+an ominous dubiety of success. Nevertheless, our numbers continued to
+increase, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle,
+that, had the Lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was no
+reason to think the human means insufficient for the end. But in the
+mysteries of the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the great
+purposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer.
+Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town,
+the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising
+wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening
+of His countenance went no farther with us at that time.</p>
+
+<p>Nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for the
+year was old in November, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, and
+Nature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs,
+forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mourned
+over the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all her
+pleasant places.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless
+boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm,
+trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal
+of many,&mdash;and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still
+more and more exasperated our discontent. I observed that the men began
+to turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and to
+mutter and murmur to one another. But still we all advanced, gradually,
+however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of the
+river's stream breaking asunder in a thaw.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the clouds
+were gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but the
+rain was lavished without measure. The roads became sloughs,&mdash;our feet
+were drawn heavily out of the clay,&mdash;the burns and brooks raged from
+bank to brae,&mdash;and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that
+towards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of our
+broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night,
+scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left
+Lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came
+up. But still Captain Learmont thought, that as soon as the men had
+taken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outright
+to Edinburgh. Wallace, however, objected, and that night was spent
+between them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, our
+hardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-council
+against the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as I have
+said, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted to
+receive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but only
+bitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned of
+the Lord, I retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on a
+rock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass.
+It was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around was
+dismayed and dishevelled. The storm had abated, and the rain was over,
+but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environed
+with perils. A cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over our
+camp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> the castle
+shone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold,
+were fresh in strength and ready for battle.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of the
+children of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and I
+marvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which I had been
+snatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in a
+scene of such inevitable woe. Sometimes, in the passion of that grief, I
+was tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of my
+affections. But as often as the thought came over my heart, with its
+soft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men who
+had borne in the march all that I had borne, and many of them in the
+cause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, I bowed my
+head and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if the
+arm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the Gospel, and
+delivering poor Scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of an
+anti-Christian usurpation in the kingly power.</p>
+
+<p>While I was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubting
+that before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail that
+smote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have been
+by the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, a
+light broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holy
+experiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, I beheld
+as it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, and
+disclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to rise
+from the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply of
+arbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of God, and laid waste
+His vineyard.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit still
+more grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture of
+the honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shown
+themselves so unworthy; and I had a foretaste in that hour of the
+fulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that were
+in store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. So that,
+although I rose from the rock whereon I was sitting, in the clear
+conviction that our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind,
+I yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end a
+link in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery with
+which Providence works good out of evil.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set,
+some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the
+tidings that Dalziel and all the royal forces in Glasgow were coming
+upon us. This, though foreseen, caused a great panic, and a council of
+war, consisting, as usual, of ministers and officers, was held, to
+determine what should be done; but it was likewise, as usual, only a
+fruitless controversy. I, however, on this occasion, feeling myself
+sustained in spirit by the assurances I had received in my meditations
+on the rock, ventured to speak my mind freely; which was to the effect
+that, taking our dejected condition, the desertion of our friends, and
+our disappointments from the city, into consideration, we could do no
+better thing than evade the swords of our adversaries by disbanding
+ourselves, that each might be free to seek safety for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Many were inclined to this counsel; and I doubt not it would have been
+followed; but, while conferring together, an officer came from the
+privy-council to propose a cessation of arms till our demands could be
+considered. It was manifest that this was a wily stratagem to keep us in
+the snare till Dalziel had time to come up, and I did all in my power to
+make the council see it in the same light; but there was a blindness of
+mind among us, and the greater number thought it augured a speedy
+redress of the wrongs for which we had come to seek reparation. Nor did
+their obstinacy in this relax till next morning, when, instead of
+anything like their improbable hopes, came a proclamation ordering us to
+disperse, and containing neither promise of indemnity nor of pardon. But
+then it was too late. Dalziel was in sight. His army was coming like a
+stream along the foot of the Pentland-hills,&mdash;we saw his banners and the
+glittering of his arms, and the sound of his musicants came swelling on
+the breeze.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that his purpose was to drive us in towards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> the town; but
+had we dispersed we might even then have frustrated his intent. There
+happened, however, besides Learmont and Wallace, to be several officers
+among us who had stubborn notions of military honour; and they would not
+permit so unsoldier-like a flight. There were also divers heated and
+fanatical spirits, whom, because our undertaking had been for religious
+ends, nothing could persuade that Providence would not interfere in some
+signal manner for their deliverance, yea, even to the overthrow of the
+enemy; and Mr Whamle, a minister, one of these, getting upon the top of
+the rock where I had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty
+things that the Lord did for the children of Israel in the valley of
+Ajalon, where He not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but
+enabled Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,&mdash;which to any
+composed mind was melancholious to hear.</p>
+
+<p>In sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to
+the spot, Dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle,
+brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of
+those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men,
+having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we
+repulsed him thrice.</p>
+
+<p>But the victory, as I have said, was not ordained for us. In the
+afternoon Dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen
+from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our
+phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,&mdash;and then we began to quit the
+field. The number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of
+the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. The dead might
+have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had
+respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of
+doing as Dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the
+fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common
+wrongs.</p>
+
+<p>When I saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments
+scattered over the fields, I fled with the flying, and gained, with
+about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the
+Pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been
+inclined, could not easily follow us. There, while we halted to rest a
+little,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of
+battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in
+the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon,
+rolling slowly from behind Arthur's Seat, looked from her window in the
+clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mr Witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the
+gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the
+prey they pursue. They will track us long, and the hounds are not of a
+nature to lose scent, especially when they have tasted, as they have
+done this day, the rich blood of the faithful and the true. Therefore
+let us depart; but where, O where shall we find a home to receive
+us?&mdash;Where a place of rest for our weary limbs, or a safe stone for a
+pillow to our aching heads? But why do I doubt? Blameless as we are,
+even before man, of all offence, save that of seeking leave to worship
+God according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left
+without succour. No, my <a name='TC_16'></a><ins title="Was friens">friends</ins>! though our bed be the damp grass and
+our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our
+drink the drumly burn, we have made for our hearts the down-beds of
+religious faith, and have found a banquet for our spirits in the
+ambrosial truths of the Gospel&mdash;luxuries that neither a James Sharp nor
+a Charles Stuart can ever enjoy, nor all the rents and revenues, fines
+and forfeitures, which princes may exact and prelates yearn to partake
+of, can buy."</p>
+
+<p>He then offered up a thanksgiving that we had been spared from the sword
+in the battle; after which we shook hands in silence together, and each
+pursued his own way.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Witherspoon lingered by my side as we descended the hill, and I
+discerned that he was inclined to be my companion; so we continued
+together, stretching towards the north-west, in order to fall into the
+Lithgow road, being mindet to pass along the skirts of Stirlingshire,
+thence into Lennox, in the hope of reaching Argyle's country by the way
+of the ferry of Balloch. But we had owre soon a cruel cause to change
+the course of our flight.</p>
+
+<p>In coming down towards the Amond-water, we saw a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> man running before us
+in the glimpse of the moonshine, and it was natural to conclude, from
+his gestures and the solitude of the place, that no one could be so
+far-a-field at such a time, but some poor fellow-fugitive from
+Rullion-green where the battle was fought; so we called to him to stop,
+and to fear no ill, for we were friends. Still, however he fled on, and
+heeded not our entreaty, which made us both marvel and resolve to
+overtake him. We thought it was not safe to follow long an unknown
+person who was so evidently afraid, and flying, as we supposed, to his
+home. Accordingly we hastened our speed, and I, being the nimblest
+reached him at a place where he was stopped by a cleft in the rocks on
+the river's woody brink.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you fly so fast from us?" said I; "we're frae the Pentland-hills
+too."</p>
+
+<p>At these words he looked wildly round, and his face was as ghastly as a
+ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, I
+discovered in him my neighbour, Nahum Chapelrig, and I spoke to him by
+name.</p>
+
+<p>"O, Ringan Gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right
+hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic
+manner, "I am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of
+my days is amaist a' run out. I had been saved from the sword, spared
+from the spear, and, flying from the field, I went to a farm-house
+yonder; I sought admission and shelter for a forlorn Christian man; but
+the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of God.
+The farmer opened his casement, and speering if I had been at the raid
+of the Covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of God, I
+couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my
+breast, and is fast in my&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle
+in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the
+ground where he stood, before Mr Witherspoon had time to come up.</p>
+
+<p>We both looked at poor guiltless Nahum as he lay on the grass, and,
+after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down
+aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the
+moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his
+martyred remains. We then consulted together; and having com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>muned
+concerning the manner of Nahum's death, we resolved not to trust
+ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where
+the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such
+woful evidence of depravity of heart. So, instead of continuing our
+journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder
+of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and
+other untrodden ways.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LV" id="CHAPTER_LV"></a>CHAPTER LV</h2>
+
+
+<p>At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary,
+hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the
+birds in them were beginning to chirp,&mdash;we sat down and wist not what to
+do.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in
+the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to
+gather in my bosom. I yearned for my family,&mdash;I mourned to know what had
+become of my brother in the battle,&mdash;and I grudged and marvelled
+wherefore it was that the royal and the great had so little respect for
+the religious honesty of harmless country folk.</p>
+
+<p>It was now the nine-and-twentieth day of November, but the weather for
+the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the
+glory of her light and beauty. As the gay and goodly sun looked over the
+eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered
+villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we
+could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end
+of poor Nahum Chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe.</p>
+
+<p>While we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a
+little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we
+intended to take. She had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit
+tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was
+probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>We both rose, and going towards her, Mr Witherspoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> said, "For the love
+of God have compassion on two famishing Christians."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of
+time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister
+of the Gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae Janet Armstrong?" And
+she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute
+in which she carried the kit, saying, "Little did I think that sic an
+homage was in store for me, or that the merciful Heavens would e'er
+requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my
+power to help a persecuted servant of the living God. Mr Witherspoon, I
+ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling I hae gotten frae you when ye
+preached for our minister at Camrachle in the time of the great
+covenanting. I was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the
+raid of Dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a
+sinful misdooting of Providence, for I had twa wee bairns and but a toom
+garnel."</p>
+
+<p>She then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she
+was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a
+neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This will be a blithe morning to John Armstrong, to think that out of
+our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of
+gi'eing a pick to ane o' God's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his
+day's dark ae hue the dreigher for wanting his breakfast on account of
+sic a cause."</p>
+
+<p>So we sat down, and began to partake of the repast with a greedy
+appetite, and the worthy woman continued to talk.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever
+since Dalziel left Glasgow;&mdash;we a' jealoused that the Lanerk Covenanters
+would na be able to withstand his power and the King's forces; for it
+was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'.&mdash;But, Mr
+Witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to
+meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.&mdash;No; weel I wat that yours is
+a holier wisdom&mdash;ye would be for peace;&mdash;blessed are the peacemakers."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Seeing the honest woman thus inclined to prattle of things too high for
+her to understand, Mr Witherspoon's hunger being somewhat abated, he
+calmly interposed, and turned the discourse into kind inquiries
+concerning the state of her poor soul and her straitened worldly
+circumstances; and he was well content to find that she had a pleasant
+vista of the truths of salvation, and a confidence in the unceasing care
+of Providence.</p>
+
+<p>"The same gracious hand that feeds the ravens," said she, "will ne'er
+let twa auld folk want, that it has been at the trouble to provide for
+so long. It's true we had a better prospek in our younger days; but our
+auld son was slain at the battle of Worcester, when he gaed in to help
+to put the English crown on the head of that false Charlie Stuart, who
+has broken his oath and the Covenant; and my twa winsome lassies diet in
+their teens, before they were come to years o' discretion. But 'few and
+evil are the days of man that is born of a woman,' as I hae heard you
+preach, Mr Witherspoon, which is a blessed truth and consolation to
+those who have not in this world any continued city."</p>
+
+<p>We then inquired what was the religious frame of the people in that part
+of the country, in order that we might know how to comport ourselves;
+but she gave us little heartening.</p>
+
+<p>"The strength and wealth o' the gentry," said she "is just sooket awa
+wi' ae fine after anither, and it's no in the power of nature that they
+can meikle langer stand out against the prelacy."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," replied Mr Witherspoon, "that there's no symptom of a laxity
+of principle among them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doot, I doot, Mr Witherspoon," said Janet Armstrong, "we canna hae a
+great dependence either on principle or doctrine when folk are driven
+demented wi' oppression. Many that were ance godly among us can thole no
+more, and they begin to fash and turn awa' at the sight of their
+persecuted friends."</p>
+
+<p>Mr Witherspoon sighed with a heavy heart on hearing this, and mournfully
+shook his head. We then thanked Janet for her hospitable kindness, and
+rising, were moving to go away.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, Mr Witherspoon," said she, "that we're no to part in sic a
+knotless manner. Bide here till I gang for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> John Armstrong and the other
+twa men that howk wi' him in the quarry. They're bearing plants o' the
+vineyard&mdash;tarry, I pray you, and water them wi' the water of the Word."</p>
+
+<p>And so saying, she hastened down the track she was going, and we
+continued on the spot to wait her return.</p>
+
+<p>"Ringan," said Mr Witherspoon to me, "I fear there's owre meikle truth
+in what she says concerning the state of religion, not only here, but
+among all the commonality of the land. The poor beast that's overladen
+may be stubborn, and refuse for a time to draw; but the whip will at
+last prevail, until, worn out and weary, it meekly lies down to die. In
+like manner, the stoutness of the covenanted heart will be overcome."</p>
+
+<p>Just as he was uttering these words, a whiz in a whin-bush near to where
+we were standing, and the sound of a gun, startled us, and on looking
+round we saw five men, and one of the black-cuffs with his firelock
+still at his shoulder, looking towards us from behind a dyke that ran
+along the bottom of the brae. There was no time for consultation. We
+fled, cowering behind the whin-bushes till we got round a turn in the
+hill, which, protecting us from any immediate shot, enabled us to run in
+freedom till we reached a hazel-wood, which having entered, we halted to
+take breath.</p>
+
+<p>"We must not trust ourselves long here, Mr Witherspoon," said I. "Let us
+go forward, for assuredly the blood-hounds will follow us in."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we went on. But it is not to be told what we suffered in
+passing through that wood; for the boughs and branches scourged us in
+the face, and the ground beneath our feet was marshy and deep, and
+grievously overspread with brambles that tore away our very flesh.</p>
+
+<p>After enduring several hours of unspeakable suffering beneath those wild
+and unfrequented trees, we came to a little glen, down which a burn ran,
+and having stopped to consult, we resolved to go up rather than down the
+stream, in order that we might not be seen by the pursuers whom we
+supposed would naturally keep the hill. But by this time our strength
+was in a manner utterly gone with fatigue, in so much that Mr
+Witherspoon said it would be as well to fall into the hands of the enemy
+as to die in the wood. I however encouraged him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> to be of good cheer;
+and it so happened, in that very moment of despair, that I observed a
+little cavern nook aneath a rock that overhung the burn, and thither I
+proposed we should wade and rest ourselves in the cave, trusting that
+Providence would be pleased to guide our persecutors into some other
+path. So we passed the water, and laid ourselves down under the shelter
+of the rock, where we soon after fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVI" id="CHAPTER_LVI"></a>CHAPTER LVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>We were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay
+asleep under the rock. Mr Witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he
+sat watching beside me for some time, in great anxiety of spirit, as he
+afterwards told me; for the day was far spent, and the weather, as is
+often the custom in our climate, in the wane of the year, when the
+morning rises bright, had become coarse and drumly, threatening a rough
+night.</p>
+
+<p>At last I awoke, and according to what we had previously counselled
+together, we went up the course of the burn, and so got out of that
+afflicting wood, and came to an open and wide moorland, over which we
+held our journeying westward, guided by the sun, that with a sickly eye
+was then cowering through the mist to his chamber ayont the hill.</p>
+
+<p>But though all around us was a pathless scene of brown heather, here and
+there patched with the deceitful green of some perilous well-e'e; though
+the skies were sullen, and the bleak wind gusty, and every now and then
+a straggling flake of snow, strewed in our way from the invisible hand
+of the cloud, was a token of a coming drift, still a joyous
+encouragement was shed into our bosoms, and we saw in the wildness of
+the waste, and the omens of the storm, the blessed means with which
+Providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer
+and the <a name='TC_17'></a><ins title="Was persecuted">persecutor</ins> from tracking our defenceless flight. So we journeyed
+onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round,
+and listening when startled by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> the wind whispering to the heath and the
+waving fern, till the shadows of evening began to fall, and the dangers
+of the night season to darken around us.</p>
+
+<p>When the snow hung on the heather like its own bells, we wished, but we
+feared to seek a place of shelter. Fain would we have gone back to the
+home for the fugitive, which we had found under the rock, but we knew
+not how to turn ourselves; for the lights of the moon and stars were
+deeply concealed in the dark folds of the wintry mantle with which the
+heavens were wrapt up. Our hearts then grew weary, and more than once I
+felt as if I was very willing to die.</p>
+
+<p>Still we struggled on; and when it had been dark about an hour, we came
+to the skirts of a field, where the strips of the stubble through the
+snow showed us that some house or clachan could not be far off. We then
+consulted together, and resolved rather to make our place of rest in the
+lea of a stack, or an outhouse, than to apply to the dwelling; for the
+thought of the untimely end of harmless Nahum Chapelrig lay like clay on
+our hearts, and we could not but sorrow that, among the other woes of
+the vial of the prelatic dispensation, the hearts of the people of
+Scotland should be so turned against one another.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly going down the rigs, with as little interchange of discourse
+as could well be, we descried, by the schimmer of the snow, and a
+ghastly streak of moonlight that passed over the fields, a farm
+steading, with several trees and stacks around it, and thither we softly
+directed our steps. Greatly, however, were we surprised and touched with
+distress, when, as we drew near, we saw that there was no light in the
+house, nor the sign of fire within, nor inhabitant about the place.</p>
+
+<p>On reaching the door we found it open, and on entering in, everything
+seemed as if it had been suddenly abandoned; but by the help of a
+pistol, which I had taken in the raid from one of Turner's disarmed
+troopers, and putting our trust in the protection we had so far enjoyed,
+I struck a light and kindled the fire, over which there was still
+hanging, on the swee, a kail-pot, wherein the family at the time of
+their flight had been preparing their dinner; and we judged by this
+token, and by the visible desertion, that we were in the house of some
+of God's people who had been suddenly scattered. Accordingly we scrupled
+not to help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> ourselves from the aumrie, knowing how readily they would
+pardon the freedom of need in a Gospel minister, and a covenanted
+brother dejected with want and much suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Having finished our supper, instead of sitting by the fire, as we at
+first proposed to do, we thought it would be safer to take the blankets
+from the beds and make our lair in the barn; so we accordingly retired
+thither, and lay down among some unthreshed corn that was lying ready on
+the floor for the flail.</p>
+
+<p>But we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons
+near us. As there was no light, and Mr Witherspoon guessing by what we
+had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family,
+he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were
+discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. At
+the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things
+which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story
+was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife,
+who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"But what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know
+not,&mdash;we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after
+it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief
+that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been,
+and all the sacred exhortations that Mr Witherspoon could employ
+softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the
+dishonoured wife. He, however, persuaded them to return with us to the
+house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he
+would that night come again. As for me, during the dismal recital, I
+could not speak. The eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure I had
+left at home. Every word I heard was like the sting of an adder. My
+horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that I could no longer master
+them. I started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to
+arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected
+dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Witherspoon followed me, thinking I had gone by myself, and caught me
+by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into
+the house. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me,
+something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. The
+accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and I
+stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild
+howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of Heaven, what is this?</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" said I, filled with unutterable dread.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and
+he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years
+old. I could endure no more; I thought the voices of my own innocents
+cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment I left the godly
+man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way I went.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVII" id="CHAPTER_LVII"></a>CHAPTER LVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold;
+but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all
+wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a
+cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of
+some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of
+thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect
+of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the
+fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the
+moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that
+hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning
+women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like
+palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.&mdash;I began to
+reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the
+succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of
+the eloquent orator can express.&mdash;I stopped to collect my reason and my
+thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that
+drifts in the tempestuous air.&mdash;I considered, that I knew not a footstep
+of the road, that dangers sur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>rounded me on all sides, and that the
+precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very
+object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within
+me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh
+shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean
+when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five
+miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious
+dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby
+enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful
+in that woful time.</p>
+
+<p>But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the
+fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter
+grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The
+mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up,
+and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in
+my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my
+spirit in its power of resolution.</p>
+
+<p>I had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on
+Rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting
+rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows,
+I had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in
+so much that about sunrise I found myself, I cannot well tell how, on
+the heights to the south of Castlemilk, and the city of Glasgow, with
+her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in
+sight some few miles off on the north. I knew it not; but a herd that I
+fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of
+divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands
+before me.</p>
+
+<p>Among others he pointed out to me Nether Pollock in the midst of a
+skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted
+Christian and true Covenanter, Sir George Maxwell, the savour of whose
+piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore
+imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon
+him, shortly after that conclave of Satan, Middleton's sederunt of the
+privy-council at Glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of
+her first-born,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of
+the Persecution, whereof I have described the promulgation as it took
+place at Irvine.</p>
+
+<p>Being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd,
+who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, I resolved to
+bend my way toward Nether Pollock, in the confident faith that the
+master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to
+compassionate a persecuted brother. And often since I have thought that
+there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this
+confidence; for indeed, had I reasoned from what was commonly said&mdash;and,
+alas! owre truly&mdash;that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, I
+would have feared to seek the gates of Sir George Maxwell, lest the love
+he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings
+and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. But I was encouraged of the
+spirit to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Just, however, as I parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed
+to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand,
+and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "Yon'er's
+Sir George Maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. Eh! but he has had his
+ain luck to fill his pock so weel already."</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon I turned my steps towards Sir George, and, on approaching him,
+beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the
+Pentlands.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his
+head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "It was a hasty
+business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us
+lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to
+Glasgow, where Colonel Drummond came yesterday with a detachment of
+soldiers, and has already spread them over the country."</p>
+
+<p>In saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which,
+instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had
+supposed, contained a store of provisions.</p>
+
+<p>"I came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting
+to me something to eat, "but because last night I heard that many of the
+outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as I
+could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my
+tenants, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> have come out with some of my men, as it were to the
+shooting, in order to succour them. But we must not remain long
+together. Take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and I
+counsel you not to take the road to Paisley, but to cross with what
+speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people
+have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of
+Drummond sending any of his force in that direction."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that
+Worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered.
+With many thanks I then hastened from him, praying that his private
+charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. And surely it was a
+thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted Scottish nation to
+meet with such Christian fellowship. For to the perpetual renown of many
+honourable West Country families be it spoken, both master and men were
+daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the
+ravens that fed Elijah in the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>After parting from Sir George Maxwell, I continued to bend my course
+straight westward, and having crossed the road from Glasgow to Paisley,
+I directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded,
+according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by
+the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning
+my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began
+to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to
+return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the
+determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had
+become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord
+would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those
+who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LVIII" id="CHAPTER_LVIII"></a>CHAPTER LVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the
+Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>cholious note of the
+peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was
+heard there. Being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed
+to sleep, I laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the
+Gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period
+of the year. I was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass
+when I heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently
+also the barking of a dog. From the kindly experience I had received of
+Sir George Maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on
+looking up I beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the
+other side of the river.</p>
+
+<p>Near the spot where I lay there was a cloven rock overspread with
+brambles and slae-bushes. It seemed to me as if the cleft had been
+prepared on purpose by Providence for a hiding-place. I crept into it,
+and forgetting Him by whom I was protected, I trembled with a base fear.
+But in that very moment He at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a
+singular assurance of His holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come
+towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into
+the view of the pursuers. Just, however, as in my horror I was on the
+point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes,
+and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;&mdash;at the same moment a hare
+was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and
+halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement
+which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>This adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the
+weariness with which I had been oppressed, and I rose and continued my
+course westward, over the hills, till I came in sight of the
+Shaw's-water,&mdash;the stream of which I followed for more than a mile with
+a beating heart; for the valley through which it flows is bare and open,
+and had any of the persecutors been then on the neighbouring hills, I
+must have soon been seen; but gradually my thoughts became more
+composed, and the terrors of the poor hunted creature again became
+changed into confidence and hope.</p>
+
+<p>In this renewed spirit I slackened my pace, and seeing, at a short
+distance down the stream, before me a tree laid across a bridge, I was
+comforted with the persuasion that some farm-town could not be far off,
+so I resolved to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> linger about till the gloaming, and then to follow the
+path which led over the bridge. For, not knowing how the inhabitants in
+those parts stood inclined in their consciences, I was doubtful to trust
+myself in their power until I had made some espionage. Accordingly, as
+the sun was still above the hills, I kept the hollowest track by the
+river's brink, and went down its course for some little time, till I
+arrived where the hills come forward into the valley; then I climbed up
+a steep hazel bank, and sat down to rest myself on an open green plot on
+the brow, where a gentle west wind shook the boughs around me, as if the
+silent spirits of the solitude were slowly passing by.</p>
+
+<p>In this place I had not been long when I heard, as if it were not far
+off, a sullen roar of falling waters rising hoarsely with the breeze,
+and listening again another sound came solemnly mingled with it, which I
+had soon the delight to discover was the holy harmony of worship, and to
+my ears it was as the first sound of the rushing water which Moses
+brought from the rock to those of the thirsty Israelites, and I was for
+some time so ravished with joy that I could not move from the spot where
+I was sitting.</p>
+
+<p>At last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and I arose and went
+towards the airt from which it had come; but as I advanced, the noise of
+the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the
+breaking of the summer waves along the Ardrossan shore, and presently I
+found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into
+a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and
+hazel, and garmented with ivy.</p>
+
+<p>On a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall,
+screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising
+ground on the other, about thirty of the Lord's flock, old and young,
+were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was
+preaching to them,&mdash;his left hand resting on his staff,&mdash;his right was
+raised in exhortation,&mdash;and a Bible lay on the ground beside him.</p>
+
+<p>I stood for the space of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying
+sight,&mdash;mournful it was, to think how God's people were so afflicted,
+that they durst not do their Heavenly King homage but in secrecy,&mdash;and
+edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold.</p>
+
+<p>As I was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened
+to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him,
+turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. I
+attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract
+drowned my voice. I then ran as swiftly as I could towards the spot of
+worship, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was
+assisting Mr Swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to
+a tree; for the preacher was no other than that godly man; but the
+courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what passed at our
+meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise,
+and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the
+Pentlands; but I importuned him to continue his blessed work, for I
+longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a
+fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom,
+which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called
+the Killochenn,&mdash;and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from
+the Back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing,
+in marriage.</p>
+
+<p>When he had closed his sermon and done these things, I went with him,
+walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous
+anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to Glasgow and
+confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had
+been examined by the Bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of
+the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with
+the Bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not
+to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt
+with according to the edict.</p>
+
+<p>Conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been
+solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to
+the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not
+meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in
+thir parts, but it's no to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> denied that there are likewise goats
+among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without
+question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a
+courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a
+man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman,
+and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an
+eydent ettler for preferment."</p>
+
+<p>So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the
+hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went
+with him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LIX" id="CHAPTER_LIX"></a>CHAPTER LIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his
+house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it
+together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not
+time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at
+the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was
+the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts
+had tasted for more than eight months.</p>
+
+<p>"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to
+think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly
+institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole
+people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their
+iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the
+power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what
+is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again
+in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction
+and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say,
+that the peaceful worshipping according to the Word is either a sin, a
+shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and
+the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt
+of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."</p>
+
+<p>As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and
+pointed out to him a lassie coming running<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> towards us. It was his
+daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her
+haste she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O, father ye manna gang hame;&mdash;twa of Carswell's men hae been speering
+for you and they had swords and guns. They're o'er the hill to the linn,
+for wee Willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching."</p>
+
+<p>"This comes," says the afflicted Gideon, "of speaking of secret things
+before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old
+would have been an instrument of discovery?&mdash;It'll no be safe now for
+you to come hame wi' me, which I'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't;
+but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the Holmstone-hill, aboon
+the auld kirk; I'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter
+for the night."</p>
+
+<p>So we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and
+held our course towards the house of Gideon Kemp's wife's stepmother.
+But it was not ordained that I was yet to enjoy the protection of a
+raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the Daff-burn, down the glen
+of which my godly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less
+observable way than the open road, he saw one of Ardgowan's men coming
+towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the Stuarts, were
+inclined to the prelatic side.</p>
+
+<p>"Hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes."</p>
+
+<p>And I den't myself in a nook of the glen, where I overheard what passed.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought, Gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the
+conventicle this afternoon. We hae heard o't a'; and Carswell has sworn
+that he'll hae baith doited Swinton and Dunrod's leddy at Glasgow afore
+the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower."</p>
+
+<p>"Carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied Gideon Kemp; "for though
+his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when
+horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and
+the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o'
+Carswell."</p>
+
+<p>The way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle;
+but I hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was assuredly in
+them: for, since the Revolution, Carswell's family has gone all to
+drift, and his house become a wastege;&mdash;folk say, a new road that's
+talked o'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> between Inverkip and Greenock is to go through the very
+middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will
+betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would
+exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the godless and the wrength
+of the oppressors.</p>
+
+<p>Ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of Gideon Kemp, and replied in a
+subdued manner, "It's really a melancholious thing to think that folk
+should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;&mdash;but tak care of
+yoursel, Gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to Cartsdyke
+to take up ony of the Rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts,
+and they catcht, I hear, in a public in the Stenners, three men, and
+have sent them to Glasgow to be hanged."</p>
+
+<p>I verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," replied Gideon Kemp, "the wrath of government is no so
+unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are
+doom't to die. But hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where
+they belong to?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're o' the shire o' Ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' Irvine or
+Kilwinning; and I was likewise told their names, but they're no of a
+familiarity easy to be remembered."</p>
+
+<p>The horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own
+peril, and I sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ken if any of them was of the name of Gilhaize?"</p>
+
+<p>Ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so
+instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at Gideon
+Kemp with a jealous and troubled eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay," said I, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you
+shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy
+man." So I took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "Ye're
+in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. I, too, am a
+rebel, as ye say, from Rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the
+ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our
+offence. But fear no wrong, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> you have aught of Christian compassion
+in you. Was Gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll no swear't," was his answer; "but I think it was something like
+that;&mdash;one of them, I think, they called Finnie."</p>
+
+<p>"Robin Finnie," cried I, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; I
+canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the
+tears flowed from my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The better nature of Ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my
+distress, and he said to Gideon Kemp,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye needna be fear't, Gideon; I hope ye ken mair o' me than to think I
+would betray either friend or acquaintance. But gang na' to the toun,
+for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing
+the day at Cartsdyke, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o'
+some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them."</p>
+
+<p>"That's spoken like yoursel, Johnnie Jamieson," said Gideon Kemp; "but
+this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the
+moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. When
+the sword, Johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal
+stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and dejectit, and more houseless
+than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man
+that we're bound by the laws of God and nature to help."</p>
+
+<p>Jamieson remained for a short space in a dubious manner, and looking
+mildly towards me, he said, "Gang you your ways, Gideon Kemp, and I'll
+ne'er say I saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and
+trust me: naebody in a' Inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house
+would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so I'll can bring him to some
+place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi'
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Troubled and sorrowful as I was, I could not but observe the look of
+soul-searching scrutiny that Gideon Kemp cast at Jamieson, who himself
+was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dinna misdoot me, Gideon Kemp; I would sooner put my right hand in the
+fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in
+my power."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll believe you," said I; "so guide me wheresoever you will."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ye'll never thrive, Johnnie Jamieson," added honest Gideon, "if ye're
+no sincere in this trust."</p>
+
+<p>So after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and I
+followed Jamieson down the Daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood
+in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water
+with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing
+after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents I had met with.</p>
+
+<p>"Bide you here," said Jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his
+wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before I tak you into the mill
+I maun look that she's no there."</p>
+
+<p>So he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me
+standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, I had not
+occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me
+with his hand to come quickly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LX" id="CHAPTER_LX"></a>CHAPTER LX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner,
+saying to Jamieson,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and
+the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power
+to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me,
+"it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep
+peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated
+to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae
+to mak your bed here in the mill."</p>
+
+<p>While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing
+like a bell.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and
+stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."</p>
+
+<p>Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder,
+I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and
+told me to lie quiet, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> in the dusk he would bring me something to
+eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the
+trap-door, in came his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied
+to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and
+they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your
+covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and
+that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills,
+as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to
+get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they
+say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."</p>
+
+<p>"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the
+miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home,
+so what hae I to dread?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's
+coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners
+Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to
+see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running
+through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's
+the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things
+I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."</p>
+
+<p>"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A
+cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to
+happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those
+in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! Sauners Paton, ye're a
+born rebel to your King, and kintra, and wife. But this night I'll put
+it out of your power to rebel on me. Stop the mill, Sauners Paton, and
+come out, and tak the door on your back. I hae owre meikle regard for
+you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here."</p>
+
+<p>"Consider," said Sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion,
+"that this is the season of December; and where would ye hae me to gang
+in sic a night?"</p>
+
+<p>"A grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. My jo,
+ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> Sauners Paton, I'm positive, and
+for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge
+out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.&mdash;Hae ye stoppit the mill?"</p>
+
+<p>The mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no
+better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that
+turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"Noo," said he, "to pleasure you, Kate, I hae stoppit the mill, and to
+pleasure me, I hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain
+wi' you, frae my ain house I'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't
+since ye will hae't, I hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at
+hame I will bide;&mdash;na, what's mair, Kate, it's a reason that I'll no
+tell to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear pity me, Sauners Paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o'
+late an unco reasonable man. But Leddy Stuart's quadrooped bird they ca'
+a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do
+reason; but reason here or reason there, I'll ne'er consent to let you
+stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and
+lock the door."</p>
+
+<p>To this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short
+silence, he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Kate, my queen, I'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as
+weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' Dunrod; but some providing
+should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. The sun has
+been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a
+creel wi' some vivers prepared."</p>
+
+<p>"Noo, that's like yoursel, Sauners Paton," replied his wife; "and surely
+my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>At these words Jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "I hope,
+miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll
+conform to her kind wishes." By which I discernt, that he had purposely
+egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"O, aye," replied the miller; "I could na but be consenting, poor queen,
+to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way
+that I well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a
+watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation
+here."</p>
+
+<p>The three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly
+mystery, I confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's
+ever-wakeful Sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing
+oblivion from all my troubles and fears.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the fatigue I had undergone for so many days and nights
+together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but
+the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to
+depart till he thought I was rested, soon after the moon rose came into
+the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. So I left my couch
+in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from
+the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned
+with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had
+provided for himself.</p>
+
+<p>Having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder
+of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path
+along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by
+the hand, and bade me farewell,&mdash;saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten
+the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,&mdash;that the
+gudewife would make baith him and Johnnie Jamieson suffer in the body
+for the fright she had gotten. "For ye should ken," said he, "that the
+terror she was in was a' bred o' Johnnie's pawkerie. He knew that she
+was aye in a dread that I would be laid hands on ever since I signed the
+remonstrance to the laird; and Johnnie thought, that if he could get her
+to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the
+provision yours. So, Gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted,
+when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'."</p>
+
+<p>Being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of
+Inverkip, I went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my
+heart. The night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea
+glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then
+walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose
+perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little
+while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had
+not travelled far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief
+for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the
+treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the
+part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful
+auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost
+in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air
+breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then
+questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given
+no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught,
+but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart
+with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a
+softer sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I
+met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning.
+Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place
+in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one
+William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest
+myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path
+that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted
+and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His
+cattle were on the stubble&mdash;the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown
+of the morning&mdash;the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been
+lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still
+there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I
+saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and
+unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a
+park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me.
+I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched
+him, but he was dead.</p>
+
+<p>The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered
+with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was
+warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.</p>
+
+<p>I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight of this woful murder;
+but I ran for help to the house; and just as I turned the corner of the
+barn, two soldiers met me, and I became their prisoner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but
+the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it
+were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind.</p>
+
+<p>They took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and I could not
+speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and I thought
+it was a dream. The air I breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; I
+gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as
+the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of Kedar.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had
+been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as
+they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. They taunted me and plucked me
+by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more
+fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and I inwardly
+chided the slow anger of the mysterious Heavens for permitting the rage
+of those agents of the apostate James Sharp and his compeers, whom a
+mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority.</p>
+
+<p>But even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was
+whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a
+seraph, that the Lord in all things moveth according to His established
+laws; and I was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof I was
+a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the
+people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the
+deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and
+arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to
+return to their quarters in Irvine, I walked with them&mdash;their captive,
+it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at
+the proudness of my tread.</p>
+
+<p>There was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the
+avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or
+who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. Hundreds that sympathised
+with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who
+had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment.
+The crowd came pressing around as I was conducted up the gait to the
+tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children
+wondered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. Some
+who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers
+grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely
+upon us.</p>
+
+<p>As I was ascending the tolbooth-stair, I heard a shriek; and I looked
+around, and beheld Michael, my first-born, a stripling then only twelve
+years old, amidst the crowd, stretching out his hands and crying, "O, my
+father, my father!"</p>
+
+<p>I halted for a moment, and the soldiers seemed to thaw with compassion;
+but my hands were tied,&mdash;I was a captive on the threshold of the
+dungeon, and I could only shut my eyes and bid the stern agents of the
+persecutors go on. Still the cry of my distracted child knelled in my
+ear, and my agony grew to such a pitch, that I flew forward up the
+steps, and, in the dismal vaults within, sought refuge from the misery
+of my child.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXI" id="CHAPTER_LXI"></a>CHAPTER LXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was conducted into a straight and dark chamber, and the cord wherewith
+my hands were bound was untied, and a shackle put upon my right wrist;
+the flesh of my left was so galled with the cord, that the jailor was
+softened at the sight, and from the humanity of his own nature,
+refrained from placing the iron on it, lest the rust should fester the
+quick wound.</p>
+
+<p>Then I was left alone in the gloomy solitude of the prison-room, and the
+ponderous doors were shut upon me, and the harsh bolts driven with a
+horrid grating noise, that caused my very bones to dinle. But even in
+that dreadful hour an unspeakable consolation came with the freshness of
+a breathing of the airs of paradise to my soul. Methought a wonderful
+light shone around me, that I heard melodious voices bidding me be of
+good cheer, and that a vision of my saintly grandfather, in the glorious
+vestments of his heavenly attire, stood before me, and smiled upon me
+with that holy comeliness of countenance which has made his image in my
+remembrance ever that of the most venerable of men; so that, in the very
+depth of what I thought would have been the pit of despair, I had a
+de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>lightful taste of those blessed experiences of divine aid, by which
+the holy martyrs were sustained in the hours of trial, and cheered
+amidst the torments in which they sealed the truth of their testimony.</p>
+
+<p>After the favour of that sweet and celestial encouragement, I laid
+myself down on a pallet in the corner of the room, and a gracious sleep
+descended upon my eyelids, and steeped the sense and memory of my griefs
+in forgetfulness. When I woke the day was far spent, and the light
+through the iron stainchers of the little window showed that the shadows
+of the twilight were darkening over the world. I raised myself on my
+elbow, and listened to the murmur of the multitude that I heard still
+lingering around the prison; and sometimes I thought that I discovered
+the voice of a friend.</p>
+
+<p>In that situation, and thinking of all those dear cares which filled my
+heart with tenderness and fear, and of the agonising grief of my little
+boy, the sound of whose cries still echoed in my bosom, I rose upon my
+knees and committed myself entirely to the custody of Him that can give
+the light of liberty to the captive even in the gloom of the dungeon.
+And when I had done so I again prepared to lay myself on the ground; but
+a rustle in the darkness of the room drew my attention, and in the same
+moment a kind hand was laid on mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah Lochrig," said I, for I knew my wife's gentle pressure,&mdash;"How is
+it that you are with me in this doleful place? How found you entrance,
+and I not hear you come in?"</p>
+
+<p>But before she had time to make any answer, another's fond arms were
+round my neck, and my affectionate young Michael wept upon my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Bear with me, courteous reader, when I think of those things,&mdash;that wife
+and that child, and all that I loved so fondly, are no more! But it is
+not meet that I should yet tell how my spirit was turned into iron and
+my heart into stone. Therefore will I still endeavour to relate, as with
+the equanimity of one that writes but of indifferent things, what
+further ensued during the thirteen days of my captivity.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah Lochrig, with the mildness of her benign voice, when we had
+mingled a few tears, told me that, after I went to Galloway with Martha
+Swinton, she had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> moved by our neighbours to come with our children
+into the town, as being safer for a lanerly woman and a family left
+without its head; and a providential thing it was that she had done so;
+for on the very night that my brother came off with the men of the
+parish to join us, as I have noted down in its proper place, a gang of
+dragoons plundered both his house and mine; and but that our treasures
+had been timeously removed, his family having also gone that day into
+Kilmarnock, the outrages might have been unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>We then had some household discourse, anent what was to be done in the
+event of things coming to the worst with me; and it was an admiration to
+hear with what constancy of reason, and the gifts of a supported
+judgment, that Gospel-hearted woman spoke of what she would do with her
+children, if it was the Lord's pleasure to honour me with the crown of
+martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said she, "I hae an assurance within that some great thing is yet
+in store for you, though the hope be clouded with a doubt that I'll no
+be spar't to see it, and therefore let us not despond at this time, but
+use the means that Providence may afford to effect your deliverance."</p>
+
+<p>While we were thus conversing together the doors of the prison-room were
+opened, and a man was let in who had a cruisie in the one hand and a
+basket in the other. He was lean and pale-faced, bordering on forty
+years, and of a melancholy complexion; his eye was quick, deep set, and
+a thought wild; his long hair was carefully combed smooth, and his
+apparel was singularly well composed for a person of his degree.</p>
+
+<p>Having set down the lamp on the floor, he came in a very reverential
+manner towards where I was sitting, with my right hand fettered to the
+ground, between Sarah Lochrig and Michael our son, and he said, with a
+remarkable and gentle simplicity of voice, in the Highland accent, that
+he had been requested by a righteous woman, Provost Reid's wife, to
+bring me a bottle of cordial wine and some little matters that I might
+require for bodily consolation.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that godly creature, Willie Sutherland, the hangman," said my
+wife. "Though Providence has dealt hardly with him, poor man, in this
+life, every body says he has gotten arles of a servitude in glory
+hereafter."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When he had placed the basket at the knees of Michael, he retired to a
+corner of the room, and stood in the shadow, with his face turned
+towards the wall, saying, "I'm concern't that it's no in my power to
+leave you to yoursels till Mungo Robeson come back, for he has lockit me
+in, but I'll no hearken to what ye may say;" and there was a modesty of
+manner in the way that he said this, which made me think it not possible
+he could be of so base a vocation as the public executioner, and I
+whispered my opinion of him to Sarah Lochrig. It was, however, the case;
+and verily in the life and conduct of that simple and pious man there
+was a manifestation of the truth, that to him whom the Lord favours it
+signifieth not whatsoever his earthly condition may be.</p>
+
+<p>After I had partaken with my wife and son of some refreshment which they
+had brought with them, and tasted of the wine that Provost Reid's lady
+had sent, we heard the bolts of the door drawn, and the clanking of
+keys, at which Willie Sutherland came forward from the corner where he
+had stood during the whole time, and lifting the lamp from the floor,
+and wetting his fore-finger with spittle as he did so, he trimmed the
+wick, and said, "The time's come when a' persons not prisoners must
+depart forth the tolbooth for the night; but, Master Gilhaize, be none
+discomforted thereat, your wife and your little one will come back in
+the morning, and your lot is a lot of pleasure; for is it not written in
+the book of Ecclesiastes, fourth and eighth, 'There is one alone, and
+there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother?' and such
+an one am I."</p>
+
+<p>The inner door was thrown open, and Mungo Robeson, looking in, said, "I
+wae to molest you, but ye'll hae to come out, Mrs Gilhaize." So that
+night we were separated; and when Sarah Lochrig was gone, I could not
+but offer thanksgiving that my lines had fallen in so pleasant a place,
+compared with the fate of my poor brother, suffering among strangers in
+the doleful prison of Glasgow, under the ravenous eyes of the prelate of
+that city, then scarcely less hungry for the bodies of the faithful and
+the true, than even the apostate James Sharp himself.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXII" id="CHAPTER_LXII"></a>CHAPTER LXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son
+were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in
+silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so
+refreshing, that after they were gone away I was enabled to consider my
+condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and
+anxiety wherewith I had previously been so greatly tossed. And calling
+to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which
+the cruel prelates were actuated, I saw, as it were written in a book,
+that for my part and conduct I was doomed to die. I felt not, however,
+the sense of guilt in my conscience; and I said to myself, that this
+sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of
+a family, I was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were
+possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first
+night of my <a name='TC_18'></a><ins title="Was imprisoment">imprisonment</ins>, I set myself to devise the means of working
+out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of
+hope.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of Willie Sutherland,
+instruments were given by which I might break through the walls of my
+prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I
+failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and
+told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won
+upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears
+of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an
+untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a
+leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low
+estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this temporal ignominy,
+He will, in His own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;&mdash;and
+though I may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it
+shall yet be seen of me, that I will abide by the integrity of my faith,
+and that, poor despised hangman as I am, I have a conscience that will
+not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine,
+or the King's judges decree."</p>
+
+<p>I was, as it were, rebuked by this proud religious de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>claration, and I
+gently inquired how it was that he came to fall into a condition so
+rejected of the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Deed, sir," said he, "my tale is easy told. My parents were very poor
+needful people in Strathnavar, and no able to keep me; and it happened
+that, being cast on the world, I became a herd, and year by year, having
+a desire to learn the Lowland tongue, I got in that way as far as
+Paisley, where I fell into extreme want and was almost famished; for the
+master that I served there being in debt, ran away, by which cause I
+lost my penny fee, and was obligated to beg my bread. At that time many
+worthy folk in the shire of Renfrew having suffered great molestation
+from witchcraft, divers malignant women, suspectit of that black art,
+were brought to judgment, and one of them being found guilty, was
+condemned to die. But no executioner being in the town, I was engaged,
+by the scriptural counsel of some honest men, who quoted to me the text,
+'Suffer not a witch to live,' to fulfil the sentence of the law. After
+that I bought a Question-book, having a mind to learn to read, that I
+might gain some knowledge of <span class="smcap">the Word</span>. Finding, however, the people of
+Paisley scorn at my company, so that none would give me a lesson, I came
+about five years since to Irvine, where the folk are more charitable;
+and here I act the part of an executioner when there is any malefactor
+to put to death. But my Bible has instructed me, that I ought not to
+execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be
+condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to
+execute you, for I see you are a Christian man."</p>
+
+<p>I was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a
+strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that I should make use
+of his honesty to help me out of prison. So I spoke still more kindly to
+him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time I had in all
+likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little
+intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate Christian friend
+would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not
+permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long
+and as late as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in
+his power, and that, as Mungo Robeson was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> a sober man, and aye wanted
+to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out
+my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night&mdash;"for," said he,
+piteously, "I hae nae family to care about."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, he so set himself, that Mungo Robeson consented to leave
+the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was
+so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and I were
+plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to
+her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her
+out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a
+habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility
+was omitted.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean
+of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget
+of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the
+head.</p>
+
+<p>This was all settled by the nineteenth of December; on the twenty-fourth
+of the month the Commissioners appointed to try the Covenanters in the
+prisons throughout the shire of Ayr were to open their court at Ayr, and
+I was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. On the
+night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, James
+Gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in
+going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a
+drink at the trough of the cross-well, opposite the tolbooth-stair foot.</p>
+
+<p>When the clock struck ten, the time appointed, I was ready dressed in my
+wife's apparel, having, in the course of the day, broken the chain of
+the shackle on my arm; and the door being opened by Willie Sutherland in
+the usual manner, I came out, holding a napkin to my face and weeping in
+sincerity very bitterly, with the thought of what might ensue to Sarah
+Lochrig, whom I left behind in my place.</p>
+
+<p>In reverence to my grief the honest man said nothing, but walked by my
+side till he had let me out at the outer stair-head door, where he
+parted from me, carrying the keys to Mungo Robeson's house, aneath the
+tolbooth, while I walked towards James Gottera's cart, and was presently
+in the inside of the hogget.</p>
+
+<p>With great presence of mind and a <a name='TC_19'></a><ins title="Was soldiery">soldierly</ins> self-possession,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> that
+venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began
+to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so
+to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old
+woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such
+profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the
+tolbooth. To the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new
+name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"&mdash;words which so kindled the
+worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to
+such a degree that a crowd collected, which made me tremble. For the
+people sided with the zealous carlan, and spoke fiercely, threatening to
+gar James Gottera ride the stang for his sinfulness in so traducing
+persecuted Christians. What might have come to pass is hard to say, had
+not Providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to
+cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the Sea-gate to take fire, by
+which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed James
+Gottera to pass without farther molestation out at the town-end port.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIII" id="CHAPTER_LXIII"></a>CHAPTER LXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>From the time of my evasion from the tolbooth, and during the
+controversy between James Gottera and the mob in the street, there was a
+whirlwind in my mind that made me incapable of reason. But when we had
+passed through the town-end port, and the cart had stopped at the
+minister's carse till I could throw off my female weeds and put on a
+sailor's garb, provided for the occasion, tongue nor pen cannot express
+the passion wherewith my yearning soul was then affected.</p>
+
+<p>The thought of having left Sarah Lochrig within bolts and bars, a ready
+victim to the tyranny which so thirsted for blood, lightened within me
+as the lightnings of heaven in a storm. I threw myself on the ground,&mdash;I
+grasped the earth,&mdash;I gathered myself as it were into a knot, and howled
+with horror at my own selfish baseness. I sprung up and cried, "I will
+save her yet!" and I would have run instanter to the town; but the
+honest man who was with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> me laid his grip firmly upon my arm, and said
+in a solemn manner,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This is no Christian conduct, Ringan Gilhaize; the Lord has not
+forgotten to be gracious."</p>
+
+<p>I glowered upon him, as he has often since told me, with a shudder, and
+cried, "But I hae left Sarah Lochrig in their hands, and, like a coward,
+run away to save mysel."</p>
+
+<p>"Compose yoursel, Ringan, and let us reason together," was his discreet
+reply. "It's vera true ye hae come away and left your wife as it were an
+hostage in the prison, but the persecutors and oppressors will respek
+the courageous affection of a loving wife, and Providence will put it in
+their hearts to spare her."</p>
+
+<p>"And if they do not, what shall I then be? and what's to become of my
+babies?&mdash;Lord, Lord, thou hast tried me beyond my strength!"</p>
+
+<p>And I again threw myself on the earth, and cried that it might open and
+swallow me; for, thinking but of myself, I was becoming unworthy to
+live.</p>
+
+<p>The considerate man stood over me in compassionate silence for a season,
+and allowed me to rave in my frenzy till I had exhausted myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ringan," said he at last, "ye were aye respekit as a thoughtful and
+discreet character, and I'll no blame you for this sorrow; but I entreat
+you to collek yersel, and think what's best to be done, for what avails
+in trouble the cry of alas, alas! or the shedding of many tears? Your
+wife is in prison, but for a fault that will wring compassion even frae
+the brazen heart of the remorseless James Sharp, and bring back the
+blood of humanity to the mansworn breast of Charles Stuart. But though
+it were not so, they daurna harm a hair of her head; for there are
+things, man, that the cruellest dread to do for fear o' the world, even
+when they hae lost the fear o' God. I count her far safer, Ringan, frae
+the rage of the persecutors, where she lies in prison aneath their bolts
+and bars, than were she free in her own house; for it obligates them to
+deal wi' her openly and afore mankind, whose goodwill the worst of
+princes and prelates are from an inward power forced to respek; whereas,
+were she sitting lanerly and defenceless, wi' naebody near but only your
+four helpless wee birds, there's no saying what the gleds might do.
+Therefore be counselled, my frien, and dinna gi'e yoursel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> up utterly to
+despair; but, like a man, for whom the Lord has already done great
+things, mak use of the means which, in this jeopardy of a' that's sae
+dear to you, he has so graciously put in your power."</p>
+
+<p>I felt myself in a measure heartened by this exhortation, and rising
+from the ground completed the change I had begun in my apparel; but I
+was still unable to speak,&mdash;which he observing, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hae ye considered the airt ye ought now to take, for it canna be that
+ye'll think of biding in this neighbourhood!"</p>
+
+<p>"No; not in this land," I exclaimed; "would that I might not even in
+this life!"</p>
+
+<p>"Whisht! Ringan Gilhaize, that's a sinful wish for a Christian," said a
+compassionate voice at my side, which made us both start; and on looking
+round we saw a man who, during the earnestest of our controversy, had
+approached close to us unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>It was that Gospel-teacher, my fellow-sufferer, Mr Witherspoon; and his
+sudden apparition at that time was a blessed accident, which did more to
+draw my thoughts from the anguish of my affections than any thing it was
+possible for James Gottera to have said.</p>
+
+<p>He was then travelling in the cloud of night to the town, having, after
+I parted from him in Lanerkshire, endured many hardships and perils, and
+his intent was to pass to his friends, in order to raise a trifle of
+money, to transport himself for a season into Ireland.</p>
+
+<p>But James Gottera, on hearing this, interposed his opinion, and said a
+rumour was abroad that in all ports and towns of embarkation orders were
+given to stay the departure of passengers, so that to a surety he would
+be taken if he attempted to quit the kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>By this time my mind had returned into something like a state of
+sobriety; so I told him how it had been concerted between me and Sarah
+Lochrig that I should pass over to the wee Cumbrae, there to wait till
+the destroyers had passed by; for it was thought not possible that such
+an inordinate thirst for blood, as had followed upon our discomfiture at
+Rullion-green, could be of a long continuance; and I beseeched him to
+come with me, telling him that I was provided with a small purse of
+money in case need should require it, but in the charitable hearts of
+the pious we might count on a richer store.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, we agreed to join our fortunes again; and having parted
+from James Gottera at Kilwinning, we went on our way together, and my
+heart was refreshed by the kind admonitions and sweet converse of my
+companion, though ever and anon the thought of my wife in prison, and
+our defenceless lambs, shot like a fiery arrow through my bosom. But man
+is by nature a sordid creature, and the piercing December blast, the
+threatening sky, and the frequent shower, soon knit up my thoughts with
+the care of my worthless self: maybe there was in that the tempering
+hand of a beneficent Providence; for when I have at divers times since
+considered how much the anguish of my inner sufferings exceeded the
+bodily molestation, I could not but confess, though it was with a
+humbled sense of my own selfishness, that it was well for me, in such a
+time, to be so respited from the upbraidings of my tortured affections.</p>
+
+<p>But, not to dwell on the specialities of my own feelings on that
+memorable night, let it suffice, that after walking some four or five
+miles towards Pencorse ferry, where we meant to pass to the island, I
+became less and less attentive to the edifying discourse of Mr
+Witherspoon, and his nature also yielding to the influences of the time,
+we travelled along the bleak and sandy shore between Ardrossan and
+Kilbride hill without the interchange of conversation. The wind came
+wild and gurly from the sea,&mdash;the waves broke heavily on the shore,&mdash;and
+the moon, swiftly wading the cloud, threw over the dreary scene a
+wandering and ghastly light. Often to the blast we were obligated to
+turn our backs, and, the rain being in our faces, we little heeded each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>In that state, so like sullenness, we had journeyed onward, it might be
+better than a mile, when, happening to observe something lying on the
+shore, as if it had been cast out by the sea, I cried, under a sense of
+fear,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Mr Witherspoon; what's that?"</p>
+
+<p>In the same moment he uttered a dreadful sound of horror, and, on
+looking round, I saw we were three in company.</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of Heaven," exclaimed Mr Witherspoon, "who and what are you
+that walk with us?"</p>
+
+<p>But instanter our fears and the mystery of the appearance were
+dispelled, for it was my brother.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIV" id="CHAPTER_LXIV"></a>CHAPTER LXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Weel, Ringan," said my brother, "we have met again in this world; it's
+a blessing I never looked for;" and he held out his two hands to take
+hold of mine, but the broken links of the shackle still round my wrist
+made him cry out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?&mdash;Whare hae ye come fra? But I need na inquire."</p>
+
+<p>"I have broken out of the tolbooth o' Irvine," said I, "and I am fleeing
+here with Mr Witherspoon."</p>
+
+<p>"I, too," replied my brother, mournfully, "hae escaped from the hands of
+the persecutors."</p>
+
+<p>We then entered into some conversation concerning what had happened to
+us respectively, from the fatal twenty-eighth of November, when our
+power and host were scattered on Rullion-green, wherein Mr Witherspoon,
+with me, rehearsed to him the accidents herein set forth, with the
+circumstantials of some things that befel the godly man after I left him
+with the corpse of the baby in his arms; but which being in some points
+less of an adventurous nature than had happened to myself, I shall be
+pardoned by the courteous reader for not enlarging upon it at greater
+length. I should, however, here note, that Mr Witherspoon was not so
+severely dealt with as I was; for though an outcast and a fugitive, yet
+he was not a prisoner; on the contrary, under the kindly cover of the
+Lady Auchterfardel, whose excellent and truly covenanted husband was a
+sore sufferer by the fines of the year 1662, he received great
+hospitality for the space of sixteen days, and was saved between two
+feather beds, on the top of which the laird's aged mother, a bed-rid
+woman, was laid, when some of Drummond's men searched the house on an
+information against him.</p>
+
+<p>But disconsolatory as it was to hear of such treatment of a
+Gospel-minister, though lightened by the reflection of the saintly
+constancy that was yet to be found in the land, and among persons too of
+the Lady of Auchterfardel's degree, and severe as the trials were, both
+of body and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> mind, which I had myself undergone, yet were they all as
+nothing compared to the hardships of my brother, a man of a temperate
+sobriety of manner, bearing all changes with a serene countenance and a
+placable mind, while feeling them in the uttermost depths of his
+capacious affections.</p>
+
+<p>"On the night of the battle," said he, "it would not be easy of me to
+tell which way I went, or what ensued, till I found myself with three
+destitute companions on the skirts of the town of Falkirk. By that time
+the morning was beginning to dawn, and we perceived not that we had
+approached so nigh unto any bigget land; as the day, however, broke, the
+steeple caught our eye, and we halted to consider what we ought to do.
+And as we were then standing in a field diffident to enter the town, a
+young woman came from a house that stands a little way off the road,
+close to Graham's dyke, driving a cow to grass with a long staff, which
+I the more remarked as such, because it was of the Indian cane, and
+virled with silver, and headed with ivory.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sirs,' said Menie Adams, for that was the damsel's name, 'I see what
+ye are; but I'll no speir; howsever, be ruled by me, and gang na near
+the town of Falkirk this morning, for atwish the hours of dark and dawn
+there has been a congregationing o' horses and men, and other sediments
+o' war, that I hae a notion there's owre meikle o' the King's power in
+the place for any Covenanter to enter in, save under the peril o'
+penalties. But come wi' me, and I'll go back wi' you, and in our
+hay-loft you may scog yoursels till the gloaming.'</p>
+
+<p>"Who could have thought," said my brother, "that in such discourse from
+a young woman, not passing four-and-twenty years of age, and of a
+pleasant aspect, any guilty stratagem of blood was hidden!"</p>
+
+<p>He and his friends never questioned her truth, but went with her, and
+she conducted them to her father's house, and lodged them in the
+hay-loft.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that Menie Adams was, however, at the time betrothed to the
+prelatic curate that had been laid upon the parish, and that, in
+consequence, aneath her courtesy, she had concealed a very treacherous
+and wicked intent. For no sooner had she got my brother and his three
+companions into the hay-loft, than she hies herself away to the town,
+and, in the hope of pleasing her prelatic lover, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>forms the captain of
+the troop there of the birds she had ensnared.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the false woman had thus committed the sin of perfidy, she
+went to the curate to brag how she had done a service to his cause; but
+he, though of the prelatic germination, being yet a person who had some
+reverence for truth and the gentle mercies of humanity, was so disturbed
+by her unwomanly disposition, that he bade her depart from his presence
+for ever, and ran with all possible speed to waken the poor men whom she
+had so betrayed.</p>
+
+<p>On his way to the house he saw a party of the soldiers, whom their
+officer, as in duty bound, was sending to seize the unsuspecting
+sleepers, and running on before them, he just got forward in time to
+give the alarm. My brother and one of them, Esau Wardrop, the wife's
+brother of James Gottera, who had been so instrumental in my evasion,
+were providentially enabled to get out and flee; but the other two were
+taken by the soldiers and carried to prison.</p>
+
+<p>The base conduct of that Menie Adams, as we some years after heard, did
+not go long unvisited by the displeasure of Heaven, for, some scent of
+her guilt taking wind, the whole town, in a sense, grew wud against her,
+and she was mobbet, and the wells pumped upon her by the enraged
+multitude; and she never recovered from the handling that she therein
+suffered.</p>
+
+<p>My brother and Esau Wardrop, on getting into the open fields, made all
+the speed they could, like the panting hart when pursued by the hunter,
+and distrusting the people of that part of the country, they travelled
+all day, not venturing to approach any reeking house. Towards gloaming,
+however, being hungry and faint, the craving of nature overcame their
+fears, and they went up to a house where they saw a light burning.</p>
+
+<p>As they approached the door they faltered a little in their resolution,
+for they heard the dissonance of riot and revelry within. Their need,
+however, was great, and the importunities of hunger would not be
+pacified, so they knocked, and the door was soon opened by a soldier,
+the party within being a horde of Dalziel's men, living at free quarters
+in the house of that excellent Christian and much-persecuted man, the
+Laird of Ringlewood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXV" id="CHAPTER_LXV"></a>CHAPTER LXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The moment that the man who came to the door saw, by the glimpse of the
+light, that both my brother and Esau Wardrop had swords at their sides,
+he uttered a cry of alarm, thinking the house was surrounded, at which
+all the riotous soldiers within flew to their arms, while the man who
+opened the door seized my brother by the throat and harl't him in. The
+panic, however, was but of short duration; for my brother soon expounded
+that they were two perishing men who came to surrender themselves; so
+the door was again opened and Esau Wardrop commanded to come in.</p>
+
+<p>"It's but a justice to say of those rampageous troopers," said my
+brother, "that, considering us as prisoners of war, they were free and
+kind enough, though they mocked at our cause, and derided the equipage
+of our warfare. But it was a humiliating sight to see in what manner
+they deported themselves towards the unfortunate family."</p>
+
+<p>Ringlewood himself, who had remonstrated against their insolence to his
+aged leddy, they had tied in his arm-chair and placed at the head of his
+own table, round which they sat carousing, and singing the roister
+ribaldry of camp songs. At first, when my brother was taken into this
+scene of military domination, he did not observe the laird; for in the
+uproar of the alarm the candles had been overset and broken, but new
+ones being sworn for and stuck into the necks of the bottles of the wine
+they were lavishly drinking, he discovered him lying as it were asleep
+where he sat, with his head averted, and his eyes shut on the iniquity
+of the scene of oppression with which he was oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>Some touch of contrition had led one of the soldiers to take the aged
+matron under his care; and on his intercession she was not placed at the
+table, but allowed to sit in a corner, where she mourned in silence,
+with her hands clasped together, and her head bent down over them upon
+her breast. The laird's grandson and heir, a stripling of some fifteen
+years or so, was obligated to be page and butler, for all the rest of
+the house had taken to the hills at the approach of the troopers.</p>
+
+<p>As the drinking continued the riot increased, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
+<a name='TC_20'></a><ins title="riotors">rioters</ins> growing
+heated with their drink, they began to quarrel: fierce words brought
+angry answers, and threats were followed by blows. Then there was an
+interposition, and a shaking of hands, and a pledging of renewed
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>But still the demon of the drink continued to grow stronger and stronger
+in their kindling blood, and the tumult was made perfect by one of the
+men, in the capering of his inebriety, rising from his seat, and taking
+the old leddy by the toupie to raise her head as he rudely placed his
+foul cup to her lips. This called up the ire of the fellow who had sworn
+to protect her, and he, not less intoxicated than the insulter, came
+staggering to defend her; a scuffle ensued, the insulter was cast with a
+swing away, and falling against the laird, who still remained as it were
+asleep, with his head on his shoulder, and his eyes shut, he overthrew
+the chair in which the old gentleman sat fastened, and they both fell to
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier, frantic with wine and rage, was soon, like a tiger, on his
+adversary; the rest rose to separate them. Some took one side, some
+another; bottles were seized for weapons, and the table was overthrown
+in the hurricane. Their sergeant, who was as drunk as the worst of them,
+tried in vain to call them into order, but they heeded not his call,
+which so enraged him, that he swore they should shift their quarters,
+and with that seizing a burning brand from the chumla, he ran into a
+bedchamber that opened from the room where the riot was raging, and set
+fire to the curtains.</p>
+
+<p>My brother seeing the flames rising, and that the infuriated war-wolves
+thought only of themselves, ran to extricate Ringlewood from the cords
+with which he was tied; and calling to the leddy and her grandson to
+quit the burning house, every one was soon out of danger from the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The sense of the soldiers were not so overborne by their drink as to
+prevent them from seeing the dreadful extent of their outrage; but
+instead of trying to extinguish the flames, they marched away to seek
+quarters in some other place, cursing the sergeant for having so
+unhoused them in such a night.</p>
+
+<p>At first they thought of carrying my brother and Esau Wardrop with them
+as prisoners; but one of them said it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> would be as well to give the wyte
+of the burning, at headquarters, to the rebels; so they left them
+behind.</p>
+
+<p>Esau Wardrop, with the young laird and my grandfather, seeing it was in
+vain to stop the progress of the fire, did all that in them lay to
+rescue some of the furniture, while poor old Ringlewood and his aged and
+gentle lady, being both too infirm to lend any help, stood on the green,
+and saw the devouring element pass from room to room, till their ancient
+dwelling was utterly destroyed. Fortunately, however, the air was calm,
+and the out-houses escaping the ruinous contagion of the flames, there
+was still a beild left in the barn to which they could retire.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the light of the burning spread over the country; but
+the people knowing that soldiers were quartered in Ringlewood, stood
+aloof in the dread of firearms, thinking the conflagration might be
+caused by some contest of war; so that the mansion of a gentleman much
+beloved of all his neighbours was allowed to burn to the ground before
+their eyes, without any one venturing to come to help him, to so great a
+degree had distrust and the outrages of military riot at that epoch
+altered the hearts of men.</p>
+
+<p>My brother and Esau Wardrop staid with Ringlewood till the morning, and
+had, for the space of three or four hours, a restoring sleep. Fain would
+they have remained longer there, but the threat of the soldiers to
+accuse them as the incendiaries made Ringlewood urge them to depart;
+saying, that maybe a time would come when it would be in his power to
+thank them for their help in that dreadful night. But he was not long
+exposed to many sufferings; for the leddy on the day following, as in
+after-time we heard, was seized with her dead-ill, and departed this
+life in the course of three days; and the laird also, in less than a
+month, was laid in the kirk-yard, with his ancestors, by her side.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVI" id="CHAPTER_LXVI"></a>CHAPTER LXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>After leaving Ringlewood, the two fugitives, by divers journeyings and
+sore passages through moss and moor,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> crossed the Balloch ferry, and
+coming down the north side of the Clyde frith to Ardmore, they boated
+across to Greenock, where, in little more than an hour after their
+arrival, they were taken in Euphan Blair's public in Cartsdyke, and the
+same night marched off to Glasgow; of all which I have already given
+intimation in recording my own trials at Inverkip.</p>
+
+<p>But in that march, as my brother and Esau Wardrop were passing with
+their guard at the Inchinnan ferry, the soldiers heedlessly laying their
+firelocks all in a heap in the boat, the thought came into my brother's
+head, that maybe it might be turned to an advantage if he was to spoil
+the powder in the firelocks; so, as they were sitting in the boat, he,
+with seeming innocence, drew his hand several times through the water,
+and in lifting it took care to drop and sprinkle the powder-pans of the
+firelocks, in so much, that by the time they were ferried to the Renfrew
+side, they were spoiled for immediate use.</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I do," said he softly to Esau Wardrop, as they were stepping out,
+and with that he feigned some small expedient for tarrying in the boat,
+while the soldiers, taking their arms, leapt on shore. The ferryman also
+was out before them; and my brother seeing this, took up an oar,
+seemingly to help him to step out; but pretending at the time to
+stumble, he caught hold of Esau's shoulder, and pushing with, the oar,
+shoved off the boat in such a manner, that the rope was pulled out of
+the ferryman's hand, who was in a great consternation. The soldiers,
+however, laughed at seeing how the river's current was carrying away
+their prisoners; for my brother was in no hurry to make use of the oar
+to pull the boat back; on the contrary he pushed her farther and farther
+into the river, until one of the guards, beginning to suspect some
+stratagem, levelled his firelock, and threatened to shoot. Whereupon my
+brother and Esau quickened their exertions, and soon reached the
+opposite side of the river, while the soldiers were banning and tearing
+with rage to be so outwitted, and their firelocks rendered useless for
+the time.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the fugitives were within wadeable reach of the bank, they
+jumpit out of the boat and ran, and were not long within the scope of
+their adversaries' fire.</p>
+
+<p>By this time the sun was far in the west, and they knew little of the
+country about where they were; but, before em<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>barking, the ferryman had
+pointed out to them the abbey towers of Paisley, and they knew that, for
+a long period, many of the humane inhabitants of that town had been
+among the faithfullest of Scottishmen to the cause of the Kirk and
+Covenant; and therefore they thought that, under the distraction of
+their circumstances maybe it would be their wisest course to direct
+their steps in the dusk of evening towards the town, and they threw
+aside their arms, that they might pass as simple wayfaring men.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, having loitered in the way thither, they reached Paisley
+about the heel of the twilight, and searching their way into the heart
+of the town, they found a respectable public near the Cross, into which
+they entered, and ordered <a name='TC_21'></a><ins title="come">some</ins> consideration of vivers for supper, just
+as if they had been on market business. In so doing nothing particular
+was remarked of them; and my brother, by way of an entertainment before
+bed-time, told his companion of my grandfather's adventure in Paisley,
+the circumstantials whereof are already written in this book; drawing
+out of what had come to pass with him cheering aspirations of happier
+days for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus speaking, one of the town-council, Deacon Fulton,
+came in to have a cap and a crack with any stranger that might be in the
+house. This deacon was a man who well represented and was a good swatch
+of the plain honesty and strict principles which have long governed
+within that ancient borough of regality. He seeing them, and being
+withal a man of shrewd discernment, eyed them very sharply, and maybe
+guessing what they were and where they had come from entered into a
+discreet conversation with them anent the troubles of the time. In this
+he showed the pawkrie, that so well becomes those who sit in council,
+with a spicerie of that wholesome virtue and friendly sympathy of which
+all the poor fugitives from the Pentland raid stood in so great need.
+For, without pretending to jealouse any thing of what they were, he
+spoke of that business as the crack of the day, and told them of many of
+the afflicting things which had been perpetrated after the dispersion of
+the Covenanters, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's a thing to be deplored in all time coming, that the poor,
+misguided folk, concern't in that rash wark, didna rather take refuge in
+the towns, and amang their brethren and fellow-subjects, than flee to
+the hills, where they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> hunted down wi' dog and gun, as beasts o' an
+ill kind. Really every body's wae for their folly; though to be sure, in
+a government sense, their fault's past pardon. It's no indeed a thing o'
+toleration, that subjects are to rise against rulers."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said my brother, "unless rulers fall against subjects."</p>
+
+<p>The worthy magistrate looked a thought seriously at him; no in reproof
+for what he had said, or might say, but in an admonitory manner,
+saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're owre douce a like man, I think, to hae been either art or part in
+this headstrong Reformation, unless ye had some great cause to provoke
+you; and I doubt na ye hae discretion enough no to contest without need
+points o' doctrine; at least for me, I'm laith to enter on ony sort o'
+polemtic, for it's a Gude's truth, I'm nae deacon at it."</p>
+
+<p>My brother discerning by his manner that he saw through them, would have
+refrain't at the time from further discourse; but Esau Wardrop was,
+though a man of few words, yet of such austerity of faith, that he could
+not abide to have it thought he was in any time or place afraid for
+himself to bear his testimony, even when manifestly uncalled on to do;
+so he here broke in upon the considerate and worthy counsellor, and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations,
+conditions, and circumstances, to uphold the cause."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> the poor folk had made themselves rebels, was, to
+say the least o't, a weak conceit."</p>
+
+<p>"We were not rebels," cried Esau Wardrop.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;and surely actions are
+neither thoughts nor consciences,&mdash;do ye mean to say that the subject's
+no bound to obey such royal ordinances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, if the acts are in themselves harmless, and trench not upon any
+man's rights of property and person."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 God. Evil
+counselling caused them, and evil counselling punishes them till the
+punishment can be no longer endured."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVII" id="CHAPTER_LXVII"></a>CHAPTER LXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 passed as he could have wished.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+compassionately 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 spunk 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' prone to do
+evil."</p>
+
+<p>By this sort of petitionary 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"it looks into my yard.
+Heh! but it's weel mindet, the bar on my back-yett's in the want o'
+reparation&mdash;I maun see til't the morn."</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 rehearse.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, passing 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 pass, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name='TC_22'></a><ins title="Was Cumraes">Cumbrae</ins>, by James Plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXVIII" id="CHAPTER_LXVIII"></a>CHAPTER LXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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;&mdash;so that all in our condition were heartened
+to return to their homes.</p>
+
+<p>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;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>But the lown of that time was as a pet day in winter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 incumbent, 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
+space of several years, to reside at Quharist, and to preach on the
+summer Sundays from the window in the gable.</p>
+
+<p>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 pronouncing 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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> Lauderdale was endowed with
+the power to persecute and domineer.</p>
+
+<p>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 bloody 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,&mdash;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 God in
+the peacefulness of the Gospel, the whole country was treated by the
+Duke of Lauderdale as in a state of revolt.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> nothing but peace and good-will. When, since the burning
+days of Dioclesian, the Roman Emperor,&mdash;when, since the massacre 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.&mdash;Not revenge! No; let
+the word be here&mdash;justice.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXIX" id="CHAPTER_LXIX"></a>CHAPTER LXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 acknowledg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>ment 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I opened the Book, and would have read a portion, but the passage 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.</p>
+
+<p>Having returned into the house, and sent Michael to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Are they all in life?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The time of weeping, Michael," said I, "is past, and the time of
+warring will soon come. It is not in man to bear always aggression, nor
+can it be required of him ever to endure contumely."</p>
+
+<p>"What has befallen Bell?" said his mother to him; but instead of making
+her any answer, he uttered a dreadful sound, like the howl of madness,
+and hastily quitted the house.</p>
+
+<p>Sarah Lochrig, who was a woman of a serene reason, and mild and gracious
+in her nature, looked at me with a silent sadness, that told all the
+anguish with which the horror that she guessed had darted into her soul;
+and then, with an energy that I never saw in her before, folded her own
+two daughters to her bosom, as if she was in terror for them, and bathed
+their necks with tears.</p>
+
+<p>While we were in this state my brother himself came in. He was now a man
+well stricken in years, but of a hale appearance, and usually of an open
+and manly countenance. Nor on this occasion did he appear greatly
+altered; but there was a fire in his eye, and a severity in his aspect,
+such as I'd never seen before, yet withal a fortitude that showed how
+strong the self-possession was, which kept the tempest within him from
+breaking out in word or gesture.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ringan," said he, "we have met with a misfortune. It's the will of
+Providence, and we maun bear it. But surely in the anger that is caused
+by provocation, our Creator tells us to resent. From this hour, all
+obligation, obedience, allegiance, all whatsoever that as a subject I
+did owe to Charles Stuart is at an end. I am his foe; and the Lord put
+strength into my arm to revenge the ruin of my bairn!"</p>
+
+<p>There was in the utterance of these words a solemnity at first
+terrifying to hear; but his voice in the last clause of the sentence
+faltered, and he took off his bonnet and held it over his face, and wept
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>I could make him no answer for some time; but I took hold of his hand,
+and when he had a little mastered his grief, I said, "Brother, we are
+children of the same parents, and the wrongs of one are the wrongs of
+both. But let us not be hasty."</p>
+
+<p>He took the bonnet from his face, and looked at me sternly for a little
+while, and then he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ringan Gilhaize, till you have felt what I feel, you ne'er can know
+that the speed o' lightning is slow to the wishes and the will of
+revenge."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment his daughter Bell was brought in, led by my son Michael.
+Her father, at the sight of her, clasped his hands wildly above his
+head, and rushed out of the house. My wife went towards her, but stopped
+and fell back into my arms at the sight of her demented look. My
+daughters gazed, and held up their trembling hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak to her," said Michael to his sisters; "she'll maybe heed you;"
+and he added, "Bell, it's Mary and Peggy," and dropping her hand, he
+went to lead Mary to her, while she stood like a statue on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Bell," said I, as I moved myself gently from the arms of my
+afflicted wife, "come wi' me to the open air;" and I took her by the
+hand which poor Michael had dropped, and led her out to the green, but
+still she looked the same demented creature.</p>
+
+<p>Her father, who had by this time again overcome his distress, seeing us
+on the green, came towards us, while my wife and daughters also came
+out; but Michael could no longer endure the sight of the rifled rose
+that he had cherished for the ornament of his bosom, and he remained to
+hide his grief in the house.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Her mind's gone, Ringan," said my brother, "and she'll ne'er be better
+in this world!" Nor was she; but she lived many months after, and in all
+the time never shed a tear, nor breathed a sigh, nor spoke a word; where
+she was led she went; where she was left, she stood. At last she became
+so weak that she could not stand; and one day, as I was sitting at her
+bedside, I observed that she lay unusually still, and touching her hand,
+found that all her sorrows were over.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXX" id="CHAPTER_LXX"></a>CHAPTER LXX</h2>
+
+
+<p>From the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom held
+any communion with me; but I observed that with Michael he had much
+business, and though I asked no questions, I needed not to be told that
+there was a judgment and a doom in what they did. I was therefore
+fearful that some rash step would be taken at the burial of Bell; for it
+was understood that all the neighbours, far and near, intended to be
+present to testify their pity for her fate. So I spoke to Mr Witherspoon
+concerning my fears, and by his exhortations the body was borne to the
+kirk-yard in a solemn and peaceable manner.</p>
+
+<p>But just as the coffin was laid in the grave, and before a spadeful of
+earth was thrown, a boy came running crying, "Sharp's kill't!&mdash;the
+apostate's dead!" which made every one turn round and pause; and while
+we were thus standing, a horseman came riding by, who confirmed the
+tidings, that a band of men whom his persecutions had made desperate,
+had executed justice on the apostate as he was travelling in his
+carriage with his daughter on Magus-moor. While the stranger was telling
+the news, the corpse lay in the grave unburied; and dreadful to tell!
+when he had made an end of his tale, there was a shout of joy and
+exultation set up by all present, except by Michael and my brother. They
+stood unmoved, and I thought&mdash;do I them any wrong?&mdash;that they looked
+disconsolate and disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>But though the judgment on James Sharp was a cause of satisfaction to
+all covenanted hearts, many were not yet so torn by the persecution as
+entirely to applaud the deed. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> shall not therefore enter upon the
+particulars of what was done anent those who dealt his doom, for they
+were not of our neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>The crime, however, of listening peacefully in the fields to the truths
+of the Gospel became, in the sight of the persecutors, every day more
+and more heinous, and they gave themselves up to the conscience-soothing
+tyranny of legal ordinances, as if the enactment and execution of bloody
+laws, contrary to those of God, and against the unoffending privileges
+of our nature, were not wickedness of as dark a stain as the murderer's
+use of his secret knife. Edict and proclamation against field-preachings
+and conventicles came following each other, and the latest was the
+fiercest and fellest of all which had preceded. But the cause of truth,
+and the right of communion with the Lord, was not to be given up: "It is
+not for glory," we said in the words of those brave Scottish barons that
+redeemed, with King Robert the Bruce, their native land from the
+thraldom of the English Edward, "nor is it for riches, neither is it for
+honour, but it is for liberty alone we contend, which no true man will
+lose but with his life;" and therefore it was that we would not yield
+obedience to the tyranny, which was revived with new strength by the
+death of James Sharp, in revenge for his doom, but sought, in despite of
+decrees and statutes, to hear <span class="smcap">the Word</span> where we believed it was best
+spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The laws of God, which are above all human authority, require that we
+should worship him in truth and in holiness, and we resolved to do so to
+the uttermost, and prepared ourselves with arms to resist whoever might
+be sent to molest us in the performance of that the greatest duty. But
+in so exercising the divine right of resistance, we were not called upon
+to harm those whom we knew to be our adversaries. Belting ourselves for
+defence, not for war, we went singly to our places of secret meeting in
+the glens and on the moors, and when the holy exercise was done, we
+returned to our homes as peacefully as we went thither.</p>
+
+<p>Many a time I have since thought, that surely in no other age or land
+was ever such a solemn celebration of the Sabbath as in those days. The
+very dangers with which we were environed exalted the devout heart;
+verily it was a grand sight to see the fearless religious man moving
+from his house in the grey of the morning, with the Bible in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> hand,
+and his sword for a staff, walking towards the hills for many a weary
+mile, hoping the preacher would be there, and praying as he went that
+there might be no molestation.</p>
+
+<p>Often and often on those occasions has the Lord been pleased to shelter
+his worshippers from their persecutors by covering them with the mantle
+of His tempest; and many a time at the dead of night, when the winds
+were soughing around, and the moon was bowling through the clouds, we
+have stood on the heath of the hills and the sound of our psalms has
+been mingled with the roaring of the gathering waters.</p>
+
+<p>The calamities which drove us thus to worship in the wilderness, and
+amidst the storm, rose to their full tide on the back of the death of
+the arch-apostate James Sharp; for all the religious people in the realm
+were in a manner regarded by the government as participators in the
+method of his punishment. And Claverhouse, whom I have now to speak of,
+got that special commission on which he rode so wickedly, to put to the
+sword whomsoever he found with arms at any preaching in the fields; so
+that we had no choice in seeking to obtain the consolations of religion,
+which we then stood so much in need of, but to congregate in such
+numbers as would deter the soldiers from venturing to attack us. This it
+was which caused the second rising, and led to the fatal day of
+Bothwell-brigg, whereof it is needful that I should particularly speak,
+not only on account of the great stress that was thereon laid by the
+persecutors, in making out of it a method of fiery ordeal to afflict the
+covenanted, but also because it was the overflowing fountain-head of the
+deluge that made me desolate. And herein, courteous reader, should aught
+of a fiercer feeling than belongs to the sacred sternness of truth and
+justice escape from my historical pen, thou wilt surely pardon the same,
+if there be any of the gracious ruth of Christian gentleness in thy
+bosom; for now I have to tell of things that have made the annals of the
+land as red as crimson and filled my house with the blackness of ashes
+and universal death.</p>
+
+<p>For a long period there had been, from the causes and circumstances
+premised, sore difficulties in the assembling of congregations, and the
+sacrament of the Supper had not been dispensed in many parts of the
+shire of Ayr from the time of the Highland host; so that there was a
+great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> longing in the hearts of the covenanted to partake once again of
+that holy refreshment; and shortly after the seed-time it began to be
+concerted, that early in the summer a day should be set apart, and a
+place fixed for the celebration of the same. About the time of the
+interment of my brother's desolated daughter, and the judgment of the
+death executed on James Sharp, it was settled that the moors of
+Loudon-hill should be the place of meeting, and that the first Sabbath
+of June should be the day. But what ministers would be there was not
+settled; for who could tell which, in those times, would be spared from
+prison?</p>
+
+<p>It was, however, forethought and foreseen, that the assemblage of
+communicants would be very considerable; for, in order that there might
+be the less risk of molestation, a wish that it should be so was put
+forth among us, to the end that the King's forces might swither to
+disperse us. Accordingly, with my disconsolate brother and son, I went
+to be present at that congregation, and we carried our arms with us, as
+we were then in the habit of doing on all occasions of public testimony
+by worship.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime a rent had been made in the Covenant, partly by the
+over-zeal of certain young preachers, who, not feeling, as we did, that
+the duty of presbyterians went no farther than defence and resistance,
+strove, with all the pith of an effectual eloquence, to exasperate the
+minds of their hearers into hostility against those in authority; and it
+happened that several of those who had executed the judgment on James
+Sharp, seeing no hope of pardon for what they had done, leagued
+themselves with this party, in the hope of thereby making head against
+their pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>I have been the more strict in setting down these circumstantials,
+because in the bloody afterings of that meeting they were altogether
+lost sight of; and also because the implacable rage with which
+Claverhouse persecuted the Covenanters has been extenuated by some
+discreet historians, on the plea of his being an honourable officer,
+deduced from his soldierly worth elsewhere; whereas the truth is, that
+his cruelties in the shire of Ayr, and other of our western parts, were
+less the fruit of his instructions, wide and severe as they were, than
+of his own mortified vanity and malignant revenge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXI" id="CHAPTER_LXXI"></a>CHAPTER LXXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was in the cool of the evening, on Saturday, the last day of May,
+when my brother came over to my house, where, with Michael, I had
+prepared myself to go with him to Loudon-hill. Our intent was to walk
+that night to Kilmarnock, and abide till the morning with our brother
+Jacob's widow, not having seen her for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>We had in the course of that day heard something of the publication of
+"The Declaration and Testimony," which, through the vehemence of the
+preachers before spoken of, had been rashly counselled at Ruglen, the
+twenty-ninth of the month; but there was no particulars, and what we did
+hear was like, as all such things are, greatly magnified beyond the
+truth. We, however, were grieved by the tidings; for we feared some
+cause of tribulation would be thereby engendered detrimental to the
+religious purposes of our journey.</p>
+
+<p>This sentiment pressing heavily on our hearts, we parted from my family
+with many misgivings, and the bodements of further sorrows. But the
+outward expression of what we all felt was the less remarkable, on
+account of what so lately had before happened in my brother's house. Nor
+indeed did I think at the time, that the foretaste of what was ordained
+so speedily to come to a head was at all so lively in his spirit, or
+that of my son, as it was in mine, till, in passing over the top of the
+Gowan-brae, he looked round on the lands of Quharist, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I care nae, Ringan, if I ne'er come back; for though we hae lang dwelt
+in affection together yon'er, thae that were most precious to me are now
+both aneath the sod,"&mdash;alluding to his wife who had been several years
+dead,&mdash;and poor Bell, that lovely rose which the ruthless spoiler had so
+trampled into the earth.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," said Michael, "as if I were going to a foreign land, there is
+sic a farewell sadness upon me."</p>
+
+<p>But we strove to overcome this, and walked leisurely on the high road
+towards Kilmarnock, trying to discourse of indifferent things; and as
+the gloaming faded, and the night began to look forth, from her
+watch-tower in the heavens, with all her eyes of beautiful light, we
+communed of the friends that we trusted were in glory, and marvelled if
+it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> could be that they saw us after death, or ever revisited the persons
+and the scenes that they loved in life. Rebellion or treason, or any
+sense of thoughts and things that were not holy, had no portion in our
+conversation: we were going to celebrate the redemption of fallen man;
+and we were mourning for friends no more; our discourse was of eternal
+things, and the mysteries of the stars and the lights of that world
+which is above the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>When we reached Kilmarnock we found that Jacob's widow had, with several
+other godly women, set out towards the place of meeting, to sojourn with
+a relation that night, in order that they might be the abler to gather
+the manna of the word in the morning. We therefore resolved not to halt
+there, but to go forward to the appointed place, and rest upon the spot.
+This accordingly doing, we came to the eastern side of Loudon-hill, the
+trysted place, shortly after the first scad of the dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Many were there before us, both men and women and little children, and
+horses intermingled, some slumbering, and some communing with one
+another; and as the morning brightened, it was a hallowed sight to
+behold from that rising ground the blameless persecuted coming with
+sedate steps to worship their Maker on the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mr Thomas Douglas, who was to open the action, arrived
+about the rising of the sun with several other ministers, and behind
+them four aged men belonging to Strathaven bearing the elements.</p>
+
+<p>A pious lady, whose name I never heard, owing to what ensued, spread
+with her own hands a damask tablecloth on the ground, and the bread and
+wine were placed upon it with more reverence than ever was in kirk.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Douglas having mounted upon a rock nigh to where this was done, was
+about to give out the psalm, when we observed several country lads, that
+were stationed as watchers afar off, coming with great haste in; and
+they brought word, that Claverhouse and his dragoons were coming to
+disperse us, bringing with them the Reverend Mr King, a preacher of the
+gospel at Hamilton, and others that they had made prisoners, tied with
+cords two and two.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings for a moment caused panic and consternation; but as the men
+were armed, and resolved to resist, it was thought, in consideration of
+the women and chil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>dren, that we ought to go forward, and prevent the
+adversaries from advancing. Accordingly, to the number of forty
+horsemen, and maybe near to two hundred foot, we drew ourselves apart
+from the congregation, and marched to meet Claverhouse, thinking,
+perhaps, on seeing us so numerous, that he would not come on,&mdash;while Mr
+Douglas proceeded with the worship, the piety of none with him being
+abated by this grievous visitation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr William Clelland, with Mr Hamilton, who had come with Mr Douglas,
+were our leaders, and we met Claverhouse on the moor of Drumclog.</p>
+
+<p>The dragoons were the first to halt, and Claverhouse, having ordered his
+prisoners to be drawn aside, was the first who gave the word to fire.
+This was without any parley or request to know whether we came with
+hostile intent or no. Clelland, on seeing the dragoons make ready, cried
+to us all to den ourselves among the heather; by which forethought the
+shot flew harmless. Then we started up, and every one, with the best aim
+he could, fired at the dragoons as they were loading their carabines.
+Several men and horses were killed, and many wounded. Claverhouse seeing
+this, commanded his men to charge upon us; but the ground was rough, the
+heather deep, and the moss broken where peats had been dug, and the
+horses floundered, and several threw their riders, and fell themselves.</p>
+
+<p>We had now loaded again, and the second fire was more deadly than the
+first. Our horsemen also seeing how the dragoons were scattered, fell in
+the confusion as it were man for man upon them. Claverhouse raged and
+commanded, but no one now could or would obey. In that extremity his
+horse was killed, and, being thrown down, I ran forward to seize him, if
+I could, prisoner; but he still held his sword in his hand, and rising
+as I came up, used it manfully, and with one stroke almost hewed my
+right arm from my shoulder. As he fled I attempted for a moment to
+follow, but staggered and fell. He looked back as he escaped, and I
+cried&mdash;"Blood for blood;" and it has been so, as I shall hereafter in
+the sequel relate.</p>
+
+<p>When the day was won, we found we numbered among the slain on the side
+of the vanquished nearly twenty of the dragoons: on our side we lost but
+one man, John<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> Morton&mdash;a ripe saint; but several were wounded; and John
+Weir and William Daniel died of their wounds. Such was the day of
+Drumclog.</p>
+
+<p>Being wounded, I was carried to a neighbouring farm, attended by my
+brother and son, and there put upon a cart and sent home to Quharist, as
+it was thought I would be best attended there. They then returned to the
+rest of the host, who, seeing themselves thus brought into open war,
+resolved forthwith to proceed to Glasgow, and to raise again the banner
+of the Covenant.</p>
+
+<p>But Claverhouse had fled thither, burning with the thought of being so
+shorn in his military pride by raw and undisciplined countrymen, whom,
+if we had been bred soldiers, maybe he would have honoured, but being
+what we were, though our honour was the greater, he hated us with the
+deadly aversion that is begotten of vanity chastised; for that it was
+which incited him to ravage the West Country with such remorselessness,
+and which, when our men were next day repulsed at Glasgow with the loss
+of lives, made him hinder the removal of the bodies from the streets,
+till it was said the butchers' dogs began to prey upon them.</p>
+
+<p>But not to insist on matters of hearsay, nor to dwell at any greater
+length on those afflicting events, I must refer the courteous reader to
+the history of the times for what followed, it being enough for me to
+state here that as soon as the news spread of the battle and the
+victory, the persecuted ran flocking in from all quarters, by which the
+rope of sand, that the Lord permitted Monmouth to break at
+Bothwell-brigg, was soon formed. My brother and my son were both there,
+and there my gallant Michael lies. My brother, then verging on
+threescore, being among the prisoners, was, after sore sufferings in the
+Greyfriars church-yard of Edinburgh, sent on board a vessel as a
+bondsman to the plantations in America. His wrongs, however, were
+happily soon over; for the ship in which he was embarked perished among
+the Orkney islands, and he, with two hundred other sufferers, received
+the crown of martyrdom from the waves.</p>
+
+<p>O Charles Stuart, king of Scotland! and thou, James Sharp!&mdash;false and
+cruel men&mdash;But ye are called to your account; and what avails it now to
+the childless father to rail upon your memory?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXII" id="CHAPTER_LXXII"></a>CHAPTER LXXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale of
+my own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, to
+note here a very singular example of the spirit of piety which reigned
+in the hearts of the Covenanters, especially as I shall have to show
+that such was the cruel and implacable nature of the Persecution, that
+time had not its wonted influence to soften in any degree its rigour.
+Thirteen years had passed from the time of the Pentland raid; and surely
+the manner in which the country had suffered for that rising might, in
+so long a course of years, have subdued the animosity with which we were
+pursued; especially, as during the Earl of Tweeddale's administration
+the bonds of peace had been accepted. But Lauderdale, now at the head of
+the councils, was rapacious for money; and therefore all offences, if I
+may employ that courtly term, by which our endeavours to taste of the
+truth were designated,&mdash;all old offences, as I was saying, were renewed
+against us as recent crimes, and an innocent charity to the remains of
+those who had suffered for the Pentland raid was made a reason, after
+the battle of Bothwell-brigg, to revive the persecution of those who had
+been out in that affair.</p>
+
+<p>The matter particularly referred to arose out of the following
+circumstances:</p>
+
+<p>The number of honest and pious men who were executed in different
+places, and who had their heads and their right hands with which they
+signed the Covenant at Lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of towns
+and over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great. And it was very
+grievous, and a sore thing to the friends and acquaintances of those
+martyrs, when they went to Glasgow, or Kilmarnock, or Irvine, or Ayr, on
+their farm business, to tryst or market, to see the remains of persons,
+whom they so loved and respected in life, bleaching in the winds and the
+rains of Heaven. It was, indeed, a matter of great heart-sadness, to
+behold such animosity carried beyond the grave; and few they were who
+could withstand the sight of the orphans that came thither, pointing out
+to one another their fathers' bones, and weeping as they did so, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+vowing, with an innocent indignation, that they would avenge their
+martyrdom.</p>
+
+<p>Well do I remember the great sorrow that arose one market-day in Irvine,
+some five or six years after the Pentland raid, when Mrs M'Coul came,
+with her four weans and her aged gudemother, to look at the relics of
+her husband, who was martyred for his part in that rising. The bones
+were standing, with those of another martyr of that time, on a shelf
+which had been put up for the purpose, below the first wicket-hole in
+the steeple, just above the door. The two women were very decent in
+their apparel, rather more so than the common country wives. The
+gudemother, in particular, had a cast of gentility both in her look and
+garments; and I have heard the cause of it expounded, from her having
+been the daughter of one of the Reformation preachers in the
+Gospel-spreading epoch of John Knox. She had a crimson satin plaid over
+her head, and she wore a black silk apron and a grey camlet gown. With
+the one hand she held the plaid close to her neck, and the youngest
+child, a lassie of seven years or so, had hold of her by the fore-finger
+of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs M'Coul was more of a robust fabric, and she was without any plaid,
+soberly dressed in the weeds of a widow, with a clean cambric
+handkerchief very snodly prined over her breast. The children were
+likewise beinly apparelled, and the two sons were buirdly and brave
+laddies, the one about nine, and the other maybe eleven years old.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that this had been the first of their pilgrimages of
+sorrow; for they stood some time in a row at the foot of the tolbooth
+stair, looking up at the remains, and wondering, with tears in their
+eyes, which were those they had come to see.</p>
+
+<p>Their appearance drew around them many onlookers, both of the country
+folk about the Cross and inhabitants of the town; but every one
+respected their sorrow, and none ventured to disturb them with any
+questions; for all saw that they were kith or kin to the godly men who
+had testified to the truth and the Covenant in death.</p>
+
+<p>It happened, however, that I had occasion to pass by, and some of the
+town's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, but
+loud enough to be heard, that I was one of the persecuted; whereupon Mrs
+M'Coul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' John M'Coul, that
+was executed for the covenanting at Lanerk?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew the remains well, for they had been pointed out to me and I had
+seen them very often, but really the sight of the two women and the
+fatherless bairns so overcame me that I was unable to answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the head and the hand beside it, that has but twa fingers left, on
+the Kirkgate end o' the shelf!" replied a person in the crowd, whom I
+knew at once by his voice to be Willy Sutherland the hangman, although I
+had not seen him from the night of my evasion. And here let me not
+forget to set down the Christian worth and constancy of that simple and
+godly creature, who, rather than be instrumental in the guilty judgment
+by which John M'Coul and his fellow-sufferer were doomed to die, did
+himself almost endure martyrdom, and yet never swerved in his purpose,
+nor was abated in his integrity, in so much, that when questioned
+thereafter anent the same by the Earl of Eglinton, and his Lordship,
+being moved by the simplicity of his piety, said, "Poor man, you did
+well in not doing what they would have had you to do."</p>
+
+<p>"My Lord," replied Willy, "you are speaking treason! and yet you
+persecute to the uttermost, which shows that you go against the light of
+your conscience."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you say so to me, after I kept you from being hanged?" said his
+Lordship.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep me from being drowned, and I will still tell you the verity." The
+which honesty in that poor man begat for him a compassionate regard that
+the dignities of many great and many noble in that time could never
+command.</p>
+
+<p>When the sorrowful M'Couls had indulged themselves in their melancholy
+contemplation, they went away, followed by the multitude with silence
+and sympathy, till they had mounted upon the cart which they had brought
+with them into the town. But from that time every one began to speak of
+the impiety of leaving the bones so wofully exposed; and after the
+skirmish at Drumclog, where Robin M'Coul, the eldest of the two
+striplings above spoken of, happened to be, when Mr John Welsh, with
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> Carrick men that went to Bothwell-brigg, was sent into Glasgow to
+bury the heads and hands of the martyrs there, Robin M'Coul came with a
+party of his friends to Irvine to bury his father's bones. I was not
+myself present at the interment, being, as I have narrated, confined to
+my bed by reason of my wound. But I was told by the neighbours, that it
+was a very solemn and affecting scene. The grieved lad carried the
+relics of his father in a small box in his hands, covered with a white
+towel; and the godly inhabitants of the town, young and old, and of all
+denominations, to the number of several hundreds, followed him to the
+grave where the body was lying; and Willy Sutherland, moved by a simple
+sorrow, was the last of all; and he walked, as I was told, alone,
+behind, with his bonnet in his hand; for, from his calling, he counted
+himself not on an equality with other men. But it is time that I should
+return from this digression to the main account of my narrative.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXIII" id="CHAPTER_LXXIII"></a>CHAPTER LXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Being wounded, as I have rehearsed, at Drumclog, and carried to my own
+house, Sarah Lochrig, while she grieved with a mother's grief for the
+loss of our first-born and the mournful fate of my honest brother,
+advanced my cure more by her loving ministrations to my aching mind,
+than by the medicaments that were applied to the bodily wound, in so
+much that something like a dawn of comfort was vouchsafed to me.</p>
+
+<p>Our parish was singularly allowed to remain unmolested when, after the
+woful day of Bothwell-brigg, Claverhouse came to ravage the shire of
+Ayr, and to take revenge for the discomfiture which he had suffered, in
+his endeavour to disturb the worship and sacrament at Loudon-hill.
+Still, however, at times clouds overcame my spirit; and one night my
+daughter Margaret had a remarkable dream, which taught us to expect some
+particular visitation.</p>
+
+<p>It was surely a mysterious reservation for the greater calamity which
+ensued, that while the vial of wrath was pouring out around us, my house
+should have been allowed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> to remain so unmolested. Often indeed when in
+our nightly worship I returned thanks for a blessing so wonderful in
+that time of general woe, has a strange fear fallen upon me and I have
+trembled in thought, as if the thing for which I sent up the incense of
+my thanks to heaven, was a device of the Enemy of man, to make me think
+myself more deserving of favour than the thousands of covenanted
+brethren who then, in Scotland, were drinking of the bitterness of the
+suffering. But in proportion as I was then spared, the heavier
+afterwards was my trial.</p>
+
+<p>Among the prisoners taken at Bothwell-brigg were many persons from our
+parish and neighbourhood, who, after their unheard-of sufferings among
+the tombs and graves of the Greyfriars church-yard at Edinburgh, were
+allowed to return home. Though in this there was a show of clemency, it
+was yet but a more subtle method of the tyranny to reach new victims.
+For those honest men were not long home till grievous circuit-courts
+were set agoing, to bring to trial not only all those who were at
+Bothwell, or approved of that rising, but likewise those who had been at
+the Pentland raid; and the better to ensure condemnation and punishment,
+sixteen persons were cited from every parish to bear witness as to who,
+among their neighbours, had been out at Bothwell, or had harboured any
+of those who were there. The wicked curates made themselves, in this
+grievous matter, engines of espionage, by giving in the names of those,
+their parishioners, whom they knew could bear the best testimony.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was, that many who had escaped from the slaughter&mdash;from the
+horrors of the Greyfriars church-yard&mdash;and from the drowning in the
+Orkneys,&mdash;and, like myself, had resumed their quiet country labour, were
+marked out for destruction. For the witnesses cited to Ayr against us
+were persons who had been released from the Greyfriars church-yard, as I
+have said, and who, being honest men, could not, when put to their
+oaths, but bear witness to the truth of the matters charged against us.
+And nothing surely could better show the devilish spirit with which
+those in authority were at that time actuated, nor the unchristian
+nature of the prelacy, than that the prisoners should thus have been set
+free to be made the accusers of their neighbours; and that the curates,
+men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> professing to be ministers of the Gospel, should have been such fit
+instruments for such unheard-of machinations. But to hasten forward to
+the fate and issue of this self-consuming tyranny, I shall leave all
+generalities, and proceed with the events of my own case; and, in doing
+so, I shall endeavour what is in me to inscribe the particulars with a
+steady hand; for I dare no longer now trust myself with looking to the
+right or to the left of the field of my matter. I shall, however, try to
+narrate things just as they happened, leaving the courteous reader to
+judge what passed at the time in the suffocating throbs wherewith my
+heart was then affected.</p>
+
+<p>It was the last day of February, of the year following Bothwell-brigg,
+that, in consequence of these subtle and wicked devices, I was taken up.
+I had, from my wound, been in an ailing state for many months, and could
+then do little in the field; but the weather for the season was mild,
+and I had walked out in the tranquillity of a sunny afternoon to give my
+son Joseph some instructions in the method of ploughing; for, though he
+was then but in his thirteenth year, he was a by-common stripling in
+capacity and sense. He was indeed a goodly plant; and I had hoped, in my
+old age, to have sat beneath the shelter of his branches; but the axe of
+the feller was untimely laid to the root, and it was too soon, with all
+the blossoms of the fairest promise, cast down into the dust. But my
+task now is of vengeance and justice, not of sorrowing, and I must more
+sternly grasp the iron pen.</p>
+
+<p>A party of soldiers, who had been that afternoon sent out to bring in
+certain persons (among whom I was one) in a list malignantly transmitted
+to the Archbishop of Glasgow, by Andrew Dornoch, the prelatic usurper of
+our minister's place, as I was leaving the field where my son was
+ploughing, saw me from the road, and ordered me to halt till they came
+up, or they would fire at me.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been unavailing of me, in the state I then was, to have
+attempted to flee, so I halted; and, after some entreaty with the
+soldiers, got permission from them to have my horse and cart yoket, as I
+was not very well, and so to be carried to Ayr. And here I should note
+down that, although there was in general a coarse spirit among the
+King's forces, yet in these men there was a touch of common humanity.
+This was no doubt partly owing to their having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> been some months
+quartered in Irvine, where they became naturally softened by the
+friendly spirit of the place. It was not, however, ordained that men so
+merciful should be permitted to remain long there.</p>
+
+<p>As it was an understood thing that the object of the trials to which the
+Covenanters were in this manner subjected was chiefly to raise money and
+forfeitures for the rapacious Duke of Lauderdale, then in the rule and
+power of the council at Edinburgh, my being carried away prisoner to Ayr
+awakened less grief and consternation in my family than might have been
+expected from the event. Through the humane permission of my guard,
+having a little time to confer with Sarah Lochrig before going away, it
+was settled between us that she should gather together what money she
+could procure, either by loan or by selling our corn and cattle, in
+order to provide for the payment of the fine that we counted would be
+laid upon us. I was then taken to the tolbooth of Ayr, where many other
+covenanted brethren were lying to await the proceedings of the
+circuit-court, which was to be opened by the Lord Kelburne from Glasgow,
+on the second day after I had been carried thither.</p>
+
+<p>Among the prisoners were several who knew me well, and who condoled as
+Christians with me for the loss I had sustained at Bothwell; so, but for
+the denial of the fresh and heavenly air, and the freedom of the fields,
+the time of our captivity might have been a season of much solace: for
+they were all devout men, and the tolbooth, instead of resounding with
+the imprecations of malefactors, became melodious with the voice of
+psalms and of holy communion, and the sweet intercourse of spirits that
+delighted in one another for the constancy with which they had borne
+their testimony.</p>
+
+<p>When the Lord Kelburne arrived, on the first day that the court opened,
+I was summoned to respond to the offences laid to my charge, if any
+charge of offence it may be called, wherein the purpose of the court was
+seemingly to search out opinions that might serve as matter to justify
+the infliction of the fines,&mdash;the whole end and intent of those circuits
+not being to award justice, but to find the means of extorting money. In
+some respects, however, I was more mercifully dealt by than many of my
+fellow-sufferers; but in order to show how, even in my case, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> laws
+were perverted, I will here set down a brief record of my examination or
+trial, as it was called.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXIV" id="CHAPTER_LXXIV"></a>CHAPTER LXXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The council-room was full of people when I was taken thither, and the
+Lord Kelburne, who sat at the head of the table, was abetted in the
+proceedings by Murray, an advocate from Edinburgh. They were sitting at
+a wide round table, within a fence which prevented the spectators from
+pressing in upon them. There were many papers and letters folded up in
+bundles lying before them, and a candle burning, and wax for
+sigillation. Besides Lord Kelburne and his counsellor, there were divers
+gentlemen seated at the table, and two clerks to make notations.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Kelburne, in his appearance, was a mild-looking man, and for his
+years his hair was very hoary; for though he was seemingly not passing
+fifty, it was in a manner quite blanched. In speech he was moderate, in
+disposition indulgent, and verily towards me he acted in his harsh duty
+with much gentleness.</p>
+
+<p>But Murray had a doure aspect for his years, and there was a smile among
+his features not pleasant to behold, breeding rather distrust and dread
+than winning confidence or affection, which are the natural fruit of a
+countenance rightly gladdened. He looked at me from aneath his brows as
+if I had been a malefactor, and turning to the Lord Kelburne, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He has the true fanatical yellow look."</p>
+
+<p>This was a base observe; for naturally I was of a fresh complexion, but
+my long illness, and the close air of the prison, had made me pale.</p>
+
+<p>After some more impertinences of that sort, he then said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ringan Gilhaize, you were at the battle of Bothwell-brigg."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not mean to say so, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have said it," was my answer.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon one of the clerks whispered to him that there were three of
+the name in the list.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"O!" cried he, "I crave your pardon, Ringan; there are several persons
+of your name; and though you were not at Bothwell yourself, maybe ye ken
+those of your name who were there,&mdash;Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did know two," was my calm answer; "one was my brother, and the other
+my son."</p>
+
+<p>All present remained very silent as I made this answer; and the Lord
+Kelburne bending forward, leant his cheek on his hand as he rested his
+elbow on the table, and looked very earnestly at me. Murray resumed,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And pray now, Ringan, tell us what has become of the two rebels?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were covenanted Christians," said I; "my son lies buried with
+those that were slain on that sore occasion."</p>
+
+<p>"But your brother; he was of course younger than you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; he was older."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, no matter as to that; but where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is with his Maker; but his body lies among the rocks at
+the bottom of the Orkney seas."</p>
+
+<p>The steadiness of the Lord Kelburne's countenance saddened into the look
+of compassion, and he said to Murray,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no use in asking him any more questions about them; proceed
+with the ordinary interrogatories."</p>
+
+<p>There was a murmur of satisfaction towards his Lordship at this; and
+Murray said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And so you say that those in the late rebellion at Bothwell were not
+rebels?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said, sir, that my son and my brother were covenanted Christians."</p>
+
+<p>This I delivered with a firm voice, which seemed to produce some effect
+on the Lord Kelburne, who threw himself back in his chair, and crossing
+his arms over his breast, looked still more eagerly towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean then to deny," said Murray, "that the late rebellion was
+not a rebellion?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be hard, sir, to say what it was; for the causes thereto
+leading," replied I, "were provocations concerning things of God, and to
+those who were for that reason religiously there, I do not think, in a
+right sense, it can be called rebellion. Those who were there for
+carnal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> motives, and I doubt not there were many such, I fancy every
+honest man may say it was with them rebellion."</p>
+
+<p>"I must deal more closely with him," said Murray to his Lordship; but
+his Lordship, before allowing him to put any more questions, said
+himself to me,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But you know, to state the thing plainly, that the misguided people who
+were at Bothwell had banded themselves against the laws of the realm,
+whether from religious or carnal motives is not the business we are here
+to sift, that point is necessarily remitted to God and their
+consciences."</p>
+
+<p>Murray added, "It is most unreasonable to suppose that every subject is
+free to determine of what is lawful to be obeyed. The thought is
+ridiculous. It would destroy the end of all laws which are for the
+advantage of communities, and which speak the sense of the generality,
+touching the matter and things to which they refer."</p>
+
+<p>"My Lord," said I, addressing myself to Lord Kelburne, "it surely will
+ne'er be denied that every subject is free to exercise his discretion
+with respek to his ain conduct; and your Lordship kens vera weel that it
+is the duty of subjects to know the laws of the land; and your Lordship
+likewise knows that God has given laws to all rulers as well as
+subjects, and both may and ought to know His laws. Now if I, knowing
+both the laws of God and the laws of the land, find the one contrary to
+the other, undoubtedly God's laws ought to hae the preference in my
+obedience."</p>
+
+<p>His Lordship looked somewhat satisfied with this answer; but Murray said
+to him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will pose him with this question. If presbyterian government were
+established, as it was in the year 1648, and some ministers were not
+free to comply with it, and a law were made that none should hear them
+out o' doors, would you judge it reasonable that such ministers or their
+people should be at liberty to act in contempt of that law."</p>
+
+<p>And he looked mightily content with himself for this subtlety; but I
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Really, sir, I canna see a reason why hearkening to a preaching in the
+fields should be a greater guilt than doing the same thing indoors."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were of your principles," said the advocate, "and thought in my
+conscience that the laws of the land were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span> contrary to the laws of God,
+and that I could not conform to them, I would judge it my duty rather to
+go out of the nation and live elsewhere, than disturb the peace of the
+land."</p>
+
+<p>"That were to suppose two things," said I; "first, that rulers may make
+laws contrary to the laws of God, and that when such laws are once made,
+they ought to be submitted to. But I think, sir, that rulers being under
+the law of God act wickedly and in rebellion to Him, when they make
+enactments contrary to His declared will; and surely it can ne'er be
+required that we should allow wickedness to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure," said Murray to his Lordship, "that I do right in
+continuing this irrelevant conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"I am interested in the honest man's defence," replied Lord Kelburne;
+"and as 'tis in a matter of conscience, let us hear what makes it so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," resumed the advocate, "what can you say to the barbarous
+murder of Archbishop Sharp?&mdash;You will not contend that murder is not
+contrary to the law of God?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ne'er contended," said I, "that any sin was permitted by the law of
+God&mdash;far less murder, which is expressly forbidden in the Ten Commands."</p>
+
+<p>"Then ye acknowledge the murder of the Archbishop to have been murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's between those that did it and God."</p>
+
+<p>"Hooly, hooly, friend!" cried Murray; "that, Ringan, winna do; was it or
+was it not murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I tell, who was not there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then to satisfy your conscience on that score, Ringan, I would ask you,
+if a gang of ruffians slay a defenceless man, do or do they not commit
+murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can easily answer that."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Kelburne again bent eagerly forward, and rested his cheek again on
+his hand, placing his elbow on the table, while I continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A gang of ruffians coming in wantonness, or for plunder, upon a
+defenceless man, and putting him to death, there can be no doubt is
+murder; but it has not yet been called murder to kill an enemy in
+battle; and therefore, if the captain of a host go to war without arms,
+and thereby be defenceless, it cannot be said that those of the adverse
+party, who may happen to slay him, do any murder."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to justify the manner of the death of the Archbishop?"
+exclaimed the advocate, starting back and spreading out his arms in
+wonderment.</p>
+
+<p>"'Deed no, sir," replied I, a little nettled at the construction he
+would put upon what I said; "but I will say, even here, what Sir Davie
+Lindsay o' the Mount said on the similar event o' Cardinal Beaton's
+death,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'As for this Cardinal, I grant<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He was the man we might well want;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">God will forgive it soon:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of a truth, the sooth to say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Although the loon be well away,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The fact was foully done.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There was a rustle of gratification among all in the court as I said the
+rhyme, and Lord Kelburne smiled; but Murray, somewhat out of humour,
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy, my Lord, we must consider this as an admission that the
+killing of the Archbishop was murder."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," said his Lordship, "that neither of the two questions have
+been so directly put as to justify me to pronounce any decision, though
+I am willing to put the most favourable construction on what has
+passed." And then his Lordship, looking to me, added,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you consider the late rebellion, being contrary to the King's
+authority, rebellion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Contrary to the King's right authority," replied I, "it was not
+rebellion; but contrary to an authority beyond the right taken by him,
+despite the law of God, it was rebellion."</p>
+
+<p>"Wherefore, honest man," rejoined his Lordship kindly, "would you make a
+distinction that may bring harm on your own head? Is not the King's
+authority instituted by law and prerogative, and knowing that, cannot ye
+say that those who rise in arms against it are rebels?"</p>
+
+<p>"My Lord," said I, "you have my answer; for in truth and in conscience I
+can give none other."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause for a short space, and one of the clerks looking to
+Lord Kelburne, his Lordship said, with a plain reluctance, "It must even
+be so; write down that he is not clear the late rebellion should be
+called a rebellion;" and casting his eyes entreatingly towards me, he
+added, "But I think you acknowledge that the assassination of Archbishop
+Sharp was a murder?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My Lord," said I, "your questions are propounded as tests and
+therefore, as an honest man, I cannot suffer that my answers should be
+scant, lest I might be thought to waver in faith and was backward in my
+testimony. No, my Lord, I will not call the killing of Sharp murder; for
+on my conscience, I do verily think he deserved the death: First,
+because of his apostacy; second, because of the laws of which he was the
+instigator, whereby the laws of God have been contravened; and, third,
+for the woes that those laws have brought upon the land, the which
+stirred the hearts of the people against him. Above all, I think his
+death was no murder, because he was so strong in his legalities, that he
+could not be brought to punishment by those to whom he had caused the
+greatest wrong;" and I thought, in saying these words, of my brother's
+desolated daughter&mdash;of his own sad death in the stormy seas of the
+Orkneys&mdash;and of my brave and gallant Michael, that was lying in his
+shroudless grave in the cold clay of Bothwell.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Kelburne was troubled at my answer, and was about to remonstrate;
+but seeing the tear start into my eye as those things came into my mind,
+he said nothing, but nodding to the clerk, he bade him write down that I
+would not acknowledge the killing of the Archbishop a murder. He then
+rose and adjourned the court, remanding me to prison, saying that he
+would send me word what would be the extent of my punishment.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXV" id="CHAPTER_LXXV"></a>CHAPTER LXXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The same night it was intimated to me that I was fined in five hundred
+marks, and that bonds were required to be given for the payment; upon
+the granting of which, in consideration of my ill-health, the Lord
+Kelburne had consented I should be set free.</p>
+
+<p>This was, in many respects, a more lenient sentence than I had expected;
+and in the hope that perhaps Sarah Lochrig might have been able to
+provide the money, so as to render the granting of the bonds and the
+procuring of cautioners unnecessary, I sent over a man on horseback to
+tell her the news, and the man in returning brought my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> son Joseph
+behind him, sent by his mother to urge me to give the bonds at once, as
+she had not been able to raise so much money; and the more to incite me,
+if there had been need for incitement, she had willed Joseph to tell me
+that a party of Claverhouse's dragoons had been quartered on the house
+that morning, to live there till the fine was paid.</p>
+
+<p>Of the character of those freebooters I needed no certificate. They had
+filled every other place wherever they had been quartered with shame and
+never-ceasing sorrow, and therefore I was indeed roused to hear that my
+defenceless daughters were in their power, so I lost no time in sending
+my son to entreat two of his mother's relations, who were bein merchants
+in Ayr, to join me in the bond,&mdash;a thing which they did in the most
+compassionate manner;&mdash;and, the better to expedite the business, I got
+it to be permitted by the Lord Kelburne that the bonds should be sent
+the same day to Irvine, where I hoped to be able next morning to
+discharge them. All this was happily concerted and brought to a pleasant
+issue before sunset;&mdash;at which time I was discharged from the tolbooth,
+carrying with me many pious wishes from those who were there, and who
+had not been so gently dealt by.</p>
+
+<p>It was my intent to have proceeded home the same night, but my son was
+very tired with the many errands he had run that day, and by his long
+ride in the morning; moreover, I was myself in need of repose, for my
+anxiety had brought on a disturbance in my blood, and my limbs shook,
+and I was altogether unable to undertake any journey. I was therefore
+too easily entreated of Archibald Lochrig, my wife's cousin, and one of
+my cautioners, to stop in his house that evening. But next morning,
+being much refreshed with a pleasant sleep and the fallacious cheering
+of happy dreams, I left Ayr, with my son, before the break of day, and
+we travelled with light feet, for our hearts were lifted up with hope.</p>
+
+<p>Though my youth was long past, and many things had happened to sadden my
+spirit, I yet felt on that occasion an unaccountable sense of kindliness
+and joy. The flame of life was as it were renewed, and brightened in the
+pure and breezy air of the morning, and a bounding gladness rose in my
+bosom as my eye expatiated around in the freedom of the spacious fields.
+On the left-hand the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> living sea seemed as if the pulses of its moving
+waters were in unison with the throbbings of my spirit; and, like jocund
+maidens disporting themselves in the flowing tide, the gentle waves,
+lifting their heads, and spreading out their arms and raising their
+white bosoms to the rising sun, came as it were happily to the smooth
+sands of the sparkling shore. The grace of enjoyment brightened and
+blithened all things. There was a cheerfulness in the songs of the
+little birds that enchanted the young heart of my blooming boy to break
+forth into singing, and his carol was gayer than the melody of the lark.
+But that morning was the last time that either of us could ever after
+know pleasure any more in this world.</p>
+
+<p>Eager to be home, and that I might share with Sarah Lochrig and our
+children the joy of thankfulness for my deliverance, I had resolved to
+call, in passing through Irvine, at the clerk's chamber, to inquire if
+the bonds had been sent from Ayr, that my cautioners might be as soon as
+possible discharged. But we had been so early a-foot that we reached the
+town while the inhabitants were yet all asleep, so that we thought it
+would be as well to go straight home; and accordingly we passed down the
+gait and through the town-end port without seeing any person in the
+street, save only the town-herd, as he was going with his horn to sound
+for the cows to be sent out to go with him to the moor.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of a town in the peacefulness of the morning slumbers, and of
+a simple man going forth to lead the quiet cattle to pasture filled my
+mind with softer thoughts than I had long known, and I said to my son,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Surely those who would molest the peace of the poor hae ne'er rightly
+tasted the blessing of beholding the confidence with which they trust
+themselves in the watches of the night, and amidst the perils of their
+barren lot." And I felt my heart thaw again into charity with all men,
+and I was thankful for the delight.</p>
+
+<p>As I was thus tasting again the luxury of gentle thoughts, a band of
+five dragoons came along the road, and Joseph said to me that they were
+the same who had been quartered in our house. I looked at them as they
+passed by, but they turned their heads aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," said my son, "that they did na speak to me: I thought they
+had a black look."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, Joseph," was my answer, "the men are no lost to a' sense of
+shame. They canna but be rebuked at the sight of a man that, maybe
+against their will, poor fellows, they were sent to oppress."</p>
+
+<p>"I dinna like them the day, father, they're unco like ill-doers," said
+the thoughtful and observing stripling.</p>
+
+<p>But my spirit was at the time full of good-will towards all men, and I
+reasoned with him against giving way to unkind thoughts, expounding, to
+the best of my ability, the nature of Gospel-charity, and the
+heavenlyness of good-will, saying to him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The nature of charity's like the light o' the sun, by which all things
+are cherished. It is the brightness of the soul, and the glorious
+quality which proves our celestial descent. Our other feelings are
+common to a' creatures, but the feeling of charity is divine. It's the
+only thing in which man partakes of the nature of God."</p>
+
+<p>Discoursing in this scriptural manner, we reached the Gowan-brae. My
+heart beat high with gladness. My son bounded forward to tell his mother
+and sisters of my coming. On gaining the brow of the hill he leapt from
+the ground with a frantic cry and clasped his hands. I ran towards
+him&mdash;but I remember no more&mdash;though at times something crosses my mind,
+and I have wild visions of roofless walls, and a crowd of weeping women
+and silent men digging among ashes, and a beautiful body, all dropping
+wet, brought on a deal from the mill-dam, and of men, as it was carried
+by, seizing me by the arms and tying my hands,&mdash;and then I fancy myself
+in a house fastened to a chair;&mdash;and sometimes I think I was lifted out
+and placed to beek in the sun and to taste the fresh air. But what these
+things import I dare only guess, for no one has ever told me what became
+of my benign Sarah Lochrig and our two blooming daughters;&mdash;all is
+phantasma that I recollect of the day of my return home. I said my soul
+was iron, and my heart converted into stone. O that they were indeed so!
+But sorrowing is a vain thing, and my task must not stand still.</p>
+
+<p>When I left Ayr the leaves were green, and the fields gay, and the
+waters glad; and when the yellow leaf rustled on the ground, and the
+waters were drumly, and the river roaring, I was somehow, I know not by
+what means, in the kirk-yard, and a film fell from the eyes of my
+reason, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> I looked around, and my little boy had hold of me by the
+hand, and I said to him, "Joseph, what's yon sae big and green in our
+lair?" and he gazed in my face, and the tears came into his eyes, and he
+replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Father, they are a' in the same grave." I took my hand out of his;&mdash;I
+walked slowly to the green tomb;&mdash;I knelt down, and I caused my son to
+kneel beside me, and I vowed enmity for ever against Charles Stuart and
+all of his line; and I prayed, in the words of the Psalmist, that when
+he was judged he might be condemned. Then we rose; but my son said to
+me,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Father, I canna wish his condemnation; but I'll fight by your side till
+we have harlt him down from his bloody throne."</p>
+
+<p>And I felt that I had forgotten I was a Christian, and I again knelt
+down and prayed, but it was for the sin I had done in the vengeance of
+the latter clause. "Nevertheless, Lord," I then cried, "as Thou Thyself
+didst take the sceptre from Saul, and gave the crown to David, make me
+an instrument to work out the purposes of Thy dreadful justice, which in
+time will come to be."</p>
+
+<p>Then I rose again, and went towards the place where my home had been;
+but when I saw the ruins I ran back to the kirk-yard, and threw myself
+on the grave, and cried to the earth to open and receive me.</p>
+
+<p>But the Lord had heard my prayer, and while I lay there he sent down his
+consoling angel, and the whirlwind of my spirit was calmed, and I
+remembered the promise of my son to fight by my side, and I rose to
+prepare myself for the warfare.</p>
+
+<p>While I was lying on the ground several of the neighbours had heard my
+wild cries, and came into the kirk-yard; but by that time the course of
+the tempest had been staid, and they stood apart with my son, who told
+them I was come again to myself, and they thought they ought not to
+disturb me; when, however, they saw me rise, they drew near and spoke
+kindly to me, and Zachariah Smylie invited me to go back with him to his
+house; for it was with him that I had been sheltered during the frenzy.
+But I said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No: I will neither taste meat nor drink, nor seek to rest myself, till
+I have again a sword." And I entreated him to give me a little money,
+that, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> my son, we might go into Irvine and provide ourselves with
+weapons.</p>
+
+<p>The worthy man looked very sorrowful to hear me so speak, and some of
+the others, that were standing by, began to reason with me, and to
+represent the peril of any enterprise at that time. But I pointed to the
+grave, and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Friens, do you ken what's in yon place, and do ye counsel me to peace?"
+At which words they turned aside and shook their heads; and Zachariah
+Smylie went and brought me a purse of money, which having put into my
+bosom, I took my son by the hand, and bidding them all farewell, we
+walked to the town silently together, and I thought of my brother's
+words in his grief, that the speed of lightning was slow to the wishes
+of revenge.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXVI" id="CHAPTER_LXXVI"></a>CHAPTER LXXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a
+dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without
+hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,&mdash;a method
+of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at
+that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the
+soldiers, ever from the time that Claverhouse came to disarm the people;
+and when I had bought the two blades we went to Bailie Girvan's shop,
+which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any
+questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm
+heart to the Covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and
+hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms
+to suspected persons.</p>
+
+<p>Being thus provided with two swords, we went into James Glassop's
+public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly
+sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that
+it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, I sent out
+my son to buy a Bible, and while he was absent I fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>On awaking from my slumber I felt greatly composed and refreshed. I
+reflected on the events of the day, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> the terrible truths that had
+broken in upon me, and I was not moved with the same stings of
+desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my
+brain; so I began to consider of the purpose whereon I was bowne, and
+that I had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt I should direct
+my steps. But I was not the less determined to proceed, and I said to my
+son, who was sitting very thoughtful with <span class="smcap">the Book</span> lying on the table
+before him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Open the Bible, and see what the Lord instructs us to do at this time."
+And he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the
+nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth,
+and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?"</p>
+
+<p>So I rose, and bidding my son close the Book, and bring it with him, we
+went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope
+about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long
+been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many
+persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought;
+but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the
+door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in Irvine was
+abiding.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned
+to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had
+assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one
+voice,&mdash;That Mr Cargill, and a numerous party of the Cameronians, had
+passed that afternoon through Galston, and it was thought they meditated
+some disturbance on the skirts of Kilmarnock, which made the commander
+of the King's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those
+then in Irvine.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I heard the news, I resolved to go that night to Kilmarnock,
+and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother Jacob, by whose
+instrumentality I thought we might hear where the Cameronians then were.
+For, although I approved not of their separation from the general
+presbyterian kirk of Scotland, nor was altogether content with their
+declaration published at Sanquhar, there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> was yet one clause which, to
+my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that
+there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, I shall
+here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Although we be for government and governors such as the Word of God and
+our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to
+us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning
+(or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these
+years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown
+of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years
+since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;"
+and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared,
+that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate,
+or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being
+under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do
+declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his
+practices, as enemies to our Lord."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of
+the Cameronians were so near, I resolved, on receiving the soldier's
+information, and on account of that recited clause of the Sanquhar
+declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging
+battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice,
+and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me,
+abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical Stuarts. With
+my son, therefore, I went toward Kilmarnock, in the hope and with the
+intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though I
+had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months
+before, than I have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>The night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my
+thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's
+door, without the interchange of a word in all the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the
+death of aunty."</p>
+
+<p>I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> were with a
+stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long
+the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our
+friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in
+staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with
+my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me
+of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that
+the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any
+of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of
+the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against
+us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it
+was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of
+promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light
+in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a
+public, and bespoke a bed for the night.</p>
+
+<p>While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me
+of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do
+us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the
+mistress said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in
+upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in
+a change-house."</p>
+
+<p>So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we
+retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner;
+and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the
+worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not
+many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed,
+when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds,
+in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire.
+Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and
+blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them;
+and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they
+spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful
+thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I
+could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons
+that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned.
+As for the Cameronians they were at war with the house of Stuart, and
+having disowned King Charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all
+of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. So I was none
+troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed
+into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all
+the Covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the
+hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of
+us in the depths of perdition, that I could no longer hear them without
+rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXVII" id="CHAPTER_LXXVII"></a>CHAPTER LXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"The law, I'm thinking," replied I very mildly, "is mair likely to
+direct them to another place."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O! it's one of the villains that burnt our house, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>What more he added I know not, for at the word I leapt from my seat, and
+rushed upon the soldier. His companion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The other soldier was surprised, but collected; and shutting the door,
+to prevent us from pursuing or escaping, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil's this?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's my father," said my son boldly, "Ringan Gilhaize of Quharist."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Had ye no better gang out and see for Ecclesfield?" said the landlord,
+with a significant look to the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>The young man cast his eyes down, and seemed thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"I may be blamed," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye ken, Jack," he resumed when they were seated, "that unless there are
+two of you present, ye canna put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> any man to the test, so that every
+body who has not been tested is free to go wheresoever it pleasures
+himsel."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He then held the glass to the mistress, and she made it a lippy.</p>
+
+<p>"Hae, Jack," said the landlord, "I'm sure, after your hard travail the
+day, ye'll no be the waur o' a dram."</p>
+
+<p>"Curse the liquor," exclaimed the dragoon, "I'm not to be bribed by a
+dram."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow Ecclesfield," said he, as it were to himself, "the game's
+up with him in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a damned hard service this here in Scotland," said Windsor,
+holding the empty glass in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"'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."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn prelacy, says I," exclaimed the dragoon.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said the dragoon; "but the old man was a little so so when
+I last heard of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"We have no prelates in England, thank God," said the dragoon; "we
+wouldn't have 'em; our parsons are other sort o' things."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought ye had an host o' bishops, Jack," said the landlord.</p>
+
+<p>"True, and good fellows some on 'em are; but though prelates be bishops,
+bishops ain't prelates, which makes a difference."</p>
+
+<p>"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?&mdash;Eh! is nae that Ecclesfield's foot clampering wi' his spurs at
+the door?"</p>
+
+<p>The dragoon listened again, and looked thoughtful for a little time, and
+turned his eyes hastily towards the corner where we were sitting.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord eyed him anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>The moment he had left the kitchen the landlord rose and said to us,
+"Flee, flee, and quit this dangerous town!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_LXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER LXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;and we did it,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Being one day in this frame of dubiety, lying in the bed, and my son
+sitting at my pillow, I said to him, "Get <span class="smcap">the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></span> <span class="smcap">Book</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXIX" id="CHAPTER_LXXIX"></a>CHAPTER LXXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> thought wild and raised,&mdash;their beards had not been
+shaven for many a day,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow
+and not pay."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But still notwithstanding my rebellious heart would not consent;&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"What has He commanded, father?" said the boy, "what is His will? for ye
+ken it maun be done."</p>
+
+<p>"Read," said I, "the twenty-second chapter of Genesis."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And what has been the answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has instructed me to send my son with you. But O, it is a terrible
+probation."</p>
+
+<p>"You have done well, my friend," replied the godly man, "to seek advice
+from <span class="smcap">the Word</span>; but apply again, and maybe&mdash;maybe, Ringan, ye'll no be
+put to so great a trial."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"But what for, father," interposed my son, "need ye be sae fashed about
+it. I would ne'er refuse;&mdash;I'm ready to gang if ye were na sae
+weakly;&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;my last, whom I loved so well, they cherished
+me with a joy passing all understanding.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;would I had died for thee," cried the warlike King David, when
+Absalom was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> slain in rebellion against him, and he had still many
+children; but my innocent Absalom was all that I had left.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXX" id="CHAPTER_LXXX"></a>CHAPTER LXXX</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> the hills or
+brought to the scaffold, I prayed that I might receive some token of an
+accepted offering in what I had done.</p>
+
+<p>Sterner feelings too had their turns of predominance. I recalled the
+manifold calamities which withered my native land&mdash;the guilty
+provocations that the people had received&mdash;the merciless avarice and
+rapacious profligacy that had ruined so many worthies&mdash;the crimes that
+had scattered so many families&mdash;and the contempt with which all our
+wrongs and woes were regarded; and then I would remember my avenging
+vow, and supplicate for health.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We said little, but rejoiced to see each other again. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;a thing easy to be done,
+both the horse and cart being well known in those days to the chief
+merchants then in Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that on the morning of the third day after I had been
+immured in that doleful place, I was standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>There was something in the coming sound of that tumult unlike the noise
+of any other multitude;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see but the crowd coming," said he, "and every one is looking as
+if he grewed at something not yet in sight."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, and while he was speaking, there was a sudden silence in
+the street.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened?" said one of the sufferers near me: my heart beat so
+wildly that I would not myself inquire.</p>
+
+<p>"They have stopped," was the answer; "but now they come. I see the
+magistrates. Their guard is before them,&mdash;the provost is first&mdash;they are
+coming two and two&mdash;and they look very sorrowful."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there but the magistrates?" said I, making an effort to press in
+closer to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;I see the
+prisoners;&mdash;their hands are tied behind, ilk loaded wi' a goad of
+iron&mdash;they are bareheaded&mdash;ane&mdash;twa&mdash;three&mdash;four&mdash;five&mdash;they are five
+fatherly-looking men."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"They are Cameronians," said I, somewhat released, I know not wherefore,
+unless it was because he spoke of no youth being among them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" said he, "here is another&mdash;He is on horseback&mdash;I see the horse's
+head&mdash;Oh! the sufferer is an old grey-headed minister&mdash;his head is
+uncovered&mdash;he is placed with his face to the horse's tail&mdash;his hands are
+tied, and his feet are fastened with a rope beneath the horse's
+belly.&mdash;Hush! they are passing under the window."</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;I looked&mdash;I saw the ghastly features, and
+I would have kissed those lifeless lips; for, O! they were my son's.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXI" id="CHAPTER_LXXXI"></a>CHAPTER LXXXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But though others were then shaken in their faith, mine was now
+confident. I saw, by what had happened in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, "<span class="smcap">In the Lord is my Hope</span>."</p>
+
+<p>Heartened by the singular providence that was so mani<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>fest in that
+cheering text, I went to the door and knocked, and a maiden answered to
+the knocking.</p>
+
+<p>I told her what I was, and whence I had come, and entreated her to have
+compassion, and shelter me for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas!" said she, "what can hae sent you here, for this is a bishop's
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXII" id="CHAPTER_LXXXII"></a>CHAPTER LXXXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> every man bring the question home to his own
+business and bosom and the answer will be a short one, <i>Down with the
+presbyterians!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXIII" id="CHAPTER_LXXXIII"></a>CHAPTER LXXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs Brownlee having the compassion of a Christian, and the tenderness of
+her gentle sex, was moved by my story,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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;&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;which he readily did,
+and we had a mournful communing for some time.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> ignominy to Edinburgh; where, by order of the
+Privy Council, it was placed on the Netherbow.</p>
+
+<p>"What I hae suffered from that man," said I, "Heaven may pardon, but I
+can neither forget nor forgive."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXIV" id="CHAPTER_LXXXIV"></a>CHAPTER LXXXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was then the skirt of the afternoon, about the time when the sweet
+breathing of flowers and boughs first begins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;entering, as I here do, my caveat as an individual against it.
+This paper will cut off all hope of reconciliation&mdash;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&mdash;the craft of his
+counsellors&mdash;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 war<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>randice 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I heard what they said&mdash;I listened to what they argued&mdash;and I allowed
+them to tell that they were willing to agree to more moderate counsels;
+but I could abide no more.</p>
+
+<p>"Moderation!&mdash;You, Mr Renwick," said I, "counsel moderation&mdash;you
+recommend the door of peace to be still kept open&mdash;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&mdash;of no more
+than doctrine, Mr Renwick&mdash;with us it is a consideration of facts. Judge
+ye therefore between yourself and us,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;we were in possession and enjoyment, no man
+could call our right to it in question,&mdash;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 Govern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>ment, 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;it is all ashes. I remember my brave first-born,&mdash;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.&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> 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,&mdash;let us keep open the door of reconciliation,&mdash;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!&mdash;for he has but cast us into a
+fiery furnace and a lion's den.</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;I am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of
+feelings,&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXV" id="CHAPTER_LXXXV"></a>CHAPTER LXXXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go
+forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with
+implements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with the
+remainder, joined together in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished,
+and then lots were cast to see whom the Lord would appoint to affix the
+declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of
+the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose me
+for one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back to
+the house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knew
+in the fit time would be prepared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> Nor was it long till the same was
+brought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.</p>
+
+<p>Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother's
+house, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the Canongate,
+some six doors lower down than St Mary's Wynd, just after passing the
+flesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the court
+was at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to
+the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And it
+happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent
+forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had
+escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all
+who dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on the
+cheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring
+with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of
+town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause
+observance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for my
+health being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordial
+of fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk of
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p>He accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, I made
+bold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle with
+the multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in the
+afternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with their
+pageantries, while the Duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airs
+and the delights of sonorous harmony. And it happened on the third time
+I went thither, that a cry rose of the Duke coming from the garden to
+the palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him.</p>
+
+<p>As he advanced, I saw several persons presenting petitions into his
+hands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the Lord Perth, whom I
+knew again by his voice; and I was directed, as by a thought of
+inspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration,
+which I always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd of
+petitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across the
+road leading from the Canongate to the Abbey kirk-yard, and between the
+garden yett and the yett that opened into the front court of the palace.
+As the Duke returned out of the garden, I gave him the paper;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> but
+instead of handing it to the Lord Perth, as I had hoped he would do, he
+held it in his own hand, by which I perceived that if he had noticed by
+whom it was presented, and looked at it before he went into the palace,
+I would speedily be seized on the spot, unless I could accomplish my
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>But how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around was
+very great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from the
+enclosure&mdash;one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the other
+into the Canongate. I therefore calmly put my trust in Him who alone
+could save me, and remained, as it were, an indifferent spectator,
+following the Duke with an anxious eye.</p>
+
+<p>Having passed from the garden into the court, the multitude followed him
+with great eagerness, and I also went in with them, and walked very
+deliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner,
+where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to the
+King's park from the Cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. I
+then mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returned
+to the house of Mrs Brownlee.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was I well in, when Heron, her son, came flying to her with a
+report that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened the
+Duke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and I was much
+grieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to the
+torture on my account; but the Lord had mercifully ordained it
+otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of the night Heron Brownlee, after closing his shop, came
+again and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person in
+the multitude had given the Duke a dreadful paper, which had caused
+great consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at that
+late hour with the Duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of the
+same paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both in
+Nithsdale and the shire of Ayr. The alarm, indeed, raged to such a
+degree among all those who knew in their consciences how they merited
+the doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many were
+withered as with a pestilent vapour.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, though terrified at the vengeance declared against their guilt,
+neither the Duke nor the Privy Council were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> to be deterred from their
+malignant work. The curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead of
+changing the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded,
+they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, That
+whosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put to
+death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; and
+the soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but were
+instructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to the
+sword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women were
+ordered to be drowned. But my pen sickens with the recital of horrors,
+and I shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarking
+that these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the Stuarts; for
+scarcely were they well published when the Duke hastened to London, and
+soon after his man-sworn brother, Charles, the great author of all our
+woes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and the
+Duke proclaimed King in his stead. What change we obtained by the
+calamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXVI" id="CHAPTER_LXXXVI"></a>CHAPTER LXXXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>As soon as it was known abroad that Charles the Second was dead, the
+Covenanters who had taken refuge in Holland from the Persecution
+assembled to consult what ought then to be done; for the papist James
+Stuart, on the death of his brother, had caused himself to be proclaimed
+King of Scotland, without taking those oaths by which alone he could be
+entitled to assume the Scottish crown.</p>
+
+<p>At the head of this congregation was the Earl of Argyle, who, some years
+before, had incurred the aversion of the tyrant to such a degree that,
+by certain of those fit tools for any crime, then in dismal abundance
+about the court of Holyrood, he had procured his condemnation as a
+traitor, and would have brought him to the scaffold, had the Earl not
+fortunately effected his escape. And it was resolved by that
+congregation that the principal personages then present should form
+themselves into a Council, to concert the requisite measures for the
+deliverance of their native<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> land; the immediate issue of which was,
+that a descent should be made by Argyle among his vassals, in order to
+draw together a sufficient host to enable them to wage war against the
+Usurper, for so they lawfully and rightly denominated James Stuart.</p>
+
+<p>The first hint that I gleaned of this design was through the means of
+Mrs Brownlee. She was invited one afternoon by the gentlewoman of the
+Lady Sophia Lindsay, the Earl's daughter-in-law, to view certain
+articles of female bravery which had been sent from Holland by his
+Lordship to her mistress; and, as her custom was, she, on her return
+home, descanted at large of all that she had seen and heard.</p>
+
+<p>The receipt, at that juncture, of such gear from the Earl of Argyle, by
+such a Judith of courage and wisdom as the Lady Sophia Lindsay, seemed
+to me very remarkable, and I could not but jealouse that there was some
+thing about it like the occultation of a graver correspondence. I
+therefore began to question Mrs Brownlee how the paraphernalia had come,
+and what the Earl, according to the last accounts, was doing; which led
+her to expatiate on many things, though vague and desultory, that were
+yet in concordance with what I had overheard the Lord Perth say to the
+Earl of Aberdeen in the Bishop's house. In the end, I gathered that the
+presents were brought over by the skipper of a sloop, one Roderick
+Macfarlane, whom I forthwith determined to see, in order to pick from
+him what intelligence I could, without being at the time well aware in
+what manner the same would prove useful; I felt myself, however, stirred
+from within to do so; and I had hitherto, in all that concerned my
+avenging vow, obeyed every instinctive impulse.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, next morning I went early to the shore of Leith, and soon
+found the vessel and Roderick Macfarlane, to whom I addressed myself,
+inquiring, as if I intended to go thither, when he was likely to depart
+again for Amsterdam.</p>
+
+<p>While I was speaking to him, I observed something in his mien above his
+condition; and that his hands were fair and delicate, unlike those of
+men inured to maritime labour. He perceived that I was particular in my
+inspection, and his countenance became troubled, and he looked as if he
+wist not what to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Fear no ill," said I to him; "I am one in the jaws of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> jeopardy; in
+sooth I have no intent to pass into Holland, but only to learn whether
+there be any hope that the Earl of Argyle and those with him will try to
+help their covenanted brethren at home."</p>
+
+<p>On hearing me speak so openly the countenance of the man brightened, and
+after eyeing me with a sharp scrutiny, he invited me to come down into
+the body of the bark, where we had some frank communion, his confidence
+being won by the plain tale of who I was and what I had endured. The
+Lord indeed was pleased, throughout that period of fears and
+tribulation, marvellously to endow the persecuted with a singular and
+sympathetic instinct, whereby they were enabled at once to discern their
+friends; for the dangers and difficulties, to which we were subject in
+our intercourse, afforded no time for those testimonies and experiences
+that in ordinary occasions are required to open the hearts of men to one
+another.</p>
+
+<p>After some general discourse, Roderick Macfarlane told me, that his
+vessel, though seemingly only for traffic, had been hired by a certain
+Madam Smith, in Amsterdam, and was manned by Highlanders of a degree
+above the common, for the purpose of opening a correspondence between
+Argyle and his friends in Scotland. Whereupon I proffered myself to
+assist in establishing a communication with the heads and leaders of the
+Covenanters in the West Country, and particularly with Mr Renwick and
+his associates, the Cameronians, who, though grievously scattered and
+hunted, were yet able to do great things in the way of conveying
+letters, or of intercepting the emissaries and agents of the Privy
+Council that might be employed to contravene the Earl's projects.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that I came to be concerned in Argyle's unfortunate
+expedition&mdash;if that can be called unfortunate, which, though in itself a
+failure, yet ministered to make the scattered children of the Covenant
+again co-operate for the achievement of their common freedom. Doubtless
+the expedition was undertaken before the persecuted were sufficiently
+ripened to be of any effective service. The Earl counted overmuch on the
+spirit which the Persecution had raised; he thought that the weight of
+the tyranny had compressed us all into one body. But, alas! it had been
+so great, that it had not only bruised, but broken us asunder into many
+pieces; and time, and care, and much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span> persuasion, were all requisite to
+solder the fragments together.</p>
+
+<p>As the spring advanced, being, in the manner related, engaged in
+furthering the purposes of the exiled Covenanters, I prepared, through
+the instrumentality of divers friends, many in the West Country to be in
+readiness to join the Earl's standard of deliverance. It is not however
+to be disguised, that the work went on but slowly, and that the people
+heard of the intended descent with something like an actionless
+wonderment, in consequence of those by whom it had been planned not
+sending forth any declaration of their views and intents. And this
+indisposition, especially among the Cameronians, became a settled
+reluctance, when, after the Earl had reached Campbelton, he published
+that purposeless proclamation, wherein, though the wrongs and woes of
+the kingdom were pithily recited, the nature of the redress proposed was
+in no manner manifest. It was plain indeed, by many signs, that the
+Lord's time was not yet come for the work to thrive.</p>
+
+<p>The divisions in Argyle's councils were greater even than those among
+the different orders into which the Covenanters had been long split&mdash;the
+very Cameronians might have been sooner persuaded to refrain from
+insisting on points of doctrine and opinion, at least till the adversary
+was overthrown, than those who were with the ill-fated Earl to act with
+union among themselves. In a word, all about the expedition was
+confusion and perplexity, and the omens and auguries of ruin showed how
+much it wanted the favour that is better than the strength of numbers,
+or the wisdom of mighty men. But to proceed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXVII" id="CHAPTER_LXXXVII"></a>CHAPTER LXXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sir John Cochrane, one of those who were with Argyle, had, by some
+espial of his own, a correspondence with divers of the Covenanters in
+the shire of Ayr; and he was so heartened by their representations of
+the spirit among them, that he urged, and overcame the Earl, to let<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> him
+make a trial on that coast before waiting till the Highlanders were
+roused. Accordingly, with the three ships and the men they had brought
+from Holland, he went toward Largs, famed in old time for a great battle
+fought there; but, on arriving opposite to the shore, he found it
+guarded by the powers and forces of the government, in so much, that he
+was fain to direct his course farther up the river; and weighing anchor
+sailed for Greenock.</p>
+
+<p>It happened at this juncture, after conferring with several of weight
+among the Cameronians, that I went to Greenock for the purpose of taking
+shipping for any place where I was likely to find Argyle, in order to
+represent to him, that, unless there was a clear account of what he and
+others with him proposed to do, he could expect no cooperation from the
+societies; and I reached the town just as the three ships were coming in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>I had not well alighted from my horse at Dugal M'Vicar the smith's
+public,&mdash;the best house it is in the town, and slated. It stands beside
+an oak-tree on the open shore, below the Mansion-house-brae, above the
+place where the mariners boil their tar-pots. As I was saying, I had not
+well alighted there, when a squadron of certain time-serving and
+prelatic-inclined inheritors of the shire of Renfrew, under the command
+of Houston of that Ilk, came galloping to the town as if they would have
+devoured Argyle, host, and ships and all; and they rode straight to the
+minister's glebe, where, behind the kirk-yard dyke, they set themselves
+in battle array with drawn swords, the vessels having in the meanwhile
+come to anchor fornent the kirk.</p>
+
+<p>Like the men of the town I went to be an onlooker, at a distance, of
+what might ensue; and a sore heart it was to me, to see and to hear that
+the Greenock folk stood so much in dread of their superior, Sir John
+Shaw, that they durst not, for fear of his black-hole, venture to say
+that day whether they were papists, prelates, or presbyterians, he
+himself not being in the way to direct them.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the ships had cast anchor, Major Fullarton, with a party
+of some ten or twelve men, landed at the burn-foot, near the kirk, and
+having shown a signal for parley, Houston and his men went to him, and
+began to chafe and chide him for invading the country.</p>
+
+<p>"We are no invaders," said the Major, "we have come to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> our native land
+to preserve the protestant religion; and I am grieved that such brave
+gentlemen, as ye appear to be, should be seen in the cause of a papist
+tyrant and usurper."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye lee," cried Houston, and fired his pistol at the Major, the like did
+his men; but they were so well and quickly answered in the same
+language, that they soon were obligated to flee like drift to the brow
+of a hill, called Kilblain-brae, where they again showed face.</p>
+
+<p>Those on board the ships seeing what was thus doing on the land, pointed
+their great guns to the airt where the cavaliers had rallied, and fired
+them with such effect, that the stoure and stones brattled about the
+lugs of the heritors, which so terrified them all that they scampered
+off; and, it is said, some drew not bridle till they were in Paisley
+with whole skins, though at some cost of leather.</p>
+
+<p>When these tyrant tools were thus discomfited, Sir John Cochrane came on
+shore, and tried in vain to prevail on the inhabitants to join in
+defence of religion and liberty. So he sent for the baron-bailie, who
+was the ruling power of the town in the absence of their great Sir John,
+and ordered him to provide forthwith two hundred bolls of meal for the
+ships. But the bailie, a shrewd and gausie man, made so many
+difficulties in the gathering of the meal, to waste time till help would
+come, that the knight was glad to content himself with little more than
+a fifth part of his demand.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I had made my errand known to Sir John Cochrane, and when he
+went off with the meal-sacks to the ships I went with him, and we sailed
+the same night to the castle of Allengreg, where Argyle himself then
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever doubts and fears I had of the success of the expedition, were
+all wofully confirmed, when I saw how things were about that unfortunate
+nobleman. The controversies in our councils at the Pentland raid were
+more than renewed among those who were around Argyle; and it was plain
+to me that the sense of ruin was upon his spirit; for, after I had told
+him the purport of my mission, he said to me in a mournful manner,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I can discern no party in this country that desire to be relieved;
+there are some hidden ones, no doubt, but only my poor friends here in
+Argyle seem willing to be free. God hath so ordered it, and it must be
+for the best. I submit myself to His will."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I felt the truth of what he said, that the tyranny had indeed bred
+distrust among us, and that the patience of men was so worn out that
+very many were inclined to submit from mere weariness of spirit;&mdash;but I
+added, to hearten him, if one of my condition may say so proud a thing
+of so great a person, That were the distinct ends of his intents made
+more clearly manifest, maybe the dispersed hearts of the Covenanters
+would yet be knit together. "Some think, my Lord, ye're for the Duke of
+Monmouth to be king, but that will ne'er do,&mdash;the rightful heirs canna
+be set aside. James Stuart may be, and should be put down; but,
+according to the customs registered, as I hae read in the ancient
+chronicles of this realm, when our nation in olden times cut off a king
+for his misdeeds, the next lawful heir was aye raised to the throne."</p>
+
+<p>To this the Earl made no answer, but continued some time thoughtful, and
+then said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It rests not all with me,&mdash;those who are with me, as you may well note,
+take over much upon them, and will not be controlled. They are like the
+waves, raised and driven wheresoever any blast of rumour wiseth them to
+go. I gave a letter of trust to one of their emissaries, and, like the
+raven, he has never returned. If, however, I could get to Inverary, I
+doubt not yet that something might be done; for I should then be in the
+midst of some that would reverence Argyle."</p>
+
+<p>But why need I dwell on these melancholious incidents? Next day the Earl
+resolved to make the attempt to reach Inverary, and I went with him; but
+after the castle of Arkinglass, in the way thither, had been taken, he
+was obligated, by the appearance of two English frigates which had been
+sent in pursuit of the expedition, to return to Allengreg; for the main
+stores and ammunition brought from Holland were lodged in that castle;
+the ships also were lying there; all which, in a manner, were at stake,
+and no garrison adequate to defend the same from so great a power.</p>
+
+<p>On returning to Allengreg, Argyle saw it would be a golden achievement
+if, in that juncture, he could master the frigates; so he ordered his
+force, which amounted to about a thousand men, to man the ships and four
+prizes which he had, together with about thirty cowan boats belonging to
+his vassals, and to attack the frigates. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> in this also he was
+disappointed, for those who were with him, and wedded to the purpose of
+going to the Lowlands, mutinied against the scheme, as too hazardous,
+and obliged him to give up the attempt, and to leave the castle with a
+weak and incapable garrison.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, reluctant, but yielding to these blind counsels, after
+quitting Allengreg, we marched for the Lowlands, and at the head of the
+Gareloch, where we halted, the garrison which had been left at Allengreg
+joined us with the disastrous intelligence that, finding themselves
+unable to withstand the frigates, they had abandoned all.</p>
+
+<p>I was near to Argyle when the news of this was brought to him, and I
+observed that he said nothing; but his cheek faded, and he hastily wrung
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Having crossed the river Leven a short way above Dumbarton, without
+suffering any material molestation, we halted for the night; but as we
+were setting our watches a party of the government force appeared, so
+that, instead of getting any rest after our heavy march, we were
+obligated to think of again moving.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl would fain have fought with that force, his numbers being
+superior, but he was again overruled; so that all we could do was,
+during the night, leaving our camp-fires burning for a delusion, to make
+what haste we could toward Glasgow.</p>
+
+<p>In this the uncountenanced fortunes of the expedition were again seen.
+Our guides in the dark misled us; so that, instead of being taken to
+Glasgow, we were, after grievous traversing in the moors, landed on the
+banks of the Clyde near Kilpatrick, where the whole force broke up, Sir
+John Cochrane, being fey for the West Country, persuading many to go
+with him over the water, in order to make for the shire of Ayr.</p>
+
+<p>The Earl, seeing himself thus deserted, and but few besides those of his
+own kin left with him, rode about a mile on towards Glasgow, with the
+intent of taking some rest in the house of one who had been his servant;
+but on reaching the door it was shut in his face and barred, and
+admission peremptorily refused. He said nothing, but turned round to us
+with a smile of such resigned sadness that it brought tears into every
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that his fate was come to such extremity, I pro<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>posed to exchange
+clothes with him, that he might the better escape, and to conduct him to
+the West Country, where, if any chance were yet left, it was to be found
+there, as Sir John Cochrane had represented. Whereupon he sent his
+kinsmen to make the best of their way back to the Highlands, to try what
+could be done among his clan; and, having accepted a portion of my
+apparel, he went to the ferry-boat with Major Fullarton, and we crossed
+the water together.</p>
+
+<p>On landing at the Renfrew side the Earl went forward alone, a little
+before the Major and me; but on reaching the ford at Inchinnan he was
+stopped by two soldiers, who laid hands upon him, one on each side, and
+in the grappling one of them, the Earl fell to the ground. In a moment,
+however, his Lordship started up, and got rid of them by presenting his
+pistols. But five others at the same instant came in sight, and fired
+and ran in at him, and knocked him down with their swords. "Alas!
+unfortunate Argyle," I heard him cry as he fell; and the soldiers were
+so astonished at having so rudely treated so great a man, that they
+stood still with awe and dropped their swords, and some of them shed
+tears of sorrow for his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing what had thus happened, Major Fullarton and I fled and hid
+ourselves behind a hedge, for we saw another party of troopers coming
+towards the spot,&mdash;we heard afterwards that it was Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, with some of the Renfrewshire heritors, by whom the Earl was
+conducted a prisoner to Glasgow. But of the dismal indignities, and the
+degradations to which he was subjected, and of his doleful martyrdom,
+the courteous reader may well spare me the sad recital, as they are
+recorded in all true British histories, and he will accept for the same
+those sweet but mournful lines which Argyle indited in the dungeon:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou, passenger, that shalt have so much time<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To view my grave, and ask what was my crime;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No stain of error, no black vice's brand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was that which chased me from my native land.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love to my country&mdash;twice sentenced to die&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Constrain'd my hands forgotten arms to try.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">More by friends' fraud my fall proceeded hath<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than foes, though now they thrice decreed my death.<br /></span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">On my attempt though Providence did frown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His oppress'd people God at length shall own;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Another hand, by more successful speed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though my head fall, that is no tragic story,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since, going hence, I enter endless glory.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_LXXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER LXXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>The news of the fall of Argyle was as gladdening wine to the cruel
+spirit of James Stuart. It was treated by him as victory was of old
+among the conquering Romans, and he ordained medals of brass and of
+silver to be made, to commemorate, as a glorious triumph, the deed that
+was a crime. But he was not content with such harmless monuments of
+insensate exultation; he considered the blow as final to the
+presbyterian cause, and openly set himself to effect the
+re-establishment of the idolatrous abominations of the mass and monkrie.</p>
+
+<p>The Lord Perth and his brother, the Lord Melford, and a black catalogue
+of others, whose names, for the fame of Scotland, I would fain expunge
+with the waters of oblivion, considering Religion as a thing of royal
+regulation, professed themselves papists, and got, as the price of their
+apostacy and perdition, certain places of profit in the government.
+Clouds of the papistical locust were then allured into the land, to eat
+it up leaf and blade again. Schools to teach children the deceits, and
+the frauds, and the sins of the jesuits, were established even in the
+palace of Holyrood-house; and the chapel, which had been cleansed in the
+time of Queen Mary, was again defiled with the pageantries of idolatry.</p>
+
+<p>But the godly people of Edinburgh called to mind the pious bravery of
+their forefathers, and all that they had done in the Reformation; and
+they rose, as it were with one accord, and demolished the schools, and
+purified the chapel, even to desolation, and forced the papist priest to
+abjure his own idols. The old abhorrence of the abominations was
+revived; for now it was clearly seen what King Charles and his brother
+had been seeking, in the relentless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span> persecution which they had so long
+sanctioned; and many in consequence, who had supported and obeyed the
+prelatic apostasy as a thing but of innocent forms, trembled at the
+share which they had taken in the guilt of that aggression, and their
+dismay was unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>The tyrant, however, soon saw that he had over-counted the degree of the
+humiliation of the land; and being disturbed by the union which his open
+papistry was causing among all denominations of protestants, he changed
+his mood, and from force resorting to fraud, publishing a general
+toleration,&mdash;a device of policy which greatly disheartened the prelatic
+faction; for they saw that they had only laboured to strengthen a
+prerogative, the first effectual exercise of which was directed against
+themselves, every one discerning that the indulgence was framed to give
+head-rope to the papists. But the Covenanters made use of it to advance
+the cause of the Gospel, as I shall now proceed to rehearse, as well as
+how through it I was enabled to perform my avenging vow.</p>
+
+<p>Among the exiled Covenanters who returned with Argyle, and with whom I
+became acquainted while with him, was Thomas Ardmillan, when, after my
+escape at the time when the Earl was taken, I fell in again with at
+Kirkintilloch, as I was making the best of my way into the East Country,
+and we went together to Arbroath, where he embarked for Holland.</p>
+
+<p>Being then minded to return back to Edinburgh, and to abide again with
+Mrs Brownlee, in whose house I had found a safe asylum, and a convenient
+place of espial, after seeing him on board the vessel, I also took
+shipping, and returned to Leith under an assurance that I should hear of
+him from time to time. It was not, however, until the indulgence was
+proclaimed that I heard from him, about which era he wrote to me a most
+scriptural letter, by the reverend Mr Patrick Warner, who had received a
+call from the magistrates and inhabitants of the covenanted town of
+Irvine, to take upon him the ministry of their parish.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Warner having accepted the call, on arriving at Leith sent to Mrs
+Brownlee's this letter, with a request that, if I was alive and there,
+he would be glad to see me in his lodging before departing to the West
+Country.</p>
+
+<p>As the fragrance of Mr Warner's sufferings was sweet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> among all the true
+and faithful, I was much regaled with this invitation, and went
+forthwith to Leith, where I found him in a house that is clad with
+oyster-shells, in the Tod's-hole Close. He was sitting in a fair chamber
+therein, with that worthy bailie that afterwards was next year, at the
+time of the Revolution, Mr Cornelius Neilsone, and his no less excellent
+compeer on the same great occasion, Mr George Samsone, both persons of
+godly repute. Mr Cheyne, the town-clerk, was likewise present, a most
+discreet character, but being a lawyer by trade, and come of an
+episcopal stock, he was rather a thought, it was said, inclined to the
+prelatic sect. Divers others, douce and religious characters, were also
+there, especially Mr Jaddua Fyfe, a merchant of women's gear, then in
+much renown for his suavity. Mr Warner was relating to them many
+consolatory things of the worth and piety of the Prince and Princess of
+Orange, to whom the eyes of all the protestants, especially of the
+presbyterians, were at that time directed.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doot, nae doot, but the Prince is
+a man of a sweet-smelling odour,&mdash;that's in the way of character;&mdash;and
+the Princess; aye, aye, it is well known, that she's a pure snowdrop,
+and a lily o' the valley in the Lord's garden,&mdash;that's in the way of
+piety."</p>
+
+<p>"They're the heirs presumptive to the crown," subjoined Mr Cheyne.</p>
+
+<p>"They're weel entitled to the reverence and respect of us a'," added Mr
+Cornelius Neilsone.</p>
+
+<p>"When I first got the call from Irvine," resumed Mr Warner, "that
+excellent lady, and precious vessel of godliness, the Countess of
+Sutherland, being then at the Hague, sought my allowance to let the
+Princess know of my acceptance of the call, and to inquire if her
+Highness had any commands for Scotland; and the Princess in a most
+gracious manner signified to her that the best thing I, and those who
+were like me, could do for her, was to be earnest in praying that she
+might be kept firm and faithful in the reformed religion, adding many
+tender things of her sincere sympathy for the poor persecuted people of
+Scotland, and recommending that I should wait on the Prince before
+taking my departure. I was not, however, forward to thrust myself into
+such honour; but at last yielding to the exhortations of my friends, I
+went to the house of Mynheer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> Bentinck, and gave him my name for an
+audience; and one morning, about eight of the clock, his servant called
+for me and took me to his house, and he himself conveyed me into the
+presence of the Prince, where, leaving me with him, we had a most
+weighty and edifying conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye," interposed Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "it was a great thing to converse
+wi' a prince; and how did he behave himself,&mdash;that's in the way o'
+manners?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye need na debate, Mr Fyfe, about that," replied Mr Samsone, "the
+Prince kens what it's to be civil, especially to his friends;" and I
+thought, in saying these words, that Mr Samsone looked particular
+towards me.</p>
+
+<p>"And what passed?" said the town-clerk, in a way as if he pawkily
+jealoused something. Mr Warner, however, in his placid and minister-like
+manner, responded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I told his Highness how I had received the call from Irvine, and
+thought it my duty to inquire if there was any thing wherein I could
+serve him in Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>"To this the Prince replied in a benign manner&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye," ejaculated Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doubt it was in a benignant
+manner, and in a cordial manner. Aye, aye, he has nae his ill-wand to
+seek when a customer's afore the counter,&mdash;that's in the way o'
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"'I understand,' said his Highness," continued Mr Warner, "'you are
+called home upon the toleration lately granted; but I can assure you,
+that toleration is not granted for any kindness to your party, but to
+favour the papists, and to divide you among yourselves; yet I think you
+may be so wise as to take good of it, and prevent the evil designed,
+and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves when
+you have liberty to see and meet more freely.'</p>
+
+<p>"To which," said Mr Warner, "I answered, that I heartily wished it might
+prove so, and that nothing would be wanting on my part to make it so;
+and I added, the presbyterians in Scotland, Great Sir, are looked upon
+as a very despicable party; but those who do so measure them by the
+appearance at Pentland and Bothwell, as if the whole power of the
+presbyterians had been drawn out there; but I can assure your Highness
+that such are greatly mistaken; for many firm presbyterians were not
+satisfied as to the grounds and manner of those risings, and did not
+join; and others were borne down by the Persecu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>tion. In verity I am
+persuaded, that if Scotland were left free, of three parts of the people
+two would be found presbyterians. We are indeed a poor persecuted party,
+and have none under God to look to for our help and relief but your
+Highness, on account of that relation you and the Princess have to the
+crown."</p>
+
+<p>"That was going a great length, Mr Warner," said Mr Cheyne, the
+town-clerk.</p>
+
+<p>"No a bit, no a bit," cried I; and Mr Jaddua Fyfe gave me an approving
+gloom, while Mr Warner quietly continued,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I then urged many things, hoping that the Lord would incline his
+Highness' heart to espouse His interest in Scotland, and befriend the
+persecuted presbyterians. To which the Prince replied&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye, I like to hear what his Highness said, that's in the way of
+counselling," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe.</p>
+
+<p>"The Prince," replied Mr Warner, "then spoke to me earnestly, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'I have been educated a presbyterian, and I hope so to continue; and I
+assure you, if ever it be in my power, I shall make the presbyterian
+church-government the established church-government of Scotland, and of
+this you may assure your friends, as in prudence you find it
+convenient.'"</p>
+
+<p>Discerning the weight and intimation that were in these words, I said,
+when Mr Warner had made an end, that it was a great thing to know the
+sentiment of the Prince; for by all signs the time could not be far off
+when we would maybe require to put his assurance and promise to the
+test. At which words of mine there were many exchanges of gathered brows
+and significant nods, and Mr Jaddua Fyfe, to whom I was sitting next,
+slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution,
+that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and I gave inward
+thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning to
+kithe among us.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_LXXXIX" id="CHAPTER_LXXXIX"></a>CHAPTER LXXXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Besides Mr Warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign
+countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that King
+James would to a surety be set aside, on account of his malversations in
+the kingly office in England, and the even-down course he was pursuing
+there, as in Scotland, to abolish all property that the subjects had in
+the ancient laws and charters of the realm. But the thing came to no
+definite head till that jesuit-contrived device for cutting out the
+protestant heirs to the crown was brought to maturity, by palming a
+man-child upon the nation as the lawful son of the Tyrant and his
+papistical wife.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, I had not been idle in disseminating throughout the
+land, by the means of the Cameronians, a faithful account of what Mr
+Warner had related of the pious character and presbyterian dispositions
+of the Prince of Orange; and through a correspondence that I opened with
+Thomas Ardmillan, Mynheer Bentinck was kept so informed of the growing
+affection for his master in Scotland, as soon emboldened the Prince,
+with what he heard of the inclinations of the English people, to prepare
+a great host and navy for the deliverance of the kingdoms. In the midst
+of these human means and stratagems, the bright right hand of Providence
+was shiningly visible; for, by the news of the Prince's preparations, it
+smote the councils of King James with confusion and a fatal distraction.</p>
+
+<p>Though he had so alienated the Scottish lieges, that none but the basest
+of men among us acknowledged his authority, yet he summoned all his
+forces into England, leaving his power to be upheld here by those only
+who were vile enough to wish for the continuance of slavery. Thus was
+the way cleared for the advent of the deliverer; and the faithful nobles
+and gentry of Scotland, as the army was removed, came flocking into
+Edinburgh, and the Privy Council, which had been so little slack in any
+crime, durst not molest them, though the purpose of their being there
+was a treason which the members could not but all well know. Every
+thing, in a word, was now moving onward to a great event; all in the
+land was as when the thaw comes, and the ice is breaking, and the snows
+melting, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span> waters flowing, and the rivers are bursting their
+frozen fetters, and the sceptre of winter is broken, and the wreck of
+his domination is drifting and perishing away.</p>
+
+<p>To keep the Privy Council in the confusion of the darkness of ignorance,
+I concerted with many of the Cameronians that they should spread
+themselves along the highways, and intercept the government expresses
+and emissaries, to the end that neither the King's faction in England
+nor in Scotland might know aught of the undertakings of each other; and
+when Thomas Ardmillan sent me, from Mynheer Bentinck, the Prince's
+declaration for Scotland, I hastened into the West Country, that I might
+exhort the covenanted there to be in readiness, and from the tolbooth
+stair of Irvine, yea, on the very step where my heart was so pierced by
+the cries of my son, I was the first in Scotland to publish that
+glorious pledge of our deliverance. On the same day, at the same hour,
+the like was done by others of our friends at Glasgow and at Ayr; and
+there was shouting, and joy, and thanksgiving, and the magnificent voice
+of freedom resounded throughout the land, and ennobled all hearts again
+with bravery.</p>
+
+<p>When the news of the Prince's landing at Torbay arrived, we felt that
+liberty was come; but long oppression had made many distrustful, and
+from day to day rumours were spread by the despairing members of the
+prelatic sect, the breathings of their wishes, that made us doubt
+whether we ought to band ourselves into any array for warfare. In this
+state of swithering and incertitude we continued for some time, till I
+began to grow fearful lest the zeal which had been so rekindled would
+sink and go out if not stirred again in some effectual manner; so I
+conferred with Quintin Fullarton, who in all these providences had been
+art and part with me, from the day of the meeting with Mr Renwick near
+Laswade; and as the Privy Council, when it was known the Prince had been
+invited over, had directed beacons to be raised on the tops of many
+mountains, to be fired as signals of alarm for the King's party when the
+Dutch fleet should be seen approaching the coast, we devised, as a mean
+for calling forth the strength and spirit of the Covenanters, that we
+should avail ourselves of their preparations.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly we instructed four alert young men, of the Cameronian
+societies, severally and unknown to each other,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> to be in attendance on
+the night of the tenth of December, at the beacons on the hills of
+Knockdolian, Lowthers, Blacklarg, and Bencairn, that they might fire the
+same if need or signal should so require, Quintin Fullarton having
+undertaken to kindle the one on Mistylaw himself.</p>
+
+<p>The night was dark, but it was ordained that the air should be moist and
+heavy, and in that state when the light of flame spreads farthest.
+Meanwhile fearful reports from Ireland of papistical intents to maintain
+the cause of King James made the fancies of men awake and full of
+anxieties. The prelatic curates were also so heartened by those rumours
+and tidings, that they began to recover from the dismay with which the
+news of the Prince's landing had overwhelmed them, and to shoot out
+again the horns of antichristian arrogance. But when, about three hours
+after sunset, the beacon on the Mistylaw was fired, and when hill after
+hill was lighted up, the whole country was filled with such
+consternation and panic, that I was myself smitten with the dread of
+some terrible consequences. Horsemen passed furiously in all
+directions&mdash;bells were rung, and drums beat&mdash;mothers were seen flying
+with their children they knew not whither&mdash;cries and lamentations echoed
+on every side. The skies were kindled with a red glare, and none could
+tell where the signal was first shown. Some said the Irish had landed
+and were burning the towns in the south, and no one knew where to flee
+from the unknown and invisible enemy.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, our Covenanters of the West assembled at their
+trysting-place, to the number of more than six thousand armed men, ready
+and girded for battle; and this appearance was an assurance that no
+power was then in all the Lowlands able to gainsay such a force; and
+next day, when it was discovered that the alarm had no real cause, it
+was determined that the prelatic priests should be openly discarded from
+their parishes. Our vengeance, however, was not meted upon them by the
+measure of our sufferings, but by the treatment which our own pastors
+had borne; and, considering how many of them had acted as spies and
+accusers against us, it is surprising, that of two hundred, who were
+banished from the parishes, few received any cause of complaint; even
+the poor feckless thing, Andrew Dornock, was decently expelled from the
+manse of Quharist, on promising he would never return.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This riddance of the malignants was the first fruit of the expulsion of
+James Stuart from the throne; but it was not long till we were menaced
+with new and even greater sufferings than we had yet endured. For though
+the tyrant had fled, he had left Claverhouse, under the title of
+Viscount Dundee, behind him; and in the fearless activity of that proud
+and cruel warrior, there was an engine sufficient to have restored him
+to his absolute throne, as I shall now proceed to rehearse.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XC" id="CHAPTER_XC"></a>CHAPTER XC</h2>
+
+
+<p>The true and faithful of the West, by the event recorded in the
+foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power
+and numbers, stood in no reverence of any force that the remnants of the
+Tyrant's sect and faction could afford to send against them. I therefore
+resolved to return to Edinburgh; for the longing of my grandfather's
+spirit to see the current and course of public events flowing from their
+fountain-head, was upon me, and I had not yet so satisfied the yearnings
+of justice as to be able to look again on the ashes of my house and the
+tomb of Sarah Lochrig and her daughters. Accordingly, soon after the
+turn of the year I went thither, where I found all things in uncertainty
+and commotion.</p>
+
+<p>Claverhouse, or, as he was now titled, Lord Dundee, with that scorn of
+public opinion and defect of all principle, save only a canine fidelity,
+a dog's love, to his papistical master, domineered with his dragoons, as
+if he himself had been regnant monarch of Scotland; and it was plain and
+probable, that unless he was soon bridled, he would speedily act upon
+the wider stage of the kingdom the same Mahound-like part that he had
+played in the prenticeship of his cruelties of the shire of Ayr. The
+peril, indeed, from his courage and activity, was made to me very
+evident, by a conversation that I had with one David Middleton, who had
+come from England on some business of the Jacobites there, in connection
+with Dundee.</p>
+
+<p>Providence led me to fall in with this person one morning, as we were
+standing among a crowd of other onlookers, seeing Claverhouse reviewing
+his men in the front court of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> Holyrood-house. I happened to remark, for
+in sooth it must be so owned, that the Viscount had a brave though a
+proud look, and that his voice had the manliness of one ordained to
+command.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied David Middleton, "he is a born soldier, and if the King
+is to be restored, he is the man that will do it. When his Majesty was
+at Rochester, before going to France, I was there with my master, and
+being called in to mend the fire, I heard Dundee and my Lord, then with
+the King, discoursing concerning the royal affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"'The question,' said Lord Dundee to his Majesty, 'is, whether you shall
+stay in England or go to France? My opinion, sir, is, that you should
+stay in England, make your stand here, and summon your subjects to your
+allegiance. 'Tis true, you have disbanded your army, but give me leave,
+and I will undertake to get ten thousand men of it together, and march
+through all England with your standard at their head, and drive the
+Dutch before you;' and," added David Middleton, "let him have time, and
+I doubt not, that, even without the King's leave, he will do as much."</p>
+
+<p>Whether the man in this did brag of a knowledge that he had not, the
+story seemed so likely, that it could scarcely be questioned; so I
+consulted with my faithful friend and companion, Quintin Fullarton, and
+other men of weight among the Cameronians; and we agreed, that those of
+the societies who were scattered along the borders to intercept the
+correspondence between the English and Scottish Jacobites, should be
+called into Edinburgh to daunt the rampageous insolence of Claverhouse.</p>
+
+<p>This was done accordingly; and from the day that they began to appear in
+the streets, the bravery of those who were with him seemed to slacken.
+But still he carried himself as boldly as ever, and persuaded the Duke
+of Gordon, then governor of the castle, not to surrender, nor obey any
+mandate from the Convention of the States, by whom, in that interregnum,
+the rule of the kingdom was exercised. Still, however, the Cameronians
+were coming in, and their numbers became so manifest, that the dragoons
+were backward to show themselves. But their commander affected not to
+value us, till one day a singular thing took place, which, in its
+issues, ended the overawing influence of his presence in Edinburgh.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I happened to be standing with Quintin Fullarton, and some four or five
+other Cameronians, at an entry-mouth forenent the Canongate-cross, when
+Claverhouse, and that tool of tyranny, Sir George Mackenzie the
+advocate, were coming up from the palace; and as they passed, the
+Viscount looked hard at me, and said to Sir George,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have somewhere seen that doure cur before."</p>
+
+<p>Sir George turned round also to look, and I said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's true, Claverhouse&mdash;we met at Drumclog;" and I touched my arm that
+he had wounded there, adding, "and the blood shed that day has not yet
+been paid for."</p>
+
+<p>At these words he made a rush upon me with his sword, but my friends
+were nimbler with theirs; and Sir George Mackenzie interposing, drew him
+off, and they went away together.</p>
+
+<p>The affair, however, ended not here. Sir George, with the subtlety of a
+lawyer, tried to turn it to some account, and making a great ado of it,
+as a design to assassinate Lord Dundee and himself, tried to get the
+Convention to order all strangers to remove from the town. This,
+however, was refused; so that Claverhouse, seeing how the spirit of the
+times was going among the members, and the boldness with which the
+presbyterians and the Covenanters were daily bearding his arrogance,
+withdrew with his dragoons from the city and made for Stirling.</p>
+
+<p>In this retreat from Edinburgh he blew the trumpet of civil war; but in
+less than two hours from the signal, a regiment of eight hundred
+Cameronians was arrayed in the High-street. The son of Argyle, who had
+taken his seat in the Convention as a peer, soon after gathered three
+hundred of the Campbells, and the safety of Scotland now seemed to be
+secured by the arrival of Mackay with three Scotch regiments, then in
+the Dutch service, and which the Prince of Orange had brought with him
+to Torbay.</p>
+
+<p>By the retreat of Claverhouse the Jacobite party in Edinburgh were so
+disheartened, and any endeavour which they afterwards made to rally was
+so crazed with consternation, that it was plain the sceptre had departed
+from their master. The capacity as well as the power for any effectual
+action was indeed evidently taken from them, and the ploughshare was
+driven over the ruins of their cause on the ever-memorable eleventh day
+of April, when William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But though thus the oppressor was cast down from his throne, and though
+thus, in Scotland, the chief agents in the work of deliverance were the
+outlawed Cameronians, as instructed by me, the victory could not be
+complete, nor the trophies hung up in the hall, while the Tyrant
+possessed an instrument of such edge and temper as Claverhouse. As for
+myself, I felt that while the homicide lived the debt of justice and of
+blood due to my martyred family could never be satisfied; and I heard of
+his passing from Stirling into the Highlands, and the wonders he was
+working for the Jacobite cause there, as if nothing had yet been
+achieved toward the fulfilment of my avenging vow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XCI" id="CHAPTER_XCI"></a>CHAPTER XCI</h2>
+
+
+<p>When Claverhouse left Stirling, he had but sixty horse. In little more
+than a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. He obtained
+reinforcements from Ireland. The Macdonalds, and the Camerons, and the
+Gordons, were all his. A vassal of the Marquis of Athol had declared for
+him even in the castle of Blair, and defended it against the clan of his
+master. An event still more strange was produced by the spell of his
+presence,&mdash;the clansmen of Athol deserted their chief, and joined his
+standard. He kindled the hills in his cause, and all the life of the
+North was gathering around him.</p>
+
+<p>Mackay, with the Covenanters, the regiments from Holland, and the
+Cameronians, went from Perth to oppose his entrance into the Lowlands.
+The minds of men were suspended. Should he defeat Mackay, it was plain
+that the crown would soon be restored to James Stuart, and the woes of
+Scotland come again.</p>
+
+<p>In that dismal juncture I was alone; for Quintin Fullarton, with all the
+Cameronians, was with Mackay.</p>
+
+<p>I was an old man, verging on threescore.</p>
+
+<p>I went to and fro in the streets of Edinburgh all day long, inquiring of
+every stranger the news; and every answer that I got was some new
+triumph of Dundee.</p>
+
+<p>No sleep came to my burning pillow, or if indeed my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> eyelids for very
+weariness fell down, it was only that I might suffer the stings of
+anxiety in some sharper form; for my dreams were of flames kindling
+around me, through which I saw behind the proud and exulting visage of
+Dundee.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in the depths of the night I rushed into the street, and I
+listened with greedy ears, thinking I heard the trampling of dragoons
+and the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when I saw three
+or four persons speaking together, I ran towards them, and broke in upon
+their discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer me
+with pity.</p>
+
+<p>But the haste and frenzy of this alarm suddenly changed: I felt that I
+was a chosen instrument; I thought that the ruin which had fallen on me
+and mine was assuredly some great mystery of Providence: I remembered
+the prophecy of my grandfather, that a task was in store for me, though
+I knew not what it was; I forgot my old age and my infirmities; I
+hastened to my chamber; I put money in my purse; I spoke to no one; I
+bought a carabine; and I set out alone to reinforce Mackay.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed down the street, and out at the West-port, I saw the people
+stop and look at me with silence and wonder. As I went along the road,
+several that were passing inquired where I was going so fast? but I
+waived my hand and hurried by.</p>
+
+<p>I reached the Queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. I
+embarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side I had fallen
+asleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumber
+unmolested. When I awoke I felt myself refreshed. I leapt on shore, and
+went again impatiently on.</p>
+
+<p>But my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when I reached Kinross I
+bought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped it
+in the water, and it was a savoury repast.</p>
+
+<p>As I approached the Brigg of Earn I felt age in my limbs, and though the
+spirit was willing, the body could not; and I sat down, and I mourned
+that I was so frail and so feeble. But a marvellous vigour was soon
+again given to me, and I rose refreshed from my resting-place on the
+wall of the bridge, and the same night I reached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> Perth. I stopped in a
+stabler's till the morning. At break of day, having hired a horse from
+him, I hastened forward to Dunkeld, where he told me Mackay had encamped
+the day before, on his way to defend the Pass of Killicrankie.</p>
+
+<p>The road was thronged with women and children flocking into Perth in
+terror of the Highlanders, but I heeded them not. I had but one thought,
+and that was to reach the scene of war and Claverhouse.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the ferry of Inver, the field in front of the Bishop of
+Dunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. Mackay had
+marched towards Blair-Athol, to drive Dundee and the Highlanders, if
+possible, back into the glens and mosses of the North; for he had learnt
+that his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's.</p>
+
+<p>On hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, I halted at the
+ferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that I
+should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the
+meeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came to
+that turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into the
+Tay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soon
+after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink,
+slowly and heavily, as the chariots of <a name='TC_23'></a><ins title="Was Pharoah">Pharaoh</ins> laboured through the
+sands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the
+many-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn.</p>
+
+<p>On the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins of
+the ramparts of some ancient world; and I thought of the epochs when the
+days of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants were
+on the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and I felt as if I
+beheld the hand of the Lord in the cloud weighing the things of time in
+His scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again so
+great as that the cause of Claverhouse should be suffered to prevail.
+For my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughts
+as the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with a
+glorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XCII" id="CHAPTER_XCII"></a>CHAPTER XCII</h2>
+
+
+<p>General Mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at
+the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary, and which the Highlanders call
+Fascali, because, as the name in their tongue signifies, no trees are
+growing thereon. This place is the threshold of the Pass of
+Killicrankie, through the dark and woody chasms of which the impatient
+waters of the Gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs.
+The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic
+forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity
+is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the
+minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had
+joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place.</p>
+
+<p>As the soldiers spread themselves over the green bosom of Fascali, and
+piled their arms and furled their banners, and laid their drums on the
+ground, and led their horses to the river, the General sent forward a
+scout through the Pass to discover the movements of Claverhouse, having
+heard that he was coming from the castle of Blair-Athol, to prevent his
+entrance into the Highlands.</p>
+
+<p>The officer sent to make the espial had not been gone above half an hour
+when he came back in great haste to tell that the Highlanders were on
+the brow of a hill above the house of Rinrorie, and that unless the Pass
+was immediately taken possession of, it would be mastered by Claverhouse
+that night.</p>
+
+<p>Mackay, at this news, ordered the trumpets to sound, and as the echoes
+multiplied and repeated the alarm, it was as if all the spirits of the
+hills called the men to arms. The soldiers looked around as they formed
+their ranks, listening with delight and wonder at the universal bravery,
+and I thought of the sight, which Elisha the prophet gave to the young
+man at Dothan, of the mountains covered with horses and chariots of fire
+for his defence against the host of the King of Syria; and I went
+forward with the confidence of assured victory.</p>
+
+<p>As we issued forth from the Pass into the wide country, extending
+towards Lude and Blair-Athol, we saw, as the officer had reported, the
+Highland hosts of Claverhouse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> arrayed along the lofty brow of the
+mountain, above the house of Rinrorie, their plaids waving in the breeze
+on the hill and their arms glittering to the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Mackay directed the troops, at crossing a raging brook called the
+Girnaig, to keep along a flat of land above the house of Rinrorie, and
+to form, in order of battle, on the field beyond the garden, and under
+the hill where the Highlanders were posted; the baggage and camp
+equipages he at the same time ordered down into a plain that lies
+between the bank on the crown of which the house stands and the river
+Gary. An ancient monumental stone in the middle of the lower plain
+shows, that in some elder age a battle had been fought there, and that
+some warrior of might and fame had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>In taking his ground on that elevated shelf of land, Mackay was minded
+to stretch his left wing to intercept the return of the Highlanders
+towards Blair, and, if possible, oblige them to enter the Pass of
+Killicrankie, by which he would have cut them off from their resources
+in the North, and so perhaps mastered them without any great slaughter.</p>
+
+<p>But Claverhouse discerned the intent of his movement, and before our
+covenanted host had formed their array, it was evident that he was
+preparing to descend; and as a foretaste of the vehemence wherewith the
+Highlanders were coming, we saw them rolling large stones to the brow of
+the hill.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the house of Rinrorie having been deserted by the
+family, the lady, with her children and maidens, had fled to Lude or
+Struan, Mackay ordered a party to take possession of it, and to post
+themselves at the windows which look up the hill. I was among those who
+went into the house, and my station was at the easternmost window, in a
+small chamber which is entered by two doors,&mdash;the one opening from the
+stair-head, and the other from the drawing-room. In this situation we
+could see but little of the distribution of the army or the positions
+that Mackay was taking, for our view was confined to the face of the
+hill whereon the Highlanders were busily preparing for their descent.
+But I saw Claverhouse on horseback riding to and fro, and plainly
+inflaming their valour with many a courageous gesture; and as he turned
+and winded his prancing war-horse, his breast-plate blazed to the
+setting sun like a beacon on the hill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When he had seemingly concluded his exhortation, the Highlanders stooped
+forward and hurled down the rocks which they had gathered for their
+forerunners; and while the stones came leaping and bounding with a noise
+like thunder, the men followed in thick and separate bands, and Mackay
+gave the signal to commence firing.</p>
+
+<p>We saw from the windows many of the Highlanders, at the first volley,
+stagger and fall, but the others came furiously down; and before the
+soldiers had time to stick their bayonets into their guns, the broad
+swords of the Clansmen hewed hundreds to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Within a few minutes the battle was general between the two armies; but
+the smoke of the firing involved all the field, and we could see nothing
+from the windows. The echoes of the mountains raged with the din, and
+the sounds were multiplied by them in so many different places, that we
+could not tell where the fight was hottest. The whole country around
+resounded as with the uproar of a universal battle.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the passion of my spirit return; I could no longer restrain
+myself, nor remain where I was. Snatching up my carabine, I left my
+actionless post at the window, and hurried down stairs, and out of the
+house. I saw by the flashes through the smoke, that the firing was
+spreading down into the plain where the baggage was stationed, and by
+this I knew that there was some movement in the battle; but whether the
+Highlanders or the Covenanters were shifting their ground, I could not
+discover, for the valley was filled with smoke, and it was only at times
+that a sword, like a glance of lightning, could be seen in the cloud
+wherein the thunders and tempest of the conflict were raging.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XCIII" id="CHAPTER_XCIII"></a>CHAPTER XCIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>As I stood on the brow of the bank in front of Rinrorie-house, a gentle
+breathing of the evening air turned the smoke like the travelling mist
+of the hills, and opening it here and there, I had glimpses of the
+fighting. Sometimes I saw the Highlanders driving the Covenanters down
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> steep, and sometimes I beheld them in their turn on the ground
+endeavouring to protect their <a name='TC_24'></a><ins title="Was unbonnetted">unbonneted</ins> heads with their targets, but
+to whom the victory was to be given I could discern no sign; and I said
+to myself the prize at hazard is the liberty of the land and the Lord;
+surely it shall not be permitted to the champion of bondage to prevail.</p>
+
+<p>A stronger breathing of the gale came rushing along, and the skirts of
+the smoke where the baggage stood were blown aside, and I beheld many of
+the Highlanders among the wagons plundering and tearing. Then I heard a
+great shouting on the right, and looking that way, I saw the children of
+the Covenant fleeing in remnants across the lower plain, and making
+toward the river. Presently I also saw Mackay with two regiments, all
+that kept the order of discipline, also in the plain. He had lost the
+battle. Claverhouse had won; and the scattered firing, which was
+continued by a few, was to my ears as the riveting of the shackles on
+the arms of poor Scotland for ever. My grief was unspeakable.</p>
+
+<p>I ran to and fro on the brow of the hill&mdash;and I stampt with my feet&mdash;and
+I beat my breast&mdash;and I rubbed my hands with the frenzy of despair&mdash;and
+I threw myself on the ground&mdash;and all the sufferings of which I have
+written returned upon me&mdash;and I started up and I cried aloud the
+blasphemy of the fool, "There is no God."</p>
+
+<p>But scarcely had the dreadful words escaped my profane lips, when I
+heard, as it were, thunders in the heavens, and the voice of an oracle
+crying in the ears of my soul, "The victory of this day is given into
+thy hands!" and strange wonder and awe fell upon me, and a mighty spirit
+entered into mine, and I felt as if I was in that moment clothed with
+the armour of divine might.</p>
+
+<p>I took up my carabine, which in these transports had fallen from my
+hand, and I went round the gable of the house into the garden&mdash;and I saw
+Claverhouse with several of his officers coming along the ground by
+which our hosts had marched to their position&mdash;and ever and anon turning
+round and exhorting his men to follow him. It was evident he was making
+for the Pass to intercept our scattered fugitives from escaping that
+way.</p>
+
+<p>The garden in which I then stood was surrounded by a low wall. A small
+goose-pool lay on the outside, between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> which and the garden I perceived
+that Claverhouse would pass.</p>
+
+<p>I prepared my flint and examined my fire-lock, and I walked towards the
+top of the garden with a firm step. The ground was buoyant to my tread,
+and the vigour of youth was renewed in my aged limbs: I thought that
+those for whom I had so mourned walked before me&mdash;that they smiled and
+beckoned me to come on, and that a glorious light shone around me.</p>
+
+<p>Claverhouse was coming forward&mdash;several officers were near him, but his
+men were still a little behind, and seemed inclined to go down the hill,
+and he chided at their reluctance. I rested my carabine on the
+garden-wall. I bent my knee and knelt upon the ground. I aimed and
+fired,&mdash;but when the smoke cleared away I beheld the oppressor still
+proudly on his war-horse.</p>
+
+<p>I loaded again, again I knelt, and again rested my carabine upon the
+wall, and fired a second time, and was again disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered that I had not implored the help of Heaven, and I
+prepared for the third time, and when all was ready, and Claverhouse was
+coming forward, I took off my bonnet, and kneeling with the gun in my
+hand, cried, "Lord, remember David and all his afflictions;" and having
+so prayed, I took aim as I knelt, and Claverhouse raising his arm in
+command, I fired. In the same moment I looked up, and there was a vision
+in the air as if all the angels of brightness, and the martyrs in their
+vestments of glory, were assembled on the walls and battlements of
+Heaven to witness the event,&mdash;and I started up and cried, "I have
+delivered my native land!" But in the same instant I remembered to whom
+the glory was due, and falling again on my knees, I raised my hands and
+bowed my head as I said, "Not mine, O Lord, but thine is the victory!"</p>
+
+<p>When the smoke rolled away I beheld Claverhouse in the arms of his
+officers, sinking from his horse, and the blood flowing from a wound
+between the breast-plate and the armpit. The same night he was summoned
+to the audit of his crimes.</p>
+
+<p>It was not observed by the officers from what quarter the summoning bolt
+of justice came, but thinking it was from the house, every window was
+instantly attacked, while I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> deliberately retired from the spot,&mdash;and,
+till the protection of the darkness enabled me to make my escape across
+the Gary, and over the hills in the direction I saw Mackay and the
+remnants of the flock taking, I concealed myself among the bushes and
+rocks that overhung the violent stream of the Girnaig.</p>
+
+<p>Thus was my avenging vow fulfilled,&mdash;and thus was my native land
+delivered from bondage. For a time yet there may be rumours and
+bloodshed, but they will prove as the wreck which the waves roll to the
+shore after a tempest. The fortunes of the papistical Stuarts are
+foundered for ever. Never again in this land shall any king, of his own
+caprice and prerogative, dare to violate the conscience of the people.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Quharist</span>, <i>5th November 1696.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GLOSSARY" id="GLOSSARY"></a>GLOSSARY</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Airt</i>, direction, point of the compass.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>almous</i>, alms.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>atwish</i>, betwixt.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>aught</i>, possession.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>aumrie</i>, store-cupboard.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Bakie</i>, a large square wooden vessel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>beek</i>, <i>v.</i> bathe; here, bask.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bein</i>, well-to-do, comfortable.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>ben</i>, within.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>benweed</i>, ragwort.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bield</i>, shelter.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>big</i>, <i>v.</i> build.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bilf</i>, a blunt stroke (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bir</i>, impetuosity.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>blate</i>, bashful.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>blether</i>, <i>v.</i> talk foolishly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>blithemeat gift</i>, gift made to those present at a child's birth.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bout-gait</i>, roundabout.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bow</i>, arch, gateway.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>boyne</i>, tub.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>braird</i>, the first sprouting of grain.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>brattle</i>, <i>v.</i> clatter.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>brechan</i>, bracken.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>buirdly</i>, burly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>bunker</i>, bench.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>busk</i>, adorn.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>but</i>, <i>but the house</i>, toward the outer apartment of a house.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>by ordinare</i>, out of the common.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Ca'</i>, <i>v.</i> drive.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>callan</i>, <i>callant</i>, boy.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>camstrarie</i>, unmanageable, perverse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cantrip</i>, magical device.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>canty</i>, lively.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cap</i>, a wooden bowl.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>carl</i>, fellow (<i>fem.</i>) <i>carlin</i>.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>carry</i>, motion of the clouds.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>carse</i>, low-lying fertile land, generally adjacent to a river.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>causey</i>, street or paved road;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>crown of the causey</i>, middle of the street.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>change-house</i>, a small inn or ale-house.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>chap</i>, <i>v.</i> strike.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>chappin</i>, a quart measure.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>chimla</i>, <i>chumla</i>, chimney;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>chimla-lug</i>, fireside.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>churme</i>, murmur.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>clachan</i>, hamlet.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>clamper</i>, to make a noise with the feet in walking.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>claught</i>, snatched (<i>pret.</i> of <i>v.</i> <i>clatch</i>).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>clishmaclavers</i>, idle discourse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>clok</i>, beetle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>clout</i>, ragged cloth.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Cluty</i>, <i>fam.</i> the "Old One."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cod</i>, pillow, cushion.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>couthiness</i>, kindness.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cowan-boat</i>, a fishing-boat.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cranreuch</i>, hoar-frost.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>creel</i>, basket.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>crouse</i>, confident, <i>crack crouse</i>, to "talk big."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cruisie</i>, <i>crusie</i>, a small iron lamp.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cuif</i> simpleton.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>cushy-doo</i>, cushat, dove.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Dark</i>, <i>darg</i>, task.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dauner</i>, <i>daunder</i>, stroll.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dauty</i>, pet.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dinle</i>, thrill.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dirl</i>, <i>v.</i> clatter, thrill.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>doless</i>, void of energy.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dominie</i>, schoolmaster.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>donsie</i>, unfortunate.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>door-cheek</i>, door-post.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>doure</i>, hard, harsh.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dow</i>, <i>v.</i> can compass.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dowie</i>, dull.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dreich</i>, tedious.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>drumly</i>, turbid, troubled.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>duds</i>, rags.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dunt</i>, to knock out by repeated blows.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dwam</i>, seizure (sickness).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>dyke</i>, boundary wall.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Ellwand</i>, yard-measure.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>erles</i>, <i>arles</i>, an earnest.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>ettle</i>, <i>v.</i> aim.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>excambio</i>, exchange ratified by law.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>eydent</i>, zealous, industrious.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Fash</i>, <i>v.</i> vex.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>fek</i>, "<i>o' ony fek</i>," of any effect.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>fey</i>, infatuated.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>fisle</i>, <i>v.</i> rustle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>flesher</i>, butcher.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>flit</i>, <i>v.</i> word in general use in Scotland for changing residence.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>flyte</i>, <i>v.</i> scold.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>foregather</i>, <i>v.</i> get into company together.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>fornent</i>, in front of.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>fyke</i>, bustle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Gait</i>, <i>gate</i>, way.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gar</i>, compel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gardevine</i>, cellaret.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>garnel</i>, granary.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gaud</i>, a bar of metal.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gauntrees</i>, <i>gantrees</i>, a stand for a barrel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gawsie</i>, <i>gaucy</i>, jolly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>geizen't</i>, drought-cracked.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gett</i>, contemptuous term for progeny.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gif</i>, if.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gir</i>, <i>gird</i>, hoop.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>girn</i>, a snare.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>glaikit</i>, foolish.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>glebe</i>, land held <i>ex officio</i> by a parish minister.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gled</i>, hawk.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gleg</i>, eager.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>glower</i>, <i>v.</i> glare.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gludder</i>, the sound caused by a body falling among mire (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gowk</i>, fool, <i>lit.</i> cuckoo.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>greet</i>, weep.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>grew</i>, <i>v.</i> shudder.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>grouff</i>, belly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gude-mother</i>, mother-in-law.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gurl</i>, <i>n.</i> growl.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>gurly</i>, surly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Hack</i>, a rack for horses or cattle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>haffet</i>, side-lock.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Hallowe'en</i>, the eve of All Saints' Day.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hap</i>, wrap.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>harl</i>, <i>v.</i> drag.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hass</i>, throat.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>havers</i>, foolish or incoherent talk.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hempy</i>, rogue.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>herry</i>, harry.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hirkos</i> (<i>Lat.</i> hircus), a he-goat.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hirple</i>, limp.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hirstle</i>, to shove oneself along by the hands in a seated posture.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hobbleshow</i>, a difficulty.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><a name='TC_25'></a><ins title="Was Hogmanae"><i>Hogmanæ</i></ins>, the last day of the year.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>holm</i>, <i>howm</i>, low-lying level ground on the banks of a river.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hooly</i>, cautiously.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>horse-setter</i>, job-master.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>howdy</i>, midwife.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>howf</i>, <i>n.</i> haunt.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>howk</i>, dig, burrow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>hyte and fykie</i>, anxious and irritable.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Jawp</i>, <i>v.</i> dash and rebound as water (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jealouse</i>, suspect.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jelly-flowers</i>, gilliflowers.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jimp</i>, scarcely.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jink</i>, chink (<i>corruption</i>).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jo</i>, sweetheart.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>jow</i>, <i>v.</i> toll.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Kail</i>, cabbage; soup made with the same.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>kell</i>, scurf on a child's head (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>kep</i>, catch.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>kist</i>, chest.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>kithe</i>, show, appear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Laigh</i>, low.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lair</i>, lore.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lanerly</i>, <i>alanerly</i>, alone, lonely.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>laverock</i>, lark.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lawing</i>, reckoning.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lift</i>, firmament.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>limmer</i>, "baggage" (term of depreciation).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>linn</i>, waterfall.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lippy</i>, a bumper.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>litherly</i>, lazily.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lone</i>, <i>loaning</i>, lane.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>loun</i>, serene.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lounder</i>, swinging stroke (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>low</i>, <i>n.</i> flame.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lum</i>, chimney.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>lug</i>, ear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>luggie</i>, a small wooden vessel made of staves.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Mailing</i>, farm.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>manse</i>, residence of a minister of the Gospel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>midden</i>, refuse-heap.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>morphosings</i>, metamorphoses.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>moss</i>, a place where peat may be dug (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>mutchkin</i>, a measure equal to a pint.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Napery</i>, household linen.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>neb</i>, beak of a bird.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>nieve</i>, fist.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>notour</i>, notorious.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>O'ercome</i>, burden of a song or discourse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>outstropolous</i>, obstreperous.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>oxter</i>, arm-pit, also arm.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Pawkie</i>, sly; <i>pawkrie</i>, slyness.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>peeseweep</i>, lapwing.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>pen-gun</i>, pop-gun;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>a pen-gun at a crack</i>, a "wunner to talk."</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>pet-day</i>, term applied to a fair day when the weather is generally foul.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>pig</i>, earthenware vessel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>plack</i>, small copper coin.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>play-marrow</i>, playmate.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>prin</i>, pin.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>puddock</i>, toad;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>puddock-stool bonnet</i>, toadstool or Tam o' Shanter cap.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Rackses</i>, andirons.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>raised</i>, delirious.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>ree</i>, half-drunk.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>reek</i>, smoke.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>redde</i>, rede, counsel.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>rig</i>, ridge (of ploughed land).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>rones</i>, external waterducts of a building.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>rug</i>, <i>v.</i> pull roughly.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>runkle</i>, crumple.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Scad</i>, gleam, reflection.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>schore</i>, a man of high rank.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>scog</i>, <i>v.</i> hide.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>scomfisht</i>, discomfited.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>scowther</i>, scorch.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>scrog</i>, a stunted shrub.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>shavling-gabbit</i>, shavling mouthed, a shavling being a carpenter's tool</span>
+of the plane order. Having a mouth which emits sounds like those made in
+planing.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sicker</i>, certain.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>siver</i>, sewer.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>skail</i>, <i>skayl</i>, disperse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>skelf</i>, shelf.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>skirr</i>, scour.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sklinter</i>, <i>v.</i> splinter.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>skreigh</i>, cry.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sleekit</i>, deceitful.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>slocken</i>, slake.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>smeddam</i>, spirit.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sneck</i>, bolt.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>snell</i>, keen.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>snod</i>, trim.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>snool</i>, subjugate by tyrannical means.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sole</i>, sill.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sorn</i>, to "sponge" upon;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">used by Galt for to loiter.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sosherie</i>, social intercourse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>sough</i>, murmur.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>spae</i>, <i>v.</i> forecast.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>spean</i>, <i>v.</i> wean.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>speat</i>, flood.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>speer</i>, <i>speir</i>, inquire.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>spunk</i>, spark.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>staincher</i>, stanchion.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>stang</i>, a pole;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">to "ride the stang" was to be subjected to a form of mob justice by</span>
+which the patient was borne shoulder-high astride a pole.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>steek</i>, stitch, fasten.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>stock</i> (bed-stock), the fore-part of a bed.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>stoure</i>, dust in motion.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>straemash</i>, disturbance.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>stravaig</i>, <i>v.</i> stroll.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>swanky</i>, strapping young countryman (Brockett).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>swatch</i>, sample.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>swee</i>, a chimney crane for suspending a pot over the fire (Jamieson).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>swither</i>, <i>v.</i> to be reluctant, hesitate;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>n</i>. reluctance, hesitation, indecision.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>syne</i>, then.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Tack</i>, lease.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>taigle</i>, hinder, delay.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>tawnle</i>, bonfire.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>temming</i>, a coarse thin woollen cloth.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>tent</i>, heed.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>thacket</i>, thatched.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>thole</i>, endure.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>throng</i>, <i>adj.</i> busy.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>thumbikins</i>, thumbscrews.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>tirl at the pin</i>, old-fashioned mode of intimating desire of admission</span>
+to a house.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>tod</i>, <i>tod lowrie</i>, fox.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>tolbooth</i>, a municipal building including a jail.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>toom</i>, empty.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>toop</i>, a ram.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>toupie</i> (French), toupet.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>trance</i>, paved passage.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>trintle</i>, <i>v.</i> roll.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>trone</i>, a public weighing-machine standing in a market-place.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Unco</i>, <i>adj.</i> extraordinary, remarkable;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>n.</i> remarkable object.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Virl</i>, ring (as those which bind a fishing-rod);</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">frill.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vivers</i>, provisions.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>vogie</i>, vain, complacent.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Wae</i>, grieved.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>waff</i>, feeble, worn out.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>warrandice</i>, warrant.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>warsle</i>, wrestle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wastage</i>, a place of desolation (J.).</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wastrie</i>, waste.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>waught</i>, a large draught.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wean</i>, child.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>whin</i>, furze.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Whigamore</i>, sometimes derived from "whig," a word used in the West for</span>
+urging on horses, and hence applied as a nickname to a political party.
+The expedition of the Covenanters under Eglinton to Edinburgh was known
+as the Whigamore Raid.<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>whumple</i>, overturn, reverse.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>willease</i>, valise.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>willy-wa</i>, palaver, wheedle.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wise, v</i>. entice, incline.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wud</i>, wild.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wuddy</i>, "gallows-looking";</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">widdy is the gallows.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>wyte</i>, blame.</span><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>Yett</i>, gate.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;"><i>yird</i>, <i>n.</i> earth;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>v. a.</i> run to earth.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><i>Colston &amp; Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1a" id="Page_1a">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="BOOKS_WORTH_READING" id="BOOKS_WORTH_READING"></a>BOOKS WORTH READING</h2>
+
+<p class="fm2"><span class="smcap">Being a List of the</span><br />
+New and Forthcoming Publications<br /></p>
+<p class="fm4">OF</p>
+<p class="fm2">GREENING &amp; CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span></p>
+<p class="fm3">20 Cecil Court<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Charing Cross Road</span><br /></p>
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><i>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<b>OCTOBER 1899</b></i></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<b>LONDON, W.C.</b></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">GENERAL LITERATURE, CRITICISM, POETRY, ETC.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>English Writers of To-Day:</i></span> Being a Series of Monographs on living
+Authors. Each volume is written by a competent authority, and each
+subject is treated in an appreciative, yet critical, manner. The
+following are the first volumes in the Series:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Rudyard Kipling</i></span>. The Man and His Work. Being an attempt at an
+"Appreciation." By <span class="smcap">G. F. Monkshood</span>, Author of "Woman and The Wits,"
+"My Lady Ruby," etc. Containing a portrait of Mr Kipling and an
+autograph letter to the author in facsimile. Second Impression.
+Crown 8vo, buckram, gilt lettered, top edge gilt, 5s. nett.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph</b>.&mdash;"He writes fluently, and he has genuine enthusiasm for
+his subject, and an intimate acquaintance with his work. Moreover, the
+book has been submitted to Mr Kipling, whose characteristic letter to
+the author is set forth on the preface.... Of Kipling's heroes Mr
+Monkshood has a thorough understanding, and his remarks on them are
+worth quoting" (extract follows).</p>
+
+<p><b>Globe</b>&mdash;"It has at the basis of it both knowledge and
+enthusiasm&mdash;knowledge of the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.
+This book may be accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's
+merits as a writer. We can well believe that it will have many
+interested and approving readers."</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman</b>.&mdash;"This well-informed volume is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style. One way
+and another his book is full of interest, and those who wish to talk
+about Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted enthusiasm."</p>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">VOLUMES OF E.W.O.T. (In preparation.)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2a" id="Page_2a">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Thomas Hardy</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">W. L. Courtney</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>George Meredith</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">Walter Jerrold</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Bret Harte</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">T. Edgar Pemberton</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Richard Le Gallienne</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">C. Ranger Gull</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Arthur Wing Pinero</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">Hamilton Fyffe</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>W. E. Henley</i></span>, and the "<span class="smcap">National Observer</span>" Group. By <span class="smcap">George Gamble</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Parnassian School in English</i></span> <span class="smcap">Poetry</span>. (<span class="smcap">Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse</span>
+and <span class="smcap">Robert Bridges</span>.) By Sir <span class="smcap">George Douglas</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Algernon Charles Swinburne</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">G. F. Monkshood</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Realistic Writers of To-day</i></span>. By <span class="smcap">Justin Hannaford</span>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Wheel of Life</i></span>. A Few Memories and Recollections (de omnibus
+rebus). By <span class="smcap">Clement Scott</span>, Author of "Madonna Mia," "Poppyland,"
+etc. With Portrait of the Author from the celebrated Painting by J.
+<span class="smcap">Mordecai</span>. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt lettered,
+gilt top, 2s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Sun</b> (T. P. O'Connor) says:&mdash;A Book of the Week&mdash;"I have found
+this slight and unpretentious little volume bright, interesting reading.
+I have read nearly every line with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p><b>Illustrated London News</b>.&mdash;"The story Mr Scott has to tell is full of
+varied interest, and is presented with warmth and buoyancy."</p>
+
+<p><b>Punch</b>.&mdash;"What pleasant memories does not Clement Scott's little book,
+'The Wheel of Life,'revive! The writer's memory is good, his style easy,
+and above all, which is a great thing for reminiscences, chatty."</p>
+
+<p><b>Referee</b>.&mdash;<span class="smcap">George R. Sims</span> (Dagonet) says:&mdash;"Deeply interesting are these
+last memories and recollections of the last days of Bohemia.... I picked
+up 'The Wheel of Life' at one in the morning, after a hard night's work,
+and flung myself, weary and worn, into an easy-chair, to glance at it
+while I smoked my last pipe. As I read, all my weariness departed, for I
+was young and light-hearted once again, and the friends of my young
+manhood had come trooping back from the shadows to make a merry night of
+it once more in London town. And when I put the book down, having read
+it from cover to cover, it was 'past three o'clock and a windy
+morning.'</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Trip to Paradoxia</i></span>, and other Humours of the Hour. Being"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3a" id="Page_3a">[3]</a></span>
+Contemporary Pictures of Social Fact and Political Fiction. By <span class="smcap">T.
+H. S. Escott</span>, Author of "Personal Forces of the Period," "Social
+Transformation of the Victorian Age," "Platform, Press, Politics,
+and Play," Etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth. Gilt, 5s. nett.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Standard.</b>&mdash;"A book which is amusing from cover to cover. Bright epigrams
+abound in Mr Escott's satirical pictures of the modern world.... Those
+who know the inner aspects of politics and society will, undoubtedly, be
+the first to recognise the skill and adroitness with which he strikes at
+the weak places in a world of intrigue and fashion.... There is a great
+deal of very clever sword-play in Mr Escott's description of Dum-Dum
+(London), the capital of Paradoxia (England).</p>
+
+<p><b>Court Circular.</b>&mdash;"It is brilliantly written, and will afford keen
+enjoyment to the discriminating taste. Its satire is keen-edged, but
+good-humoured enough to hurt no one; and its wit and (may <a name='TC_26'></a><ins title="Was me">we</ins> say?) its
+impudence should cause a run on it at the libraries."</p>
+
+<p><b>M. A. P.</b>&mdash;"A sparkling piece of political and social satire. Mr Escott
+besprinkles his pages with biting epigram and humorous innuendo. It is a
+most amusing book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Athenæum.</b>&mdash;"He constantly suggests real episodes and real persons. There
+are a good many rather pretty epigrams scattered through Mr Escott's
+pages."</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"A bright, witty, and amusing volume, which will entertain
+everybody who takes it up."</p>
+
+<p><b>Newcastle Leader.</b>&mdash;"Messrs Greening are fortunate in being the
+publishers of a volume so humorous, so dexterous, written with such
+knowledge of men and affairs, and with such solidity and power of style
+as Mr T. H. S. Escott's 'A Trip to Paradoxia.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Public Opinion.</b>&mdash;"Mr T. H. S. Escott throws abundant humour blended with
+pungent sarcasm into his work, making his pictures very agreeable
+reading to all but the victim he has selected, and whose weaknesses he
+so skilfully lays bare. But the very clever manner in which the writer
+hits the foibles and follies of his fellows must create admiration and
+respect even from those who view his satire with a wintry smile. We like
+his writing, his power of discernment, and his high literary style."</p>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>People, Plays, and Places.</i></span> Being the Second Series of "The Wheel
+of Life," Memories and Recollections of "People" I have met,
+"Plays" I have seen, and "Places" I have visited. By <span class="smcap">Clement Scott</span>,
+Author of "The Stage of Yesterday and The Stage of To-day,"
+"Pictures of the World," "Thirty Years at the Play." Crown 8vo,
+cloth gilt. (In preparation.) 5s.</p>
+
+<p><b>"</b><span class="booktitle"><i>Sisters by the Sea.</i></span><b>"</b> Seaside and Country Sketches. By <span class="smcap">Clement
+Scott</span>, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+Frontispiece and Vignette designed by <span class="smcap">George Pownall</span>. Long 12mo,
+attractively bound in cloth, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Observer.</b>&mdash;"The little book is bright and readable, and will come like a
+breath of country air to many unfortunates who are tied by the leg to
+chair, stool, or counter."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sheffield Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"Bright, breezy, and altogether readable.... East
+Anglia, Nelson's Land, etc., etc., are all dealt with, and touched
+lightly and daintily, as becomes a booklet meant to be slipped in the
+pocket and read easily to the pleasing accompaniment of the waves lazily
+lapping on the shingle by the shore."</p>
+
+<p><b>Dundee Advertiser.</b>&mdash;"It is all delightful, and almost as good as a
+holiday. The city clerk, the jaded shopman, the weary milliner, the
+pessimistic dyspeptic, should each read the book. It will bring a
+suggestion of sea breezes, the plash of waves, and all the accessories
+of a holiday by the sea."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Some Famous Hamlets.</i></span> (<span class="smcap">Sarah Bernhardt</span>, <span class="smcap">Henry Irving</span>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4a" id="Page_4a">[4]</a></span>
+<span class="smcap">Beerbohm
+Tree</span>, <span class="smcap">Wilson Barrett</span> and <span class="smcap">Forbes Robertson</span>.) By <span class="smcap">Clement Scott</span>.
+Illustrated with portraits. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Some Bible Stories Retold.</i></span> By "<span class="smcap">A Churchman</span>." Crown 8vo, cloth,
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Bye-Ways of Crime.</i></span> With some Stories from the Black Museum. By <span class="smcap">R.
+J. Power-Berrey</span>. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"Decidedly you should read Mr Power-Berrey's interesting book,
+taking laugh and shudder as they come."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sheffield Independent.</b>&mdash;"We do not remember to have ever seen a more
+popularly-written summary of the methods of thieves than this bright and
+chatty volume. It is the work of a writer who evidently has a most
+intimate knowledge of the criminal classes, and who can carry on a plain
+narrative briskly and forcibly. The book fascinates by its freshness and
+unusualness."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literature.</b>&mdash;"It contains many interesting stories and new observations
+on the <i>modus operandi</i> of swindlers."</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"A most interesting account of the dodges adopted by various
+criminals in effecting their purposes. The reader will find much that is
+instructive within its pages."</p>
+
+<p><b>Liverpool Review.</b>&mdash;"This is no fanciful production, but a clear,
+dispassionate revelation of the dodges of the professional criminal.
+Illustrated by numerous pen and ink sketches, Mr Power-Berrey's
+excellent work is useful as well as interesting, for it will certainly
+not assist the common pilferer to have all his little tricks made public
+property in this lucid and easily rememberable style."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Art of Elocution</i></span> and Public Speaking. By <span class="smcap">Ross Ferguson</span>. With
+an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Geo. Alexander</span>. Dedicated by permission to Miss
+<span class="smcap">Ellen Terry</span>. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, strongly bound in cloth,
+1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Australian Mail.</b>&mdash;"A useful little book. We can strongly recommend it to
+the chairmen of public companies."</p>
+
+<p><b>Stage.</b>&mdash;"A carefully composed treatise, obviously written by one as
+having authority. Students will find it of great service."</p>
+
+<p><b>People's Friend.</b>&mdash;"Contains many valuable hints, and deals with every
+branch of the elocutionist's art in a lucid and intelligible manner."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literary World.</b>&mdash;"The essentials of elocution are dealt with in a
+thoroughly capable and practical way. The chapter on public speaking is
+particularly satisfactory."</p>
+
+<p><b>Madame.</b>&mdash;"The work is pleasingly thorough. The instructions are most
+interesting, and are lucidly expressed, physiological details are
+carefully, yet not redundantly, dwelt on, so that the intending student
+may have some very real and definite idea of what he is learning about,
+and many valuable hints may be gleaned from the chapters on
+'Articulation and Modulation.' Not only for actors and orators will this
+little book be found of great service, but everyone may find pleasure
+and profit in reading it."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Path of the Soul.</i></span> Being Essays on Continental Art and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5a" id="Page_5a">[5]</a></span>
+Literature. By S. C. de <span class="smcap">Soissons</span>, Author of "A Parisian in
+America," etc. Illustrated with portraits, etc. Crown 8vo, cloth
+gilt, 10s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A History of Nursery Rhymes.</i></span> By <span class="smcap">Percy B. Green</span>. This interesting
+Book is the result of many years research among nursery folklore of
+all nations, and traces the origin of nursery rhymes from the
+earliest times. Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Year Book of the Stage.</i></span> Being an annual record of criticisms
+of all the important productions of the English Stage, with copious
+Index and complete Caste of each Play recorded. A useful
+compilation for students of the Drama. About 260 pages, strongly
+bound in cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>In Quaint East Anglia.</i></span> Descriptive Sketches. By <span class="smcap">T. West Carnie</span>.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">W. S. Rogers</span>. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Observer.</b>&mdash;"That East Anglia exercises a very potent spell over those
+who once come under its influence is proved by the case of George
+Borrow, and all who share in the fascination will delight in this
+brightly written, companionable little volume."</p>
+
+<p><b>Birmingham Argus.</b>&mdash;"Interesting matter entertainingly told."</p>
+
+<p><b>Glasgow Herald.</b>&mdash;"Mr Carnie's book is thoroughly charming."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literature.</b>&mdash;"An <a name='TC_27'></a><ins title="Was asthetic">aesthetic</ins> volume as pleasant to read as to look at."</p>
+
+<p><b>Guardian.</b>&mdash;"Just the kind of book that would help a tourist in Norfolk
+and Suffolk to see what ought to be seen with the proper measure of
+enjoyment."</p>
+
+<p><b>Graphic.</b>&mdash;"It is a prettily got up and readable little book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Saturday Review.</b>&mdash;"Will be welcomed by all who have come under the charm
+of East Anglia."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Man Adrift.</i></span> Being Leaves from a Nomad's Portfolio. By <span class="smcap">Bart
+Kennedy</span>, Author of "Darab's Wine-Cup," "The Wandering Romanoff,"
+etc. This very entertaining book is a narrative of adventures in
+all parts of the world. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Woman and the Wits.</i></span> Epigrams on Woman, Love, and Beauty.
+Collected and edited by <span class="smcap">G. F. Monkshood</span>, Author of "Rudyard
+Kipling: The Man and His Work," "Lady Ruby," etc. Small 8vo, cloth
+gilt extra, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. nett. Paper boards, rough edges,
+2s. 6d. nett.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Weeds and Flowers.</i></span> Poems by <span class="smcap">William Luther Longstaff</span>, Author of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6a" id="Page_6a">[6]</a></span>
+"Passion and Reflection." Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt extra, gilt
+top, 2s. 6d. nett.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Sun.</b>&mdash;"Mr Longstaff has real fire and passion in all of his work. He has
+a graceful touch and a tuneful ear. There is exquisite melody in his
+metre."</p>
+
+<p><b>Echo.</b>&mdash;"The poetry of passion is no rarity to-day, yet scarcely since
+the date of Philip Bourke Marston's 'Song Tide' has such an arresting
+and whole-hearted example of this class of poetry been issued by any
+English author as the volume which Mr William Luther Longstaff entitles
+'Weeds and Flowers.' Passion, tumultuous and unabashed, sensuous rapture
+openly flaunting its shame, love in maddest surrender risking all,
+daring all, these are the dominant motives of Mr Longstaff's muse. So
+wild is the rush of his emotion&mdash;all storm and fire and blood&mdash;to such
+white heat does he forge his burning phrases, so subtly varied are the
+constantly recurring expressions of love's ecstasy, its despair, its
+bereavement, its appetite, its scorn, so happy sometimes are the
+unexpected metrical changes and experiments herein adopted, that the
+younger poet might suggest discreet comparisons with the earlier
+Swinburne."</p>
+
+<p><b>Morning Herald.</b>&mdash;"The book contains <i>real</i> poetry. There is always
+thought and force in the work. 'At the Gate' is not merely Swinburnian
+in metre; in all things it might well have come from that poet's pen."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p class="fm2">Greening's Masterpiece Library</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Vathek.</i></span> An Eastern Romance. By <span class="smcap">Geo. Beckford</span>. Edited with an
+Introduction by <span class="smcap">Justin Hannaford</span>. Full-page illustrations by <span class="smcap">W. S.
+Rogers</span>. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s 6d. A superb edition of this
+most interesting and fascinating story.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Asmodeus</i></span>; or, The Devil on Two Sticks. An Illustrated Edition of
+the Celebrated Novel by <span class="smcap">Le Sage</span>, Author of "Gil Blas." Edited by
+<span class="smcap">Justin Hannaford</span>. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Ringan Gilhaize.</i></span> A Tale of the Covenanters. By <span class="smcap">John Galt</span>. Edited
+with an Introduction by Sir <span class="smcap">George Douglas</span>. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Rasselas</i></span>, Prince of Abyssinia. A Tale of Adventure. By Dr
+<span class="smcap">Johnson</span>. Edited with an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Justin Hannaford</span>. Full-page
+illustrations by <span class="smcap">W. S. Rogers</span>. Crown 8vo, 5s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Epicurean.</i></span> A Tale of Mystery and Adventure. By <span class="smcap">Thomas Moore</span>.
+Edited with an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Justin Hannaford</span>. Illustrated. 8vo,
+art cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><i>Several well known and popular works by great writers are in
+active preparation for this artistic series of masterpieces.</i></p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7a" id="Page_7a">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">POPULAR FICTION</p>
+
+<p class="fm3"><span class="smcap">Novels at Six Shillings</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>An Obscure Apostle.</i></span> A Powerful and Dramatic Tale, translated from
+the Polish of Mdme. <span class="smcap">Orzeszko</span> by S. C. de <span class="smcap">Soissons</span>. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Son of Africa.</i></span> A Tale of Marvellous Adventures. By <span class="smcap">Anna,
+Comtesse de Brémont</span>, Author of "The Gentleman Digger," etc. Crown
+8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Mora</i></span>: One Woman's History. An interesting novel by <span class="smcap">T. W. Speight</span>,
+Author of "The Crime in the Wood," "The Mysteries of Heron Dyke,"
+etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Girl of the North.</i></span> A Tale of London and Canada. By <span class="smcap">Helen
+Milicite</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Ashes Tell no Tales.</i></span> A Novel. By Mrs <span class="smcap">Albert S. Bradshaw</span>, Author
+of "The Gates of Temptation," "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc.
+Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Such is the Law.</i></span> An Interesting Story by <span class="smcap">Marie M. Sadleir</span>, Author
+of "An Uncanny Girl," "In Lightest London," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Fetters of Fire.</i></span> A Dramatic Tale. By <span class="smcap">Compton Reade</span>, Author of
+"Hard Lines," "Under which King," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Virtue of Necessity.</i></span> A Powerful Novel. By <span class="smcap">Herbert Adams</span>. Crown
+8vo, cloth, 6s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Cry in the Night.</i></span> An exciting Detective Story. By <span class="smcap">Arnold
+Golsworthy</span>, Author of "Death and the Woman," "Hands in the
+Darkness," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8a" id="Page_8a">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Social Upheaval.</i></span> An Unconventional Dramatic Satirical Tale. By
+<span class="smcap">Isidore G. Ascher</span>, Author of "An Odd Man's Story," "The Doom of
+Destiny," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"The plot is bold, even to audacity; its development is
+always interesting, picturesque, and, towards the close, deeply
+pathetic; and the purpose and method of the writer are alike admirable."</p>
+
+<p><b>Eastern Morning News.</b>&mdash;"It is a clever book, splendidly written, and
+striking in its wonderful power, and keeping the reader interested....
+The author has not failed in his effort to prove the case. The awful
+truth of its pages is borne home upon us as we read chapter after
+chapter. The book should have a good effect in certain quarters. One of
+the best features is the dividing line drawn most plainly between
+Socialism and Anarchism. To its author we tender our thanks, and predict
+a large sale."</p>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"The hero is an interesting dreamer, absorbed in his
+schemes, which are his one weakness. To women, save when they can
+further the good of his cause, he is obdurate; in business, strong,
+energetic, and powerful. He is shown to us as the man with a master mind
+and one absorbing delusion, and as such is a pathetic figure. No one can
+dispute the prodigality and liveliness of the author's imagination; his
+plot teems with striking incidents."</p>
+
+<p><b>Vanity Fair.</b>&mdash;"The story tells itself very clearly in three hundred
+pages of very pleasant and entertaining reading. The men and women we
+meet are not the men and women we really come across in this world. So
+much the better for us. But we are delighted to read about them, for all
+that; and we prophesy success for Mr Ascher's book, particularly as he
+has taken the precaution of telling us that he is 'only in fun.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Aberdeen Free Press.</b>&mdash;"A story in which there is not a dull page, nay,
+not even a dull line. The characters are well drawn, the incidents are
+novel and often astounding, and the language has a terseness and
+briskness that gives a character of vivacity to the story, so that the
+reader is never tired going on unravelling the tangled meshes of the
+intricate plot until he comes to the end. 'A Social Upheaval' is,
+indeed, a rattling good book."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>A New Tale of the Terror.</i></span> A Powerful and Dramatic Story of the
+French Revolution. By the Author of "The Hypocrite" and "Miss
+Malevolent." (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p class="fm2">POPULAR FICTION</p>
+
+<p class="fm3"><span class="smcap">Novels at Three Shillings and Sixpence</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Shams!</i></span> A Social Satire. By&mdash;&mdash;? This is a remarkable and
+interesting story of Modern Life in London Society. It is a
+powerful work, written with striking vividness. The plot is
+fascinating, the incidents exciting, and the dialogue epigrammatic
+and brilliant. "Shams" is written by one of the most popular
+novelists of the day. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9a" id="Page_9a">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Miss Malevolent.</i></span> A Realistic Study. By the Author of "The
+Hypocrite." Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>A Comedy of Temptation;</i></span> or, The Amateur Fiend. A Tale by <span class="smcap">Tristram
+Coutts</span>, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Weird Well.</i></span> A Tale of To-day. By Mrs <span class="smcap">Alec M'Millan</span>, Author of
+"The Evolution of Daphne," "So Runs my Dream," etc. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 3s, 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Zoroastro.</i></span> An Historical Romance. By <span class="smcap">Creswick J. Thompson</span>, Author
+of "Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries," "The Mystery and Romance
+of Alchemy and Pharmacy," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Temptation of Edith Watson.</i></span> By <span class="smcap">Sydney Hall</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Gentleman Digger.</i></span> Realistic Pictures of Life in Johannesburg.
+By <span class="smcap">Anna, Comtesse</span> de <span class="smcap">Brémont</span>, Author of "A Son of Africa," etc. New
+Edition, revised to date, with a new Preface. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Sword of Fate.</i></span> An Interesting Novel. By <span class="smcap">Henry Herman</span>, Author
+of "Eagle Joe," "Scarlet Fortune," etc., and Joint Author of the
+"Silver King," "Claudian." Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Vanity Fair.</b>&mdash;"The hand that wrote the 'Silver King' has by no means
+lost its cunning in painting broad effects of light and shadow. The
+description of life in Broadmoor is, we fancy, done from actual
+observation. It is quite new." And the critic of <b>Black and White</b> sums it
+up pithily as "a story which holds our attention and interests us right
+from the first chapter. The book is as exciting as even a story of
+sensation has any need to be." Speaking of the scene of Mr Herman's
+drama, the beautiful county of Devonshire, where the greater part of the
+story takes place, the <b>Manchester Courier</b> says: "The author's
+descriptive powers vividly portray the lovely spots by the winding
+Tamar, while the rich dialect of the district is so faithfully
+reproduced as to become not the least feature of an exciting tale."</p>
+
+<p><b>The Weekly Mercury.</b>&mdash;"Mr Henry Herman has carefully studied the little
+weaknesses of the great army of readers. Like a celebrated and much
+advertised medicine, he invariably 'touches the spot,' and hence the
+popularity of his works. His latest novel, 'The Sword of Fate,' contains
+all the essentials of a popular story. It is well written, sufficiently
+dramatic, full of life and incident, and above all, right triumphs over
+wrong. We must, too, congratulate the author upon the omission of all
+that is disagreeable or likely to offend the susceptibilities of the
+most delicate minded. It is a clean and healthy novel, a credit to the
+writer, and a pleasure to the reader.... These are quite capable of
+affording anyone a pleasant evening's reading, a remark which does not
+apply to the great majority of the modern novels."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Seven Nights with Satan.</i></span> A Novel. By J. L. <span class="smcap">Owen</span>, Author of "The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10a" id="Page_10a">[10]</a></span>
+Great Jekyll Diamond." Cover designed by <span class="smcap">W. S. Rogers</span>. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>St James's Gazette.</b>&mdash;"We have read the book from start to finish with
+unflagging interest&mdash;an interest, by the way, which derives nothing from
+the 'spice,' for though its title may be suggestive of Zolaism, there is
+not a single passage which is open to objection. The literary style is
+good."</p>
+
+<p><b>Truth.</b>&mdash;"I much prefer the ghastly story 'Seven Nights with Satan,' a
+very clever study of degeneration."</p>
+
+<p><b>London Morning.</b>&mdash;"The story told is a powerful one, evidently based upon
+close personal knowledge of the events, places, and persons which figure
+in it. A tragic note pervades it, but still there is lightness and wit
+in its manner which makes the book a very fascinating as well as
+eventful volume."</p>
+
+<p><b>Public Opinion.</b>&mdash;"Mr J. L. Owen has given a title to his work which will
+cause many conjectures as to the nature of the story. Now, if we
+divulged what were the seven nights, we should be doing the author
+anything but a service&mdash;in fact, we should be giving the whole thing
+away; therefore, we will only state that the work is cleverly conceived,
+and carried out with great literary ability. There are numerous flashes
+of originality that lift the author above ordinary commonplace."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Green Passion.</i></span> The Study of a Jealous Soul. A Powerful Novel.
+By <span class="smcap">Anthony P. Vert</span>. Cover designed by <span class="smcap">Alfred Praga</span>. Crown 8vo, art
+cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr <span class="smcap">Douglas Sladen</span> in <b>The Queen</b>.&mdash;"A remarkably clever book.... There is
+no disputing the ability with which the writer handles her subject. I
+say <i>her</i> subject, because the minuteness of the touches, and the odd,
+forcible style in which this book is written, point to it being the work
+of a female hand. The book is an eminently readable one, and it is never
+dull for a minute."</p>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"It is a study of one of the worst passions which can
+ruin a lifetime and mar all human happiness&mdash;one of the worst, not
+because it is necessarily the strongest, but because of its singular
+effect in altering the complexion of things, transforming love into
+suspicion, and filling its victim with a petulant and unreasonable
+madness. All this Anthony Vert understands, and can describe with very
+uncommon power. The soul of a jealous woman is analysed with artistic
+completeness, and proved to be the petty, intolerant, half-insane thing
+it really is.... The plot is well conceived, and well carried out.
+Anthony Vert may be congratulated on having written a very clever
+novel."</p>
+
+<p><b>The Monitor.</b>&mdash;"A wonderful piece of writing. The only modern parallel we
+can find is supplied in Mr F. C. Philip's 'As in a Looking Glass.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>World.</b>&mdash;"As the study of a jealous soul, 'The Green Passion' is a
+success, and psychological students will be delighted with it.... The
+tragedy which forms the <i>dénouement</i> to this story is of such a nature
+as to preclude our doing more than remotely alluding to it, for he (or
+is it she?) has portrayed an 'exceedingly risky situation.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Whitehall Review.</b>&mdash;"In 'The Green Passion' the author traces with much
+ability, and not a little analytical insight, the progress of jealousy
+in the breast of a woman who is born with a very 'intense,' although not
+a very deep, nature.... There is in Mr Vert's work a certain tendency
+towards realism which has its due effect in making his characters real.
+They are no loosely-built fancies of the journalistic brain, but
+portraits&mdash;almost snapshot portraits&mdash;of men and women of to-day."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Outrageous Fortune.</i></span> Being the Confessions of Evelyn Gray,
+Hospital Nurse. A story founded on fact, proving that truth is
+stranger than fiction. (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11a" id="Page_11a">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Dolomite Cavern.</i></span> An Exciting Tale of Adventure. By <span class="smcap">W. Patrick
+Kelly</span>, Author of "Schoolboys Three," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"Lovers of the sensational in fiction will find
+abundance of congenial entertainment in Mr W. P. Kelly's new story. In
+the way of accessories to startling situations all is fish that comes to
+this ingenious author's net. The wonders of primitive nature, the
+marvels of latter-day science, the extravagances of human passion&mdash;all
+these he dexterously uses for the purpose of involving his hero in
+perilous scrapes from which he no less dexterously extricates him by
+expedients which, however far-fetched they may appear to the
+unimaginative, are certainly not lacking in originality of device, or
+cleverness of construction.... This is a specimen incident&mdash;those which
+succeed it derive their special interest from the action of Rontgen
+rays, subterranean torrents, and devastating inundations. The book is
+very readable throughout, and ends happily. What more can the average
+novel reader wish for in holiday time?"</p>
+
+<p><b>Observer.</b>&mdash;"A story full of exciting adventure."</p>
+
+<p><b>Saturday Review.</b>&mdash;"The plot is ingenious, and the style pleasant."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literature.</b>&mdash;"'The Dolomite Cavern' has the great merit of being very
+well written. The plot is sensational and improbable enough, but with
+the aid of the author's bright literary manner it carries us on
+agreeably until the last chapter."</p>
+
+<p><b>Critic.</b>&mdash;"It is a sensational novel with a dash of pseudo-scientific
+interest about it which is well calculated to attract the public. It is,
+moreover, well written and vigorous."</p>
+
+<p><b>Manchester Guardian.</b>&mdash;"Mr Kelly's fluent, rapid style makes his story of
+mysteries readable and amusing. His Irish servant, one of the principal
+characters, speaks a genuine Irish dialect&mdash;almost as rare in fiction as
+the imitation is common."</p>
+
+<p><b>St James's Budget.</b>&mdash;"Truly thrilling and dramatic, Mr Kelly's book is a
+cleverly written and absorbing romance. It concludes with a tremendous
+scene, in which a life-and-death struggle with a madman in the midst of
+a raging flood is the leading feature."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Madonna Mia</i></span>, and other Stories. By <span class="smcap">Clement Scott</span>, Author of
+"Poppyland," "The Wheel of Life," "The Fate of Fenella,"
+"Blossomland," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Punch.</b>&mdash;"'Madonna Mia' is genuinely interesting. All the stories are
+good; you are 'Scott free' to pick 'em where you like." (The Baron de B.
+W.)</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Sun.</b>&mdash;"Shows Mr Scott's sturdy character painting and love of
+picturesque adventure."</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Dispatch.</b>&mdash;"The book is characteristic of the work of its
+author&mdash;bright, brilliant, informing, and entertaining, and without a
+dull sentence in it."</p>
+
+<p><b>St James's Gazette.</b>&mdash;"Full of grace and sentiment. The tales have each
+their individuality and interest, and we can recommend the whole as
+healthy refreshment for the idle or weary brain."</p>
+
+<p><b>Pelican.</b>&mdash;"Full of living, breathing, human interest. Few writers
+possess the gift of bringing actual existence to their characters as
+does Mr Scott, and in the pages of his newest book you shall find tears
+and smiles, and all the emotions skilfully arranged and put in true
+literary fashion."</p>
+
+<p><b>World.</b>&mdash;"Clement Scott is nothing if not sympathetic, and every one of
+the ten stories is not only thoroughly readable, but is instinct with
+sentiment; for Mr Scott still retains a wonderful enthusiasm, usually
+the attribute of youth. 'Drifting' is a very fresh and convincing
+narrative, founded, we understand, upon truth, and containing within a
+small compass the materials for a very stirring drama. 'A Cross of
+Heather,' too, is a charming romance, told with real pathos and
+feeling."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Shadow on The Manse.</i></span> A Tale of Religion and the Stage. By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12a" id="Page_12a">[12]</a></span>
+<span class="smcap">Campbell Rae-Brown</span>, Author of "The Resurrection of His Grace,"
+"Kissing-Cup's Race," etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Lady of the Leopard.</i></span> A Powerful and Fascinating Novel. By
+<span class="smcap">Chas. L'Epine</span>, Author of "The Devil in a Domino." Crown 8vo, art
+cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Public Opinion.</b>&mdash;"A remarkable book.... We are plunged into a delicious
+and tantalising romance; incident follows incident like a panorama of
+exciting pictures. Fertility of imagination is everywhere apparent, and
+the <i>dénouement</i> is artfully concealed till it bursts upon the reader
+with a suddenness that fairly takes away his breath."</p>
+
+<p><b>Liverpool Mercury.</b>&mdash;"Lovers of the marvellous will enjoy it, for it is
+cleverly and dramatically written."</p>
+
+<p><b>Dundee Advertiser.</b>&mdash;"Written with dramatic force and vigour."</p>
+
+<p><b>North British Advertiser.</b>&mdash;"This is a weird and strange story that
+interests and fascinates the reader, with its occult fancies and
+marvellous experiences.... It may be added, in conclusion, that it is a
+book well worth reading, and will easily bear a second perusal."</p>
+
+<p><b>Liverpool Post.</b>&mdash;"A very skilfully constructed story, mysterious and
+strange, with a natural explanation suggested of all the mystery which
+does not spoil one's enjoyment (here follows analysis of plot). This is
+the bare outline of the story up to a certain point; it is impossible to
+convey adequately an idea of the awe-inspiring characteristics of the
+story. Readers can safely be recommended to turn to the book itself."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p class="fm2">POPULAR FICTION</p>
+
+<p class="fm3"><span class="smcap">Half-Crown Novels</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>In Monte Carlo.</i></span> A Tale by <span class="smcap">Henryk Sienkiewicz</span>, Author of "Quo
+Vadis," "With Fire and Sword," etc., etc. Translated by S. C. de
+<span class="smcap">Soissons</span>. Crown 8vo, art cloth, with a new Portrait of the Author,
+2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Tragedy of The Lady Palmist.</i></span> By <span class="smcap">W. Luther Longstaff</span>, Author
+of "Weeds and Flowers," etc. An exciting tale, descriptive of the
+"Behind-the-Scenes of the Palmist's Bohemia." Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s.
+6d.</p>
+
+<p><i><span class="booktitle">My Lady Ruby, and Basileon, Chief of Police.</span></i> Two stories by <span class="smcap">G. F.
+Monkshood</span>, Author of "Nightshades," "Rudyard Kipling: The Man and
+His Work," "Woman and The Wits," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13a" id="Page_13a">[13]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><sup>*</sup><sub>*</sub><sup>*</sup><span class="booktitle"><i>The Hypocrite.</i></span> A Modern Realistic Novel of Oxford and London
+Life. Fourth Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><i>This book has been "boycotted" by Messrs Mudie and Messrs W. H. Smith &amp;
+Son as being "unfit to circulate in their libraries," yet it has been
+praised by the press at being "a powerful sermon and a moral book."</i></p>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"A book by an anonymous author always arouses a
+certain inquiry, and when the book is clever and original the interest
+becomes keen; and conjecture is rife, endowing the most unlikely people
+with authorship.... It is very brilliant, very forcible, very sad.... It
+is perfect in its way, in style clear, sharp and forcible, the dialogue
+epigrammatic and sparkling.... Enough has been said to show that 'The
+Hypocrite' is a striking and powerful piece of work, and that its author
+has established his claim to be considered a writer of originality and
+brilliance."</p>
+
+<p><b>Daily Graphic.</b>&mdash;"A very moral book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Court Circular.</b>&mdash;"The work is decidedly clever, full of ready wit,
+sparkling epigram, and cutting sarcasm."</p>
+
+<p><b>Echo.</b>&mdash;"The story is thoroughly interesting, the wit and epigram of the
+writing are not to be denied, and altogether 'The Hypocrite' is so
+brilliant that it can only be fittingly compared with 'The Green
+Carnation' or 'The Babe B.A.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Liverpool Courier.</b>&mdash;"A genuinely clever book. Furthermore, it is a book
+with a wholesome moral vividly enforced."</p>
+
+<p><b>Lady.</b>&mdash;"Whoever the author may be, he has the right literary method, his
+work is absolutely realistic, his style is fluent and distinctive, and
+he has the rare faculty of gripping the reader's attention at the outset
+and retaining it to the very last.... 'The Hypocrite' is something more
+than a remarkable novel&mdash;it is, in effect, a sermon, conveying a
+definite message to those who have the wit to understand it."</p>
+
+<p><b>Morning Post.</b>&mdash;"It is entitled to be regarded as one of the clever books
+of the day. The writer shows artistic perception. He maintains
+throughout an atmosphere perfectly in harmony with the idea that has
+suggested his work."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Wandering Romanoff.</i></span> A Romance. By <span class="smcap">Bart Kennedy</span>, Author of "A
+Man Adrift," "Darab's Wine-Cup," etc. New and Cheaper Edition,
+crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>Dona Rufina.</i></span> A Nineteenth Century Romance. Being a Story of
+Carlist Conspiracy. By <span class="smcap">Heber Daniels</span>, Author of "Our Tenants."
+Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Bookman.</b>&mdash;"A highly emotional, cleverly written story."</p>
+
+<p><b>Lady.</b>&mdash;"A thrilling romance with a mediæval atmosphere, although the
+scene is laid in the Cotswolds in the year of grace 1898. The story is
+well constructed, and is a good example of the widely imaginative type
+of fiction that is so eagerly devoured by young people nowadays."</p>
+
+<p><b>Lloyd's.</b>&mdash;"The author has woven a clever story out of strange
+materials.... The interest of the book only ceases when the end is
+reached."</p>
+
+<p><b>Society.</b>&mdash;"Altogether a very intelligible and interesting story of
+intrigue and love. The author has put some excellent work into the
+book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Eastern Morning News.</b>&mdash;"Readers will be fascinated by the stirring
+scenes, the swiftly moving panorama, the enacted tragedies, the wild,
+passionate, lawless loves depicted in the most sensational manner in
+this volume."</p>
+
+<p><b>Englishman</b> (Calcutta).&mdash;"It is a lurid tale of Spanish plotters....
+Around this central figure the author weaves an effective story with
+more than considerable skill. He has achieved a brilliant success with
+the character of Rufina; it is a masterpiece in its own way, and
+invested with freshness, grace, and a magnetic personality."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Lord Jimmy.</i></span> A Story of Music-Hall Life. By <span class="smcap">George Martyn</span>. Crown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14a" id="Page_14a">[14]</a></span>
+8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"The book is both humorous and dramatic."</p>
+
+<p><b>Pelican.</b>&mdash;"It is amusing and interesting&mdash;two very good qualities for a
+novel to possess."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sheffield Telegraph.</b>&mdash;"The book is vivaciously written, several of the
+characters being human enough to look like studies from life."</p>
+
+<p><b>Aberdeen Free Press.</b>&mdash;"The characters are skilfully depicted, and the
+whole book is amusing and interesting."</p>
+
+<p><b>Glasgow Citizen.</b>&mdash;"'Decidedly clever' will be the verdict of the reader
+on closing this book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Vanity Fair.</b>&mdash;"The author has a peculiar knowledge of the 'Halls' and
+those who frequent them; and especially, as it seems to us, of those
+Jewish persons who sometimes run them. And he has made good use of his
+knowledge here. But there is more than this in the book; for 'George
+Martyn' has considerable descriptive talent. His account, for instance,
+of the fight between the hero and the butcher is quite good. The story
+is straightforward, convincing, and full of human nature and promise."</p>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Lady of Criswold.</i></span> A Sensational Story. By <span class="smcap">Leonard Outram</span>.
+Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>North British Advertiser.</b>&mdash;"A thrilling tale of love and madness."</p>
+
+<p><b>Whitehall Review.</b>&mdash;"No one can complain of lack of sensation, it is full
+of startling episodes. The characters are drawn with a rapid and
+vigorous touch. The interest is well maintained."</p>
+
+<p><b>Court Circular.</b>&mdash;"It reminds us forcibly of a story in real life that
+engrossed public attention many years ago. Whether this was in the
+author's mind we cannot say, but the book is deeply interesting, the
+characters well and strongly drawn, and we doubt not this tale will
+fascinate many a reader."</p>
+
+<p><b>London Morning.</b>&mdash;"The story is cleverly constructed, is full of incident
+with more than a dash of tragedy, and holds the attention of the reader
+to the close. Dealing with modern life of the higher class, Mr Outram's
+story is consistent, and though it aims at romantic effect, is not
+strained or overdrawn."</p>
+
+<p><b>Church Gazette.</b>&mdash;"We can heartily recommend 'The Lady of Criswold.' One
+likes to meet now and again a book which forsakes the eternal sex
+question, or the hairsplitting discussion of ethical or psychological
+problems, and treats us to simpler and more satisfying fare.... There
+are several good hours' reading in the book, and plenty of excitement of
+the dramatic order. Another good point is that it is healthy in tone."</p>
+
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Gates of Temptation.</i></span> A Natural Novel by Mrs <span class="smcap">Albert S.
+Bradshaw</span>, Author of "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Dispatch.</b>&mdash;"This is a story full of power and pathos, the strong
+dramatic interest of which is sustained from the opening chapter to the
+close."</p>
+
+<p><b>Midland Mail.</b>&mdash;"The characters are vividly drawn. There are many
+pleasant and painful incidents in the book, which is interesting from
+beginning to end."</p>
+
+<p><b>London Morning.</b>&mdash;"Mrs Albert Bradshaw has done such uniformly good work
+that we have grown to expect much from her. Her latest book is one which
+will enhance her reputation, and equally please new and old readers of
+her novels. It is called 'The Gates of Temptation,' and professes to be
+a natural novel. The story told is one of deep interest. There is no
+veneer in its presentation, no artificiality about it."</p>
+
+<p><b>Aberdeen Free Press.</b>&mdash;"Mrs Bradshaw has written several good novels, and
+the outstanding feature of all of them has been her skilful development
+of plot, and her tasteful, pleasing style. In connection with the
+present story we are able to amply reiterate those praises. The plot
+again is well developed and logically carried out, while the language
+used by the authoress is always happy and well chosen, and never
+commonplace.... The story is a very powerful one indeed, and may be
+highly commended as a piece of painstaking fiction of the very highest
+kind."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Resurrection of His Grace.</i></span> Being the very candid Confessions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15a" id="Page_15a">[15]</a></span>
+of the Honourable <span class="smcap">Bertie Beauclerc</span>. A Sporting Novel. By <span class="smcap">Campbell
+Rae-Brown</span>, Author of "Richard Barlow," "Kissing Cup's Race," etc.
+Second Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Gentlewoman.</b>&mdash;"Fantastic and impossible, but at the same time
+amusing.... The whole story is strongly dramatic."</p>
+
+<p><b>Saturday Review.</b>&mdash;"A grotesquely improbable story, but readers of
+sporting novels will find much amusement in it."</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"The book is lightly and briskly written throughout. Its
+pleasant cynicism is always entertaining."</p>
+
+<p><b>Star.</b>&mdash;"An ingeniously horrible story with a diabolically clever plot."</p>
+
+<p><b>St James's Budget.</b>&mdash;"A sporting romance which is indisputably cleverly
+written.... The book is full of interesting items of sporting life which
+are fascinating to lovers of the turf."</p>
+
+<p><b>Edinburgh Evening News.</b>&mdash;"It has certainly an audacious idea for its
+central motive.... This bright idea is handled with no little skill, and
+the interest is kept up breathlessly until the tragic end of the
+experiment. The whole story has a racy flavour of the turf."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sporting Life.</b>&mdash;"The character of the heartless <i>roue</i>, who tells his
+story, is very well sustained, and the rich <i>parvenu</i>, Peter Drewitt,
+the owner of the favourite that is very nearly nobbled by the
+unscrupulous Beauclerc, is cleverly drawn. Altogether it is an exciting
+and an uncommon tale, and is quite correct in all the sporting details."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Anna Marsden's Experiment.</i></span> An interesting Novel. By <span class="smcap">Ellen
+Williams</span>. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"A good story cleverly told and worked out."</p>
+
+<p><b>Echo.</b>&mdash;"A very natural and interesting tale is carefully set forth in
+Ellen Williams' clever little book."</p>
+
+<p><b>Western Morning News.</b>&mdash;"It is a smartly written and deeply interesting
+story, well out of the beaten track of novelists."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literary World.</b>&mdash;"The story is well told.... Four racy chapters take us
+thus far, and seven lively ones follow."</p>
+
+<p><b>Public Opinion.</b>&mdash;"From this point the interest in the story is such that
+there is no putting the book down till the <i>dénouement</i> is reached. The
+writing is smart, clever, and telling."</p>
+
+<p><b>Critic.</b>&mdash;"A powerful story, unconventional as regards both subject and
+treatment. [Here the reviewer analyses the plot.] This situation is
+handled with extraordinary delicacy and skill, and the book is an
+admirable study of repressed emotions."</p>
+
+<p><b>Monitor.</b>&mdash;"Miss Williams has here seized on an original concept, and
+given it fitting presentation. The 'experiment' is a novel one, and its
+working out is a deft piece of writing. The psychology of the work is
+faultless, and this study of a beautiful temperament, in a crude frame,
+has with it the verity of deep observation and acute insight.... We
+await with considerable confidence Miss Williams' next venture."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sheffield Independent.</b>&mdash;"The writer has treated a delicate and unusual
+situation with delicacy and originality. The heroine's character is
+drawn with firmness and clearness, and the whole story is vivid and
+picturesque.... The history of the experiment is exceedingly well told.
+Keen insight into character, and cleverness in its delineation, as well
+as shrewd observation and intense sympathy, mark the writer's work,
+while the style is terse and clear, and the management of trying scenes
+extremely good."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Darab's Wine-Cup</i></span>, and other Powerful and Vividly-Written Stories.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16a" id="Page_16a">[16]</a></span>
+By <span class="smcap">Bart Kennedy</span>, Author of "The Wandering Romanoff," etc. New and
+cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Aberdeen Free Press.</b>&mdash;"Will be welcomed as something fresh in the world
+of fiction."</p>
+
+<p><b>St James's Budget.</b>&mdash;"A volume characteristic of the author's splendid
+powers."</p>
+
+<p><b>M. A. P.</b>&mdash;"Mr Kennedy writes powerfully, and can grip the reader's
+imagination, or whirl it off into the strangest domains of glamour and
+romance at will.... There is a future for this clever young man from
+Tipperary. He will do great things."</p>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"Mr Bart Kennedy is a young writer of singular imaginative
+gifts, and a style as individual as Mr Kipling's."</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Dispatch.</b>&mdash;"The author has exceptional gifts, a strong and
+powerful individuality, a facile pen, rich imagination, and constructive
+ability of a high order. This volume ought to find a place on every
+library shelf."</p>
+
+<p><b>Critic.</b>&mdash;"Of a highly imaginative order, and distinctly out of the
+ordinary run.... The author has a remarkable talent for imaginative and
+dramatic presentation. He sets before himself a higher standard of
+achievement than most young writers of fiction."</p>
+
+<p><b>Cork Herald.</b>&mdash;"Gracefully written, easy and attractive in diction and
+style, the stories are as choice a collection as we have happened on for
+a long time. They are clever; they are varied; they are fascinating. We
+admit them into the sacred circle of the most beautiful that have been
+told by the most sympathetic and skilled writers.... Mr Kennedy has a
+style, and that is rare enough nowadays&mdash;as refreshing as it is rare."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="booktitle"><i>Fame, the Fiddler.</i></span>" A Story of Literary and Theatrical Life. By
+<span class="smcap">S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald</span>. Crown 8vo, cloth, new and cheaper edition,
+2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Graphic.</b>&mdash;"The volume will please and amuse numberless people."</p>
+
+<p><b>Pall Mall Gazette.</b>&mdash;"A pleasant, cheery story. Displays a rich vein of
+robust imagination."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sun.</b>&mdash;"Interesting all through, and the inclination is towards finishing
+it at one sitting."</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"An amusing and entertaining story of Bohemian life in
+London."</p>
+
+<p><b>Standard.</b>&mdash;"There are many pleasant pages in 'Fame, the Fiddler,' which
+reminds us of 'Trilby,' with its pictures of Bohemian life, and its
+happy-go-lucky group of good-hearted, generous scribblers, artists, and
+playwrights. Some of the characters are so true to life that it is
+impossible not to recognise them. Among the best incidents in the volume
+must be mentioned the production of Pryor's play, and the account of
+poor Jimmy Lambert's death, which is as moving an incident as we have
+read for a long time. Altogether, 'Fame, the Fiddler' is a very human
+book, and an amusing one as well."</p>
+
+<p><b>Catholic Times.</b>&mdash;"We read the volume through, and at the conclusion
+marvelled at the wonderful knowledge of life the author displays. For
+although the whole work is written In a light, humorous vein, underneath
+this current of humour there is really an astonishing amount of wisdom,
+and wisdom that is not displayed every day.... It is a vivid description
+of times gay and melancholy, that occur in many lives. Mr Fitz-Gerald
+has done his work well, so well that we loitered on many pages, and
+closed the book finally with a feeling that it is a faithful history of
+the journalist, the author, the theatrical individual, and the man who
+ekes out a living by playing the <i>rôle</i> of all three."</p>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">CHEAPER FICTION</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17a" id="Page_17a">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Pelican Tails.</i></span> A Collection of smart, up-to-date Tales of Modern
+Life, written, edited and selected by <span class="smcap">Frank M. Boyd</span> (Editor of "The
+Pelican.") One of the most popular and entertaining volumes of
+short stories that has ever been published. An ideal companion for
+a railway journey or a spare hour or two. Crown 8vo, picture
+wrapper designed and drawn by <span class="smcap">W. S. Rogers</span>, 1s. (In active
+preparation.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Devil in a Domino.</i></span> A Psychological Mystery. By <span class="smcap">Chas. L'Epine</span>,
+Author of "The Lady of the Leopard," "Miracle Plays," etc. Cover
+designed by <span class="smcap">C H. Beauvais</span>. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Truth.</b>&mdash;"The story is written with remarkable literary skill, and,
+notwithstanding its gruesomeness, is undeniably fascinating."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sketch.</b>&mdash;"It is a well-written story. An admirable literary style,
+natural and concise construction, succeed in compelling the reader's
+attention through every line. We hope to welcome the author again,
+working on a larger scene."</p>
+
+<p><b>Star.</b>&mdash;"May be guaranteed to disturb your night's rest. It is a
+gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece
+of work, with a thrill on every page. Read it."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sunday Chronicle.</b>&mdash;"A very clever study by 'Charles L'Epine,' who should
+by his style be an accomplished author not unknown in other ranks of
+literature. Beyond comparison it is the strongest shilling shocker we
+have read for many a day. The author has succeeded in heaping horror
+upon horror until one's blood is curdled."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>That Fascinating Widow</i></span>, and other Frivolous and Fantastic Tales,
+for River, Road and Rail. By <span class="smcap">S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald</span>. Long 12mo,
+cloth, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>The Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"The widow is a charmingly wicked person. The stories are
+well written, with a pleasant humour of a farcical sort; they are never
+dull."</p>
+
+<p><b>Whitehall Review.</b>&mdash;"Written with all the dash and ease which Mr
+Fitz-Gerald has accustomed us to in his journalistic work. There is a
+breezy, invigorating style about this little book which will make it a
+favourite on the bookstalls."</p>
+
+<p><b>Glasgow Herald.</b>&mdash;"Nonsense, genial harmless nonsense, to which the most
+captious and morose of readers will find it difficult to refuse the
+tribute of a broad smile, even if he can so far restrain himself as not
+to burst out into genuine laughter."</p>
+
+<p><b>The Referee.</b>&mdash;"Another little humorous book is 'That Fascinating Widow,'
+by Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, who can be very funny when he tries. The
+story which gives the title to the book would make a capital farce. 'The
+Blue-blooded Coster' is an amusing piece of buffoonery."</p>
+
+<p><b>The Globe.</b>&mdash;"The author, Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, has already shown
+himself to be the possessor of a store of humour, on which he has again
+drawn for the furnishing of the little volume he has just put together.
+Among the tales included are several which might be suitable for reading
+or recitation, and none which are dull. Mr Fitz-Gerald frankly addresses
+himself to that portion of the public which desires nothing so much as
+to be amused, and likes even its amusements in small doses. Such a
+public will entertain itself very pleasantly with Mr Fitz-Gerald's
+lively tales, and will probably name as its favourites those titled
+'Pure Cussedness,' 'Splidgings' First Baby,' and 'The Blue-blooded
+Coster.'"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Shadows.</i></span> A Series of Side Lights on Modern Society. By <span class="smcap">Ernest
+Martin</span><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18a" id="Page_18a">[18]</a></span>. (Dedicated to Sir Henry Irving.) Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt
+tops, 2s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Ph&oelig;nix.</b>&mdash;"'Shadows' is a very clever work."</p>
+
+<p><b>Western Mercury.</b>&mdash;"Clever sketches, intensely dramatic, original and
+forceful, based on scenes from actual life, and narrated with much
+skill."</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Times.</b>&mdash;"A series of pictures sketched with considerable power.
+The last one, 'Hell in Paradise,' is terrible in the probable truth of
+conception."</p>
+
+<p><b>Northern Figaro.</b>&mdash;"Mr Martin's descriptive paragraphs are couched in
+trenchant, convincing language, without a superfluous word sandwiched in
+anywhere.... 'Shadows' may be read with much profit, and will give more
+than a superficial insight into various phases of society life and
+manners."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Death and the Woman.</i></span> A Powerful Tale. By <span class="smcap">Arnold Golsworthy</span>.
+Picture cover drawn by <span class="smcap">Sydney H. Syme</span>. Crown 8vo, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"A cleverly constructed story about a murder and a gang of
+diamond robbers.... The tale never has to go far without a strong
+situation. It is a capital book for a railway journey."</p>
+
+<p><b>Star.</b>&mdash;"A good shilling's worth of highly coloured sensationalism. Those
+readers who want a good melodramatic story smartly told, Mr Golsworthy's
+latest effort will suit down to the ground."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literary World.</b>&mdash;"We do not remember having read a book that possessed
+the quality of <i>grip</i> in a greater degree than is the case with 'Death
+and the Woman.' ... Every page of every chapter develops the interest,
+which culminates in one of the most sensational <i>dénouements</i> it has
+been our lot to read. The flavour of actuality is not destroyed by any
+incredible incident; it is the inevitable thing that always happens.
+'Death and the Woman' will supply to the brim the need of those in
+search of a holding drama of modern London life."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Fellow-Passengers.</i></span> A Mystery and its Solution. A Detective
+Story. By <span class="smcap">Rivington Pyke</span>, Author of "The Man who Disappeared." Long
+12mo, cloth, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Whitehall Review.</b>&mdash;"Those who love a mystery with plenty of 'go,' and a
+story which is not devoid of a certain amount of realism, cannot do
+better than pick up 'Fellow-Passengers.' The characters are real men and
+women, and not the sentimental and artificial puppets to which we have
+been so long accustomed by our sensationalists. The book is brightly
+written, and of detective stories it is the best I have read lately."</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Dispatch.</b>&mdash;"If you want a diverting story of realism, bordering
+upon actuality, you cannot do better than take up this bright,
+vivacious, dramatic volume. It will interest you from first page to
+last."</p>
+
+<p><b>Catholic Times.</b>&mdash;"This is a well-written story, with a good plot and
+plenty of incident. From cover to cover there is not a dull page, and
+the interest keeps up to the end."</p>
+
+<p><b>Glasgow News.</b>&mdash;"It is a thriller.... The sort of book one cannot help
+finishing at a sitting, not merely because it is short, but because it
+rivets.... The author uses his materials with great ingenuity, his plot
+is cleverly devised, and he very effectively works up to a striking
+<i>dénouement</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">Illustrated Books for Children</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19a" id="Page_19a">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Nonsense Numbers and Jocular Jingles</i></span> <span class="smcap">For Funny Little Folk</span>.
+Written by <span class="smcap">Druid Grayl</span>, with full-page Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Walter J.
+Morgan</span>. 4to, cloth boards, 5s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Grand Panjandrum</i></span>, and other fanciful Fairy Tales for the
+youthful of all Ages, Climes and Times. By <span class="smcap">S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald</span>,
+Author of "The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch," "The Wonders of the
+Secret Cavern," "The Mighty Toltec," etc. Many full-page and
+smaller Illustrations by <span class="smcap">Gustave Darré</span>. Second Edition. Square 8vo,
+art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Truth.</b>&mdash;"A decided acquisition to the children's library."</p>
+
+<p><b>Ladies' Pictorial.</b>&mdash;"Quite one of the brightest of the season's gift
+books."</p>
+
+<p><b>Spectator.</b>&mdash;"Well provided with fun and fancy."</p>
+
+<p><b>Morning Post.</b>&mdash;"Bright and thoroughly amusing. It will please all
+children. The pictures are excellent."</p>
+
+<p><b>Echo.</b>&mdash;"Of the pile (of children's books) before us, Mr Adair
+Fitz-Gerald's 'Grand Panjandrum' is the cleverest. Mr Fitz-Gerald needs
+no introduction to the nursery of these days."</p>
+
+<p><b>Times.</b>&mdash;"Very fanciful."</p>
+
+<p><b>Church News.</b>&mdash;"This is one of the most delightful books of nonsense we
+have read since we welcomed 'The Wallypug of Why.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"Will make the eyes of readers open wide with wonder and
+delight."</p>
+
+<p><b>Lloyd's.</b>&mdash;"Will amuse all children lucky enough to get this neat and
+pretty volume."</p>
+
+<p><b>Pall Mall Gazette.</b>&mdash;"A charming little book. Simply written, and
+therefore to be comprehended of the youthful mind. It will be popular,
+for the writer has a power of pleasing which is rare."</p>
+
+<p><b>Literary World.</b>&mdash;"A handsomely bound, mouth-watering, in every way
+up-to-date volume, written especially for and on behalf of the toddler
+or the newly breeched."</p>
+
+<p><b>People.</b>&mdash;"A delightful story for children, something in the style of
+'Alice in Wonderland,' but also having some flavour of Kingley's 'Water
+Babies.'"</p>
+
+<p><b>Sun.</b>&mdash;"Good fairy stories are a source of everlasting joy and delight.
+Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald breaks fresh ground and writes pleasantly.... The
+book has the added advantage of being charmingly illustrated in colour
+by Gustave Darré."</p>
+
+<p><b>Nottingham Guardian.</b>&mdash;"It is a merry book, and should keep the nursery
+in a good humour for hours. It is artistically got up, the illustrations
+by Mr Gustave Darré being of a high order of merit."</p>
+
+<p><b>Manchester Courier.</b>&mdash;"It should prove a great favourite with young
+people, being written by one who evidently takes the utmost interest in
+them and their ways. The full-page illustrations are very pretty."</p>
+
+<p><b>Weekly Sun.</b>&mdash;"Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald is a well-known writer of fairy
+stories and humorous books for the young. 'The Grand Panjandrum' is just
+the sort of book to please youngsters of all ages, being full of
+pleasant imaginings, and introducing its readers to a host of curious
+people."</p>
+
+
+<p class="fm2">Greening's Humorous Books</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20a" id="Page_20a">[20]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Pillypingle Pastorals.</i></span> A Series of Amusing Rustic Tales and
+Sketches. By <span class="smcap">Druid Grayl</span>. Profusely Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Walter J.
+Morgan</span>. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Pottle Papers.</i></span> Written by <span class="smcap">Tristram Coutts</span>, Author of "A
+Comedy of Temptation." Illustrated by <span class="smcap">L. Raven Hill</span>. Fourth
+Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>THE POTTLE PAPERS</b>, the fourth edition of which is just ready, is a
+really funny book written by Saul Smiff, and illustrated by Mr L. Raven
+Hill. "Anyone who wants a good laugh should get 'The Pottle Papers,'"
+says the <b>Sheffield Daily Telegraph.</b> "They are very droll reading for an
+idle afternoon, or picking up at any time when 'down in the dumps.' They
+are very brief and very bright, and it is impossible for anyone with the
+slightest sense of humour to read the book without bursting into 'the
+loud guffaw' which does not always 'bespeak the empty mind.'" <b>The Pall
+Mall Gazette</b> says it contains "Plenty of boisterous humour of the Max
+Adeler kind ... humour that is genuine and spontaneous. The author, for
+all his antics, has a good deal more in him than the average buffoon.
+There is, for example, a very clever and subtle strain of feeling
+running through the comedy in 'The Love that Burned'&mdash;a rather striking
+bit of work. Mr Raven Hill's illustrations are as amusing as they always
+are." The <b>St. James's Budget</b> accorded this book a very long notice, and
+reproduced some of the pictures. The reviewer said: "Who says the sense
+of humour is dead when we have 'The Pottle Papers'? We can put the book
+down with the feeling that we have spent a very enjoyable hour and
+laughed immoderately. 'The Pottle Papers' will be in everybody's hands
+before long." H.R.H. the Prince of Wales honoured the author by
+accepting a copy of his book; and the <b>Court Circular</b> remarked: "The
+Prince of Wales has accepted a copy of Saul Smiff's delightfully merry
+book, 'The Pottle Papers.' The Prince is sure to enjoy Raven Hill's
+clever sketches." This funniest of funny books is published at 2s. 6d.,
+strongly bound in cloth.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Dan Leno, Hys Booke.</i></span> A Volume of Frivolities: Autobiographical,
+Historical, Philosophical, Anecdotal and Nonsensical. Written by
+<span class="smcap">Dan Leno</span>. Profusely illustrated by Sidney H. Sime, Frank Chesworth,
+W. S. Rogers, Gustave Darré, Alfred Bryan and Dan Leno. Fifth
+Edition, containing a New Chapter, and an Appreciation of Dan Leno,
+written by Clement Scott. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt edges, 2s.
+Popular Edition, sewed, picture cover, 1s.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>DAN LENO, HYS BOOKE</b>, is, says the <b>Liverpool Review</b>, "the funniest
+publication since 'Three Men in a Boat.' In this autobiographical
+masterpiece the inimitable King of Comedians tells his life story in a
+style that would make a shrimp laugh." This enormously successful book
+of genuine and spontaneous humour has been received with a complete
+chorus of complimentary criticisms and pleasing "Press" praise and
+approval. Here are a few reviewers' remarks: "Bombshells of
+fun."&mdash;<b>Scotsman.</b> "One long laugh from start to finish."&mdash;<b>Lloyd's.</b> "Full
+of exuberant and harmless fun."&mdash;<b>Globe.</b> "A deliciously humorous
+volume."&mdash;<b>English Illustrated Magazine.</b> "The fun is fast and
+furious."&mdash;<b>Catholic Times.</b> "It is very funny."&mdash;<b>St Paul's.</b> These are a
+few opinions taken at random from hundreds of notices. Says the <b>Daily
+News</b> (Hull): "The funniest book we have read for some time. You must
+perforce scream with huge delight at the dry sayings and writings of the
+funny little man who has actually killed people with his patter and his
+antics. Page after page of genuine fun is reeled off by the great little
+man."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>Bachelor Ballads</i></span> and other Lazy Lyrics. By <span class="smcap">Harry A. Spurr</span>, Author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21a" id="Page_21a">[21]</a></span>
+of "A Cockney in Arcadia." With Fifty Illustrations by <span class="smcap">John
+Hassall</span>. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>The Pottle's Progress.</i></span> Being the Further Adventures of Mr and Mrs
+Pottle. By <span class="smcap">Tristram Coutts</span>, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc.
+Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. (In preparation.)</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p class="fm2">Guides, Etc.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>London.</i></span> A Handy Guide for the Visitor, Sportsman and Naturalist.
+By <span class="smcap">J. W. Cundall</span>. Including an Article on "Literary Restaurants,"
+by <span class="smcap">Clement Scott</span>. Numerous Illustrations. Second Year of
+Publication. Long 12mo, cloth, 6d.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><b>Vanity Fair.</b>&mdash;"A capital little guide book. No bulky volume this, but a
+handy booklet full of pithy information on all the most important
+subjects connected with our great city."</p>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"A handy booklet, more tasteful than one is accustomed to."</p>
+
+<p><b>Pelican.</b>&mdash;"As full of useful and entertaining information as is an egg
+of meat."</p>
+
+<p><b>Bookman.</b>&mdash;"A very lively and readable little guide."</p>
+
+<p><b>To-day.</b>&mdash;"One of the best guide books for visitors to London. It is a
+model of lucidity and informativeness, and the profuse illustrations are
+admirably executed."</p>
+
+<p><b>Glasgow Herald.</b>&mdash;"A useful little work for those who have no desire to
+wade through many pages of information before getting what they want."</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="booktitle"><i>America Abroad.</i></span> A Handy Guide for Americans in England. Edited by
+J. W. <span class="smcap">Cundall</span>. With numerous Illustrations. Ninth Year of
+Publication. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="booktitle"><i>In Quaint East Anglia.</i></span> Descriptive Sketches. By <span class="smcap">T. West Carnie</span>.
+Illustrated by <span class="smcap">W. S. Rogers</span>. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s. (<i>See page 5.</i>)</p>
+
+<p><b>"</b><span class="booktitle"><i>Sisters by the Sea.</i></span><b>"</b> Seaside and Country Sketches. By <span class="smcap">Clement
+Scott</span>, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+Frontispiece and Vignette designed by <span class="smcap">George Pownall</span>. Long 12mo,
+attractively bound in cloth, 1s. (<i>See page 3.</i>)</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22a" id="Page_22a">[22]</a></span></p>
+<blockquote><p class="fm3">A BOOK OF GREAT INTEREST.<br />
+AT ALL BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIES. SECOND EDITION.</p>
+
+<p class="fm2">RUDYARD KIPLING:</p>
+
+<p class="fm3">THE MAN AND HIS WORK.</p>
+
+<p class="center">Being an Attempt at Appreciation. By <span class="booktitle">G. F. MONKSHOOD</span>. With a
+Portrait of Mr Kipling, and an Autograph Letter to the Author in
+facsimile.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt top, 5/= nett.</i></p></blockquote>
+
+<p class="fm3">A FEW OF MANY PRESS OPINIONS</p>
+
+<p><b>Daily Telegraph.</b>&mdash;(Mr <span class="smcap">W. L. Courtney</span> in "Books of the Day.")&mdash;"He writes
+fluently, and has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an intimate
+acquaintance with his work. Moreover, his book has been submitted to Mr
+Kipling, whose characteristic letter to the author is set forth in the
+Preface.... Of Mr Kipling's heroes Mr Monkshood has a thorough
+understanding, and his remarks on them are worth quoting." (Here follows
+a long extract.)</p>
+
+<p><b>Scotsman.</b>&mdash;"This well-informed volume ... is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style.... One
+way and another, his book is full of interest; those who wish to talk
+about Mr Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted sympathy."</p>
+
+<p><b>Western Daily Press.</b>&mdash;"A very praiseworthy attempt, and by a writer
+imbued with a fervent esteem for his subject.... This valuation of the
+work of our most virile Empire author should hold the attention of those
+who have well studied the subject and can appreciate accordingly."</p>
+
+<p><b>Sun.</b>&mdash;"The author has carefully compiled a lot of most interesting
+matter, which he has edited with care and conscientiousness, and the
+result is a volume which every lover of Kipling can read with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p><b>Spectator.</b>&mdash;"It is very readable. It tells us some things which we might
+not otherwise have known, and puts together in a convenient form many
+things which are of common knowledge."</p>
+
+<p><b>Outlook.</b>&mdash;"<span class="smcap">Something more</span> than an attempt at appreciation.... Mr
+Monkshood has written what all the young men at home and abroad who
+treasure Mr Kipling's writings think, but have not expressed. The volume
+is a striking testimony to the hold which work that is clean and sane
+and virile has upon the rising generation. And for this we cannot be
+sufficiently thankful."</p>
+
+<p><b>Globe.</b>&mdash;"It has at the basis both knowledge and enthusiasm&mdash;knowledge of
+the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.... This book may be
+accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's merits as a writer. We
+can well believe that it will have many interested and approving
+readers."</p>
+
+<p><b>Irish Times.</b>&mdash;"A well-thought-out and earnest appreciation of the great
+writer and his works."</p>
+
+<p><b>Academy.</b>&mdash;"The book should give its subject pleasure, for Mr Monkshood
+is very keen and cordial. His criticisms have some shrewdness too. Here
+is a passage ..." (Long quotation follows.)</p>
+
+<p><b>Sunday Times.</b>&mdash;"Sure to <a name='TC_28'></a><ins title="Was attact">attract</ins> much attention. In it we are given a
+sketch of Mr Kipling's career and the story of his various works, along
+with some sane and balanced criticism.... The book is written brightly,
+thoughtfully, and informingly."</p>
+
+<p><b>Bookseller.</b>&mdash;"It is acute in perception, and sympathetic to the verge of
+worship, with just as much criticism as will allow that the hero has his
+limitations.... Mr Monkshood's well-informed and well-written critique
+possesses undoubted ability and attraction."</p>
+
+<p><b>Yorkshire Herald.</b>&mdash;"This work, which is highly appreciative, will be
+received with enthusiasm.... From this point the biography becomes even
+more interesting.... The author deals at length with Kipling's works,
+and with sufficient forcefulness and originality to hold the reader's
+attention throughout. The biography has undoubted merit and will be
+largely read."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1b" id="Page_1b"></a>[1]</span></p>
+<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>A</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Adams</span>, Herbert&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Virtue of Necessity</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Alexander</span>, Geo.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Introduction to "Art of Elocution"</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">America Abroad (J. W. Cundall)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Anna Marsden's Experiment (Ellen Williams)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_15a'>15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a name='TC_29'></a><ins title="Was Asmodens">Asmodeus</ins> (edited by Justin Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Ashes Tell no Tales (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ascher</span>, Isidore G.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Social Upheaval</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_8a'>8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>B</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bachelor Ballads (H. A. Spurr)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Beckford</span>, Geo.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Vathek</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bible Stories Retold</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Bradshaw</span>, Mrs Albert S.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ashes Tell no Tales</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Gates of Temptation</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Bye-ways of Crime (R. J. Power-Berrey)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>C</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Carnie</span>, T. West&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In Quaint East Anglia</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Comedy of Temptation (T. Coutts)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Coutts</span>, Tristram&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pottle Papers</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Comedy of Temptation</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pottle Progress</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Cundall</span>, J. W.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;London</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;America Abroad</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Cry in the Night (A. Golsworthy)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>D</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Daniels</span>, Heber&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dona Rufina</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_13a'>13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Darab's Wine-Cup (B. Kennedy)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_16a'>16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Dan Leno, Hys Booke (Dan Leno)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Death and the Woman (A. Golsworthy)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Devil in a Domino (C. L'Epine)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_17a'>17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Devil on Two Sticks (Le Sage)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">De Brémont</span>, Comtesse&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Son of Africa</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Gentleman Digger</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">De Soisson</span>&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Path of the Soul</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Dolomite Cavern (W. P. Kelly)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_11a'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Dona Rufina (Heber Daniels)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_13a'>13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>E</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">East Anglia, In Quaint (T. W. Carnie)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">"<span class="smcap">English Writers of To-day</span>" Series&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rudyard Kipling (G. F. Monkshood)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_1a'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thomas Hardy (W. L. Courtney)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Geo. Meredith (Walter Jerrold)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bret Harte (T. E. Pemberton)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Richard Le Gallienne (C. R. Gull)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Arthur Wing Pinero (H. Fyffe)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;W. E. Henley (G. Gamble)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;English Parnassian School (Sir G. Douglas)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Realistic Writers (J. Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Escott</span>, T. H. S.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Trip to Paradoxia</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Elocution, The Art of (Ross Ferguson)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Epicurean, The (edited by Justin Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>F</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Fame, the Fiddler (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_16a'>16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Famous Hamlets (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ferguson</span>, Ross&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Art of Elocution</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Fetters of Fire (Compton Reade)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Fellow-Passengers (R. Pyke)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fitz-Gerald</span>, S. J. Adair&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fame, the Fiddler</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_16a'>16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;That Fascinating Widow</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_17a'>17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Grand Panjandrum</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_19a'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>G</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Galt</span>, John&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ringan Gilhaize</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Gates of Temptation, The (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Gentleman Digger, The (Comtesse de Brémont)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Girl of the North, A (H. Milicite)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Golsworthy</span>, Arnold&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Cry in the Night</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Death and the Woman</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Grayl</span>, Druid&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nonsense Numbers, etc.</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_19a'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pillypingle Pastorals</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Grand Panjandrum, The (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_19a'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Green</span>, Percy B.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A History of Nursery Rhymes</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Green Passion (A. P. Vert)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_10a'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Guides, etc.</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>H</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Hall</span>, Sydney&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Temptation of Edith Watson</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hamlets, Some Famous (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Herman</span>, Henry&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Sword of Fate</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Hypocrite, The (Anonymous)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_13a'>13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>I</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">In Monte Carlo (H. Sienkiewicz<a name='TC_30'></a><ins title="Page number was 1">)</ins></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">In Quaint East Anglia (T. W. Carnie<a name='TC_31'></a><ins title="Page number was 25">)</ins></td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>J</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Jocular Jingles (Druid Grayl)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_19a'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Johnson</span>, Dr&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rasselas</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>K</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Kelly</span>, W. Patrick&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Dolomite Cavern</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_11a'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Kennedy</span>, Bart&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Man Adrift</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Darab's Wine-Cup</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_16a'>16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Wandering Romanoff</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_13a'>13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>L</b><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2b" id="Page_2b"></a>[2]</span></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Lady of the Leopard, The (C. L'Epine)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Lady of Criswold, The (L. Outram)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Le Sage</span>&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a name='TC_32'></a><ins title="Was Asmodens">Asmodeus</ins>; or, The Devil on Two Sticks</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">L'Epine</span>, Charles&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Devil in a Domino</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_17a'>17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Lady of the Leopard</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Leno</span>, Dan&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dan Leno, Hys Booke</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Longstaff</span>, W. Luther&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Weeds and Flowers</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Tragedy of the Lady Palmist</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Lord Jimmy (G. Martyn)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">London (J. W. Cundall)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>M</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Man Adrift, A (B. Kennedy)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Madonna Mia (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_11a'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Martyn</span>, Geo.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Lord Jimmy</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Martin</span>, Ernest&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shadows</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">M'Millan</span>, Mrs Alec&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Weird Well</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Miss Malevolent (Author of "The Hypocrite")</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Milicite</span>, Helen&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Girl of the North</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Monkshood</span>, G. F.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Woman and the Wits</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Rudyard Kipling</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_1a'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My Lady Ruby</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Moore</span>, Thomas&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Epicurean</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Mora (T. W. Speight)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">My Lady Ruby (G. F. Monkshood)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>N</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">New Tale of the Terror, A (Author of "The Hypocrite")</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_8a'>8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Nonsense Numbers (D. Grayl)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_19a'>19</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Nursery Rhymes, A History of (P. B. Green)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>O</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Obscure Apostle (Orzeszko)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Outrageous Fortune (Anonymous)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_10a'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Outram</span>, Leonard&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Lady of Criswold</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_14a'>14</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Owen</span>, J. L.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Seven Nights with Satan</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_10a'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>P</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Path of the Soul (C. S. de Soisson)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">People, Plays, and Places (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Pelican Tails (F. M. Boyd, etc.)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_17a'>17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Pillypingle Pastorals (D. Grayl)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Pootle Papers, The (T. Coutts)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_20a'>20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Pootle's Progress, The (T. Coutts)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Power-Berrey</span>, R. J.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bye-Ways of Crime</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Pyke</span>, Rivington&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Fellow-Passengers</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>R</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rae-Brown</span>, Campbell&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Shadow on the Manse</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Resurrection of His Grace</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_15a'>15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Rasselas (Edited by Justin Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Reade</span>, Compton&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fetters of Fire</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Resurrection of His Grace (C. Rae-Brown)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_15a'>15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Ringan Gilhaize (Edited by Sir G. Douglas)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>S</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sadleir</span>, Mrs Maria M.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Such is the Law</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Scott</span>, Clement&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Wheel of Life</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Madonna Mia</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_11a'>11</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;People, Plays, and Places</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sisters by the Sea</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Famous Hamlets</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_4a'>4</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Seven Nights with Satan (J. L. Owen)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_10a'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Shadows (E. Martin)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_18a'>18</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Shams (Anonymous)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_8a'>8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Shadow on The Manse (C. Rae-Brown)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Sienkiewicz</span>, Henryk&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In Monte Carlo</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Sisters by the Sea (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Son of Africa, A (Comtesse de Brémont)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Social Upheaval, A (I. G. Ascher)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_8a'>8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Speight</span>, T. W.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mora; One Woman's History</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Spurr</span>, Harry A.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bachelor Ballads</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_21a'>21</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Stage, Year Book of (Greening and Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Such is the Law (M. M. Sadleir)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Sword of Fate, The (H. Herman)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>T</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Temptation of Edith Watson (S. Hall)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">That Fascinating Widow (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_17a'>17</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Thompson</span>, Creswick J.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Zoroastro</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Tragedy of the Lady Palmist, The (W. L. Longstaff)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_12a'>12</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Trip to Paradoxia, A (T. H. S. Escott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_3a'>3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>V</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Vathek (Edited by Justin Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Vert</span>, Anthony P.&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Green Passion</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_10a'>10</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Virtue of Necessity, A (H. Adams)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_7a'>7</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>W</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Wandering Romanoff, The (B. Kennedy)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_13a'>13</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Weeds and Flowers (W. L. Longstaff)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_6a'>6</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Weird Well, The (A. M'Millan)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Wheel of Life, The (C. Scott)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_2a'>2</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Williams</span>, Ellen&mdash;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Anna Marsden's Experiment</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_15a'>15</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Woman and the Wits (G. F. Monkshood)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>Y</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Year Book of the Stage (Greening and Hannaford)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_5a'>5</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdc"><b>Z</b></td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Zoroastro (C. J. S. Thompson)</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href='#Page_9a'>9</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="transnote">
+<h3>Transcriber's note<a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a></h3>
+
+<p>
+The following changes have been made to the text:</p>
+
+
+
+
+<p><a href='#TC_1'>Page 13</a>: Was chishmaclavers (refers to my conscience&mdash;conscience again! Hae, Davie, tak thir <b>clishmaclavers</b> to Andrew Oliphant. It'll be spunk to his zeal. We maun strike our adversaries wi' terror, and if we canna wile them back to the)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_2'>Page 15</a>: Was land (youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his <b>hand</b> on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_3'>Page 17</a>: Was hyprocrisy (heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the necessary <b>hypocrisy</b> which the peril he stood in required&mdash;"Is this Mill in the castle?")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_4'>Page 52</a>: Was they they (No sooner were <b>they</b> well gone than my grandfather came from his hiding-place, and twisting a wisp of straw round his horse's feet, that)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_5'>Page 59</a>: Was peebles (and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the Garnock waters, as they swirled among the <b>pebbles</b> by the roadside, the pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_6'>Page 67</a>: Was drwan (seek redress as became true lieges, by representation and supplication. Accordingly a paper was <b>drawn</b> up, wherein they set forth how, for conscience sake, the Reformed had been long afflicted with banishment,)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_7'>Page 67</a>: Was umlimited (calamities, they were compelled to beg a remedy against the oppressions and tyranny of the Estate Ecclesiastical, which had usurped an <b>unlimited</b> domination over the minds of men,&mdash;the faggot and the sword being the)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_8'>Page 71</a>: Was mindet (At these words the Earl and Sir Hugh Campbell bowed, and, retiring, went to the lodging of the Earl of Monteith, where they were <b>minded</b> to pass the night, but when they had consulted with that nobleman, my)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_9'>Page 80</a>: Was therefere (they feel that the offence, if it be offence, of which the ministers are accused, lies equally against them, and <b>therefore</b> they have resolved to make their case a common cause.")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_10'>Page 84</a>: Was idolaltry (them, and those they represented, to show any proof that they were entitled to reverence. "God forgive my <b>idolatry</b>!" he exclaimed. "I forget myself&mdash;these things are but stocks and stones.")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_11'>Page 89</a>: Was Eslpa (distraction to St Andrews. This," he added, turning to my grandfather, "is <b>Elspa</b> Ruet, the sister of that misfortunate woman;&mdash;to my helpless bairns she does their mother's duty.")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_12'>Page 89</a>: Was Elpsa (<b>Elspa</b> made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and, turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_13'>Page 142</a>: Was progenitrex (under his culture, and the pious waterings of Elspa Ruet, my excellent <b>progenitrix</b>, were beginning to spread their green tendrils and goodly branches, and to hang out their clusters to the gracious sunshine, as it)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_14'>Page 188</a>: Was is (Covenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly in prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing <b>in</b> his discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore and)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_15'>Page 201</a>: Was acquaintaces (furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of her <b>acquaintances</b>, in what manner she could take revenge upon the profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_16'>Page 220</a>: Was friens (God according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left without succour. No, my <b>friends</b>! though our bed be the damp grass and our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_17'>Page 226</a>: Was persecuted (Providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer and the <b>persecutor</b> from tracking our defenceless flight. So we journeyed onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round,)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_18'>Page 250</a>: Was imprisoment (possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first night of my <b>imprisonment</b>, I set myself to devise the means of working out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_19'>Page 253</a>: Was soldiery (With great presence of mind and a <b>soldierly</b> self-possession, that venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_20'>Page 261</a>: riotors (As the drinking continued the riot increased, and the <b>rioters</b> growing heated with their drink, they began to quarrel: fierce words brought)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_21'>Page 264</a>: come (of the town, they found a respectable public near the Cross, into which they entered, and ordered <b>some</b> consideration of vivers for supper, just as if they had been on market business. In so doing nothing particular)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_22'>Page 269</a>: Was Cumraes (Witherspoon; and we were next morning safely ferried over into the wee <b>Cumbrae</b>, by James Plowter the ferryman, to whom we were both well known.)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_23'>Page 361</a>: Was Pharoah (after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink, slowly and heavily, as the chariots of <b>Pharaoh</b> laboured through the sands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_24'>Page 365</a>: Was unbonnetted (the steep, and sometimes I beheld them in their turn on the ground endeavouring to protect their <b>unbonneted</b> heads with their targets, but to whom the victory was to be given I could discern no sign; and I said)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_25'>Page 370</a>: Was Hogmanae (<b><i>Hogmanæ</i></b>, the last day of the year.)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_26'>Page 3</a> in the ads: Was me (enjoyment to the discriminating taste. Its satire is keen-edged, but good-humoured enough to hurt no one; and its wit and (may <b>we</b> say?) its impudence should cause a run on it at the libraries.")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_27'>Page 5</a> in the ads: Was asthetic (<b>Literature.</b>&mdash;"An <b>aesthetic</b> volume as pleasant to read as to look at.")</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_28'>Page 22</a> in the ads: Was attact (<b>Sunday Times.</b>&mdash;"Sure to <b>attract</b> much attention. In it we are given a sketch of Mr Kipling's career and the story of his various works, along)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_29'>Page 1</a> of the Index: Was Asmodens (<b>Asmodeus</b> (edited by Justin Hannaford)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_30'>Page 1</a> of the Index: Was 1 ((H. Sienkiewicz)&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>12</b>)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_31'>Page 1</a> of the Index: Was 25 ((T. W. Carnie)&nbsp;&nbsp; <b>21</b>)</p>
+<p><a href='#TC_32'>Page 2</a> of the Index: Was Asmodens (<b>Asmodeus</b>; or, The Devil on Two Sticks)</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
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diff --git a/30749.txt b/30749.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5cffb73
--- /dev/null
+++ b/30749.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,17843 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ringan Gilhaize
+       or The Covenanters
+
+Author: John Galt
+
+Release Date: December 24, 2009 [EBook #30749]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RINGAN GILHAIZE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steven desJardins, Carla Foust, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+Inconsistencies in language and dialect found in the original book have
+been retained. Minor punctuation errors have been changed without
+notice. Printer errors have been changed and are listed at the end.
+
+
+
+
+   RINGAN GILHAIZE
+
+
+
+
+   Their constancy in torture and in death--
+   These on Tradition's tongue still live, these shall
+   On History's honest page be pictured bright
+   To latest times.
+
+                               GRAHAME'S SABBATH.
+
+
+
+
+   Ringan
+   Gilhaize
+
+   OR
+
+   _THE COVENANTERS_
+
+
+
+
+   BY
+
+   JOHN GALT
+
+   AUTHOR OF
+
+   "_Annals of the Parish_," "_Sir Andrew Wylie_," "_The Entail_," _Etc._
+
+   EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY
+
+   Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS, Bart.
+
+
+
+   London
+   GREENING & CO., LTD.
+   20 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road
+   1899
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+A NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE
+
+
+There have, of course, been many men of genius who have united with
+great laxity and waywardness in their lives a high and perfect respect
+for their art; but instances of the directly contrary practice are much
+rarer, and among these there is probably none more prominent than that
+of the author of _Ringan Gilhaize_. Gifted by nature with a faculty
+which was at once brilliant, powerful and genial, he led an industrious
+life, the upright and generally exemplary character of which has never
+for a moment been called in question. But, in the sphere of his art, it
+is as undeniable as unaccountable that he cared little or nothing to do
+his best. The haps or whims of the moment seem, indeed, to have governed
+his production with an influence as of stars malign or fortunate.
+Furthermore, we know that the profession of authorship--that most
+distinguished of all professions, as, speaking in sober sadness without
+arrogance, we cannot but be bold to call it--that profession from which
+he was himself so well equipt to derive honour--was held by him in low
+esteem. So that, speaking of the time of his residence in Upper Canada,
+he thinks no shame to observe that he did _then_ consider himself
+qualified to do something more useful than "stringing blethers[1] into
+rhyme," or "writing 'clishmaclavers' in a closet." And again says he,
+"to tell the truth, I have sometimes felt a little shamefaced in
+thinking myself so much an author, in consequence of the estimation in
+which I view the profession of book-making in general. A mere literary
+man--an author by profession--stands low in my opinion." Such remarks as
+these from a man of commanding literary talent are the reverse of
+pleasant reading. But let us deal with the speaker, as we would
+ourselves be dealt by--mercifully, and regard these petulant utterances
+as a mere expression of bitterness or perversity in one much tried and
+sorely disappointed. Even so, the fact remains that the sum of Galt's
+immense and varied production exhibits inequalities of execution for
+which only carelessness or contempt in the worker for his task can
+adequately account. We shall presently have occasion to speak of him in
+his relation to the great contemporary writer to whose life and work his
+own work and life present so many interesting points of similarity and
+diversity; but we may here note that, in the glaringly disparate
+character of his output, the author of _The Provost_ is in absolute
+contrast to the author of _The Antiquary_. For, if Scott's work viewed
+as a whole be rarely of the very finest literary quality, its evenness
+within its own limits is on the other hand very striking indeed. For, of
+his twenty-seven novels, there are perhaps but three which fall
+perceptibly below the general level of excellence; whilst probably any
+one of at least as many as six or eight might by a quorum of competent
+judges be selected as the best of all. And hence, where in the case of
+other authors we are called on to read this masterpiece or those
+specimens, and, having done so, are held to have acquitted ourselves,
+in the case of Scott we cannot feel that we have done our duty till we
+have read through the Waverley Novels. How entirely different is it with
+Galt--where we find _The Omen_ occupying one shelf with _The Radical_,
+_The Annals of the Parish_ catalogued with _Lawrie Todd_, and _The
+Spaewife_ side by side with _The Covenanters_! And obviously it is in
+this inequality in its author's work--in the magnitude, that is, of the
+rubbish-heap in which he chose to secrete his jewels--that the
+explanation of the neglect, if not rather oblivion, into which the work
+last-named has fallen can alone be sought and found. For, once in the
+threescore years of his busy life, Galt did his best, consistently and
+on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of
+_Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters_. What is more--however lamentably
+he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism--he knew
+when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his
+favourite. But a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral
+delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless
+tome has been exacted in the obscuration of one of the finest and truest
+of historical romances in our language.[2] A word or two as to the
+genesis and character of the book which we have ventured thus to
+describe may not be out of place as preface to our endeavour to obtain
+for it a second hearing.
+
+It was in the year 1822 or 1823 that Galt, aged then about forty-three,
+and having already seen much of life in various countries and
+capacities, settled at Esk Grove, Musselburgh, to apply himself to
+writing historical fiction. He was for the moment elated--carried away,
+perhaps, for his temper was enthusiastic even to a fault--by the recent
+and deserved success of his novels of Scottish manners, _Sir Andrew
+Wylie_ and _The Entail_; and the soaring idea appears to have entered
+his head of deliberately attempting to rival Scott in the very field
+which "the Wizard" had made peculiarly his own. From the point of view
+of prudence, though not from that of art or of sport, this enterprise
+was a mistake. For an author, serving as he does the public, shows no
+more than common sense if he endeavour to study, in the proper degree,
+the idiosyncrasies of that employer on whose favour his reputation, nay,
+perhaps the payment of his butcher's bill, depends. And it has long been
+observed that when the public has once made up its mind that one man is
+supreme in his own line, it has generally little attention to spare for
+those who seek to have it reconsider its decision. (This, by the way,
+was amply illustrated in the sequel of the very case now under
+discussion.) But the names of Galt and Prudence do not naturally go
+together: indeed, the two were never well or for any length of time
+acquainted. At Esk Grove, either in earnest, or, as seems more likely,
+in banter of the architectural incongruities of Abbotsford, Galt
+announced his intention of building a "veritable fortress," exactly in
+the fashion of the oldest times of rude warfare. _En attendant_, he
+worked hard with his pen, the first fruits of his industry appearing in
+the novel which is here reprinted after some six-and-seventy years.
+
+What of the merits of this first attempt in a line that was new to him?
+In the first place, he had at least been guided in his choice of subject
+by an unerring historical instinct. For, surpassingly rich as is
+Scottish history in the elements both of picturesque and romantic
+incident and of wild and fascinating character, it is none the less a
+fact that there is but one period during which that history rises to the
+dignity of a really wide and permanent interest. And that period is of
+course the century, or century and a half, of the national struggle for
+religious liberty. It is not necessary to remind the reader that upon
+that struggle, and on those who maintained it, much has been written as
+well in the terms of undiscriminating eulogy as in those of
+uncomprehending condemnation. Nor is it more to the purpose to add that
+the truth lies neither entirely on one side nor the other. For--as in
+the earlier struggle for political independence, and, indeed, more or
+less in all other great national movements--the motives of most of those
+who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. Thus it is
+undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming Scottish laird of the
+sixteenth century, mistrust of Rome was a subordinate feeling to the
+covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated
+Church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few
+persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the
+intolerance embodied even by the martyr Guthrie in his celebrated
+Remonstrance--to say nothing of that which made the mere hearing of the
+mass, under certain circumstances, a capital offence. These things are,
+however, more or less accidental, and supply no criterion by which the
+true character of the reforming movement may be tested; for during the
+Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the very nature of tolerance, if
+understood by one here and there, was beyond the comprehension of the
+masses of the people. And yet we believe that, notwithstanding the
+intolerant and implacable spirit too often manifested by the
+Covenanters, no candid reader will read this book to the end without
+acknowledging (what is, indeed, the truth) that the soul of the
+Covenanting movement was a great and noble one. And that soul we here
+find personified in the younger Gilhaize--a type, if there be one in
+literature, of the Covenanter of the best kind.
+
+For, whatever may have been the temper of his associates in the
+aggregate, the hero of the book holds the scales between the rival
+parties with admirable evenness--and this notwithstanding the strong
+bias of his temper and upbringing. Indeed, until the time when he has
+become, not metaphorically, but literally maddened by the wrongs and
+outrages to which he has been subjected, the book, in so far as it
+constitutes an expression of his personal sentiments, is a perfect
+homily on fairness. And how much such fairness has to do with the
+winning and retaining of sympathy, perhaps only a modern reader is
+qualified to say. Gifted with the saving graces of humour and of
+fellow-feeling, the supposed annalist of our chronicle is no less
+prepared to make allowance for the faults of the other side than to
+acknowledge the shortcomings of his own. In fact he is the pattern of a
+spirit at once upright, humble, and self-respecting, whose ruling
+passion is an earnest piety, and who asks no more of those set over him
+than freedom to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.
+And for this little boon, so harshly and unjustly withheld, we see him
+called upon to sacrifice home, kindred and estate, to know his wife and
+daughters given over to death and worse than death, and finally to
+surrender his liberty and his last remaining child. Unless pity and
+terror in a master's hand have lost their power, surely this spectacle
+is a moving one! Nor must we forget that, even in the culminating scene
+of the tragedy--where Ringan makes his bold and inspired oration at the
+meeting of the Cameronian leaders with Renwick in a dell near
+Lasswade--the hero, for all his wrongs, remains unembittered, and
+retains unimpaired the gentleness and the manliness which are his
+characteristics. That there were such men as this among the Covenanters,
+or that they constituted the salt which gave its savour to the movement,
+we are forbidden to doubt. But, saving in the pages which follow, we
+know not where to seek for the ideal presentment of one such. This is
+what we mean by saying, as we have said above, that Galt has in this
+romance laid bare the soul of the Covenanting movement. And this, we may
+add, is what Scott in _Old Mortality_ most signally failed to do. For in
+that novel--in place of Galt's subtle and penetrating analysis of the
+motives which animated the Covenanters nobly to dare and nobly to
+endure--we find the author content himself with using the
+characteristics and the disturbances of the time for the mere purpose of
+providing incident and adventure, and a strong local colour for his
+puppets--in a word, for the most ordinary and conventional purposes of
+the romantic novelist. Nor is this the only instance of such
+psychological obtuseness in his work. That, in spite of this initial and
+damning defect, he does succeed in producing a fine novel, is but one
+more proof of the amazing fecundity of his genius. None the less does
+the fact remain that it is a novel, so to speak, without a soul--that,
+so far from being of the essence of the Covenant, the Burleys,
+Mucklewraths, Mauses and Macbrairs are but so many of its accidents, and
+that thus the main issues of the historical drama are not involved in
+the romance. In other words, it is as though the tragedy of _Hamlet_
+had been performed with great skill and _eclat_, only without the
+appearance of the Prince of Denmark upon the stage. And thus, if the
+historical novel is to play a part of any dignity in our literature, we
+may safely predict that it is upon the stock here supplied by Galt,
+rather than upon that supplied by Scott in _Old Mortality_, that it will
+have to be grafted.
+
+Having now assigned to our author the credit due to him for his choice
+and general treatment of a fine subject, it remains to touch briefly
+upon the technical skill which he has brought to bear upon the handling
+of its details. By resorting, then, to an ingenious and yet perfectly
+natural and legitimate device, he has contrived to extend his "household
+memorial" (for it is thus that he describes the story) so as to make it
+embrace the entire period of the religious struggle--from its inception
+under the regency of Marie of Lorraine to its close, or practical close,
+under the rule of the enlightened and tolerant William of Orange,--a
+period in all of full one hundred and thirty years. For the narrative,
+opening with the martyrdom of Walter Mill at St Andrews in 1558, is
+continued to the death of Claverhouse at Killiecrankie in 1689. And by
+this means the varying phases of the struggle are traced almost step by
+step, through the preachings of John Knox and the early image-breaking
+outrages, to the comparative lull of the reign of James the First of
+England, and thence again from the renewed exasperating of opposition by
+the shifty and infatuated Martyr King to the climax of the "Killing
+Time" under the younger of his sons. Few incidents of really primary or
+representative importance are omitted, and the skill shown by the Author
+in stringing the pearls of history upon the thread of his narrative is
+not the least of the merits he displays. But, as should be in a novel,
+the historical never overweights the human or fictitious interest, but
+is always properly subordinated to it.
+
+We have spoken elsewhere[3] of Galt the novelist as being "in advance of
+his time"--a facile phrase which it is expedient to use with due reserve
+and after due consideration. But the fact that the author with whose
+work we are instinctively impelled to compare the novel of _Ringan
+Gilhaize_ is the great chief of the French "Naturalistic" School would
+appear, at least so far, to support that characterisation. It is, of
+course, undeniable that, at the outset, there confront us several
+striking points of contrast or divergence between the two authors. For
+example, of that _triste amour du laid_, which, with its concomitants,
+was for so long, and perhaps is even yet, regarded by the general public
+as Zola's one prominent characteristic--of this, Galt has absolutely
+nothing, his preoccupation being uniformly with beauty in one form or
+another, whether of matter or of spirit. With him, a gloom which, did we
+not fear to be less than just to Galt we might denominate Byronic, fills
+perhaps the place of Zola's pessimism. Next, of that misbegotten passion
+for the painter's brush which has vitiated so much of modern French
+writing, and of which Zola in inferior works has even more than his due
+share, the novel of _Ringan Gilhaize_ shows equally no trace. On the
+contrary, its brief descriptive passages, of which it is noticeable how
+many are nocturnal or crepuscular, or paint effects of mist or
+rain-cloud--these might serve as models, at once in their breadth of
+execution, their aptness and their pregnancy, or quality of
+moral suggestiveness, of what descriptions in literature
+should be. How different from those laboured outlines, laboriously
+filled in, of such a piece of writing as _La Curee_!
+
+So much, then, for the divergence of the two authors; and now as to
+their relationship. It is, perhaps, in their power of putting their
+sense of a multitude before the reader, of exhibiting the passions by
+which that multitude is animated, and of tracing the phases and
+fluctuations of that passion, that the Frenchman or Italian and the Scot
+come first and most strikingly together. Witness in this book the scene
+of the advance of the congregations to the trial of the Ministers, or
+that of the return of the Reformer, Knox, to Scotland. This of itself,
+however, is not much; nor should we have felt justified in drawing
+special attention to it, but for the fact that it seems to us to be an
+outward and visible sign of what is a vital, perhaps _the_ vital
+characteristic of either writer--or, at least, that of Galt in this
+book, and of Zola in his masterwork. It is associated, then, as we read
+it, with a desire to rise in art above the limitation of the merely
+individual, and the springs of this desire we take to lie in that noble
+and abounding pity which is the dominant passion of either author, or of
+either book. In either case it is an "objective" or artistic pity,
+called into being by the spectacle of human suffering as specific as it
+is intolerable to contemplate. Only that with Galt it is felt for a
+particular historical group of men, with Zola for a particular section
+of his contemporaries. And from this characteristic there naturally
+results a gain of the quality of artistic grandeur in the books. For it
+is less the fortunes of the individual colliers than the Rights of
+Labour and their chances of recognition which form the true theme of
+_Germinal_; whilst in _Ringan Gilhaize_ we are called to gaze upon
+nothing less than the grandiose spectacle of a nation in death-grips
+with a race of mansworn sovereigns. Hence, in either case, the
+individual characters, measured by the greatness of the issues at stake,
+sink into comparative insignificance. But this very insignificance
+serves to illustrate a fundamental truth. For, to quote the words of a
+great modern thinker, "This is the law which governs humanity: an
+immense prodigality in regard to the mere individual, a contemptuous
+heaping together of the unit of human life." He continues, "I can
+picture to myself the artificer letting great quantities of his material
+go to waste--undisturbed, indeed, although three parts of it fall
+useless to the ground. For it is the fate of the vast majority of the
+human race to serve as a mere floor-cloth on which Destiny may celebrate
+her revel, or, rather, to contribute towards the making up of one of
+those numerous persons who were known to the classical drama as the
+Chorus."[4] Impressively to exhibit this truth in art is of itself to
+accomplish much; but in the infinite pathos of the individual lot there
+is a converse side to every great drama too, and to this neither of our
+writers is insensible. Hence it is that, against the shadowy curtain or
+background formed by the crowded and suffering masses of humanity, are
+relieved and detached such tragic silhouettes as those of Ringan and of
+La Maheude. In the nature of the long-drawn unrelenting ordeal to which
+each of these is subjected they are identical; for both of them are rich
+only in human affection, and of this both live to see themselves
+entirely denuded. Gilhaize, who is raised above the struggle for mere
+daily bread, is animated by a spiritual and intellectual passion which
+would have been altogether beyond the comprehension of the miner's wife
+of Montsou; but that he is on that account the nobler or more
+interesting figure of the two, we do not take upon us to say. Neither,
+of course, must we be understood to insist unduly on the few points of
+resemblance in two books which, after all, are in so many respects
+radically unlike.
+
+There is a lighter side to Galt's book, too, and this is seen
+principally, ere the stress of the action has become intense, in the
+adventures of the astute Michael Gilhaize. At this point in his
+narrative it is probably with Stevenson that Galt suggests comparison,
+nor is it any disparagement to the delightful author of _Kidnapped_ and
+_Catriona_ to say that the best of his work is to the best of Galt's as
+a clever boy's to that of a clever man. For whilst Galt presents
+incident with all, or nearly all, the charm of Stevenson, he is master,
+besides, of an adult psychology to which the other, in his short life,
+never attained.
+
+                                           GEORGE DOUGLAS.
+
+SPRINGWOOD PARK, _August_ 1899.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: Scots expletives, signifying different varieties of
+nonsense.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dismissed in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, _sub
+voce_ Galt, as one of "three forgotten novels."]
+
+[Footnote 3: In "The _Blackwood_ Group": Famous Scots' Series; Essay on
+Galt.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ernest Renan in _L'Avenir de la Science_.]
+
+
+
+
+RINGAN GILHAIZE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It is a thing past all contesting, that, in the Reformation, there was a
+spirit of far greater carnality among the champions of the cause than
+among those who in later times so courageously, under the Lord, upheld
+the unspotted banners of the Covenant. This I speak of from the
+remembrance of many aged persons, who either themselves bore a part in
+that war with the worshippers of the Beast and his Image, or who had
+heard their fathers tell of the heart and mind wherewith it was carried
+on, and could thence, with the helps of their own knowledge, discern the
+spiritual and hallowed difference. But, as I intend mainly to bear
+witness to those passages of the late bloody persecution in which I was
+myself both a soldier and a sufferer, it will not become me to brag of
+our motives and intents, as higher and holier than those of the great
+elder Worthies of "the Congregation." At the same time it is needful
+that I should rehearse as much of what happened in the troubles of the
+Reformation as, in its effects and influences, worked upon the issues of
+my own life. For my father's father was out in the raids of that
+tempestuous season, and it was by him, and from the stories he was wont
+to tell of what the Government did when drunken with the sorceries of
+the gorgeous Roman harlot, and rampaging with the wrath of Moloch and of
+Belial, it trampled on the hearts and thought to devour the souls of the
+subjects, that I first was taught to feel, know and understand the divine
+right of resistance.
+
+He was come of a stock of bein burghers in Lithgow; but his father
+having a profitable traffic in saddle-irons and bridle-rings among the
+gallants of the court, and being moreover a man who took little heed of
+the truths of religion, he continued with his wife in the delusions of
+the papistical idolatry till the last, by which my grandfather's young
+soul was put in great jeopardy. For the monks of that time were eager to
+get into their clutches such men-children as appeared to be gifted with
+any peculiar gift, in order to rear them for stoops and posts to sustain
+their Babylon, in the tower and structure whereof many rents and cracks
+were daily kithing.
+
+The Dominican friars, who had a rich howf in the town, seeing that my
+grandfather was a shrewd and sharp child, of a comely complexion, and
+possessing a studious observance, were fain to wile him into their
+power; but he was happily preserved from all their snares and devices in
+a manner that shows how wonderfully the Lord worketh out the purposes of
+His will, by ways and means of which no man can fathom the depth of the
+mysteries.
+
+Besides his traffic in the polished garniture of horse-gear, my
+grandfather's father was also a ferrier, and enjoyed a far-spread repute
+for his skill in the maladies of horses; by which, and as he dwelt near
+the palace-yett, on the south side of the street, fornent the grand
+fountain-well, his smiddy was the common haunt of the serving-men
+belonging to the nobles frequenting the court, and as often as any
+newcomers to the palace were observed in the town, some of the monks and
+friars belonging to the different convents were sure to come to the
+smiddy to converse with their grooms and to hear the news, which were
+all of the controversies raging between the priesthood and the people.
+
+My grandfather was then a little boy, but he thirsted to hear their
+conversations, and many a time, as he was wont to tell, has his very
+heart been raspet to the quick by the cruel comments in which those
+cormorants of idolatry indulged themselves with respect to the brave
+spirit of the reformers; and he rejoiced when any retainers of the
+protestant lords quarrelled with them, and dealt back to them as hard
+names as the odious epithets with which the hot-fed friars reviled the
+pious challengers of the papal iniquities. Thus it was, in the green
+years of his childhood, that the same sanctified spirit was poured out
+upon him, which roused so many of the true and faithful to resist and
+repel the attempt to quench the relighted lamps of the Gospel, preparing
+his young courage to engage in those great first trials and strong tasks
+of the Lord.
+
+The tidings and the bickerings to which he was a hearkener in the
+smiddy, he was in the practice of relating to his companions, by which
+it came to pass that, it might in a manner be said, all the boys in the
+town were leagued in spirit with the reformers, and the consequences
+were not long of ripening.
+
+In those days there was a popish saint, one St Michael, that was held in
+wonderful love and adoration by all the ranks and hierarchies of the
+ecclesiastical locust then in Lithgow; indeed, for that matter, they
+ascribed to him power and dominion over the whole town, lauding and
+worshipping him as their special god and protector. And upon a certain
+day of the year they were wont to make a great pageant and revel in
+honour of this supposed saint, and to come forth from their cloisters
+with banners, and with censers burning incense, shouting and singing
+paternosters in praise of this their Dagon, walking in procession from
+kirk to kirk, as if they were celebrating the triumph of some mighty
+conqueror.
+
+This annual abomination happening to take place shortly after the
+martyrdom of that true saint and gospel preacher Mr George Wishart, and
+while kirk and quire were resounding, to the great indignation of all
+Christians, with lamentations for the well-earned death of the cruel
+Cardinal Beaton, his ravenous persecutor, the monks and friars received
+but little homage as they passed along triumphing, though the streets
+were, as usual, filled with the multitude to see their fine show. They
+suffered, however, no molestation nor contempt till they were passing
+the Earl of Angus' house, on the outside stair of which my grandfather,
+with some two or three score of other innocent children, was standing;
+and even there they might, perhaps, have been suffered to go by
+scaithless, but for an accident that befel the bearer of a banner, on
+which was depicted a blasphemous type of the Holy Ghost in the shape and
+lineaments of a cushy-doo.
+
+It chanced that the bearer of this blazon of iniquity was a particular
+fat monk, of an arrogant nature, with the crimson complexion of surfeit
+and constipation, who for many causes and reasons was held in greater
+aversion than all the rest, especially by the boys, that never lost an
+opportunity of making him a scoff and a scorn; and it so fell out, as he
+was coming proudly along, turning his Babylonish banner to pleasure the
+women at the windows, to whom he kept nodding and winking as he passed,
+that his foot slipped and down he fell as it were with a gludder, at
+which all the thoughtless innocents on the Earl of Angus' stair set up a
+loud shout of triumphant laughter, and from less to more began to hoot
+and yell at the whole pageant, and to pelt some of the performers with
+unsavoury missiles.
+
+This, by those inordinate ministers of oppression, was deemed a horrible
+sacrilege, and the parents of all the poor children were obligated to
+give them up to punishment, of which none suffered more than did my
+grandfather, who was not only persecuted with stripes till his loins
+were black and blue, but cast into a dungeon in the Blackfriars' den,
+where for three days and three nights he was allowed no sustenance but
+gnawed crusts and foul water. The stripes and terrors of the oppressor
+are, however, the seeds which Providence sows in its mercy to grow into
+the means that shall work his own overthrow.
+
+The persecutions which from that day the monks waged, in their conclaves
+of sloth and sosherie, against the children of the town, denouncing them
+to their parents as worms of the great serpent and heirs of perdition,
+only served to make their young spirits burn fiercer. As their joints
+hardened and their sinews were knit, their hearts grew manful, and
+yearned, as my grandfather said, with the zealous longings of a
+righteous revenge, to sweep them away from the land as with a whirlwind.
+
+After enduring for several years great affliction in his father's house
+from his mother, a termagant woman, who was entirely under the dominion
+of her confessor, my grandfather entered into a paction with two other
+young lads to quit their homes for ever, and to enter the service of
+some of those pious noblemen who were then active in procuring adherents
+to the protestant cause, as set forth in the first covenant.
+Accordingly, one morning in the spring of 1558, they bade adieu to their
+fathers' doors, and set forward on foot towards Edinburgh.
+
+"We had light hearts," said my grandfather, "for our trust was in
+Heaven; we had girded ourselves for a holy enterprise, and the
+confidence of our souls broke forth into songs of battle, the melodious
+breathings of that unison of spirit which is alone known to the soldiers
+of the great Captain of Salvation."
+
+About noon they arrived at the Cross of Edinburgh, where they found a
+crowd assembled round the Luckenbooths, waiting for the breaking up of
+the States, which were then deliberating anent the proposal from the
+French king that the Prince Dolphin, his son, should marry our young
+queen, the fair and faulty Mary, whose doleful captivity and woful end
+scarcely expiated the sins and sorrows that she caused to her ill-used
+and poor misgoverned native realm of Scotland.
+
+While they were standing in this crowd, my grandfather happened to see
+one Icener Cunningham, a servant in the household of the Earl of
+Glencairn, and having some acquaintance of the man before at Lithgow, he
+went towards him, and after some common talk, told on what errand he and
+his two companions had come to Edinburgh. It was in consequence agreed
+between them that this Icener should speak to his master concerning
+them, the which he did as soon as my Lord came out from the Parliament;
+and the Earl was so well pleased with the looks of the three young men
+that he retained them for his service on the spot, and they were
+conducted by Icener Cunningham home to his Lordship's lodgings in St
+Mary's Wynd.
+
+Thus was my grandfather enlisted into the cause of the Lords of the
+Congregation, and in the service of that great champion of the
+Reformation, the renowned, valiant and pious Earl of Glencairn, he saw
+many of those things, the recital of which kindled my young mind to
+flame up with no less ardour than his against the cruel attempt that was
+made, in our own day and generation, to load the neck of Scotland with
+the grievous chains of prelatic tyranny.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The Earl of Glencairn, having much to do with the other Lords of the
+Congregation, did not come to his lodging till late in the afternoon,
+when, as soon as he had passed into his privy chamber, he sent for his
+three new men, and entered into some conversation with them concerning
+what the people at Lithgow said and thought of the Queen-dowager's
+government, and the proceedings at that time afoot on behalf of the
+reformed religion. But my grandfather jealoused that in this he was less
+swayed by the expectation of gathering knowledge from them, than by a
+wish to inspect their discretion and capacities; for, after conversing
+with them for the space of half an hour or thereby, he dismissed them
+courteously from his presence, without intimating that he had any
+special service for them to perform.
+
+One evening as the Earl sat alone at supper, he ordered my grandfather
+to be brought again before him, and desired him to be cup-bearer for
+that night. In this situation, as my grandfather stood holding the
+chalice and flagon at his left elbow, the Earl, as was his wonted custom
+with such of the household as he from time to time so honoured, entered
+into familiar conversation with him; and when the servitude and homages
+of the supper were over, and the servants were removing the plate and
+trenchers, he signified, by a look and a whisper, that he wished him to
+linger in the room till after they were gone.
+
+"Gilhaize," said he, when the serving-men had retired, and they were by
+themselves, "I am well content with your prudence, and therefore, before
+you are known to belong to my train, I would send you on a confidential
+errand, for which you must be ready to set forth this very night."
+
+My grandfather made no reply in words to this mark of trust, but bowed
+his head in token of his obedience to the commands of the Earl.
+
+"I need not tell you," resumed his master, "that among the friends of
+the reformed cause there are some for policy and many for gain, and that
+our adversaries, knowing this, leave no device or stratagem untried to
+sow sedition among the Lords and Leaders of the Congregation. This very
+day the Earl of Argyle has received a mealy-mouthed letter from that
+dissolute papist, the Archbishop of St Andrews, entreating him, with
+many sweet words, concerning the ancient friendship subsisting between
+their families, to banish from his protection that good and pious
+proselyte, Douglas, his chaplain, evidently presuming, from the easy
+temper of the aged Earl, that he may be wrought into compliance. But
+Argyle is an honest man, and is this night to return, by the
+Archbishop's messenger and kinsman, Sir David Hamilton, a fitting and
+proper reply. It is not, however, to be thought that this attempt to
+tamper with Argyle is the sole trial which the treacherous priest is at
+this time making to breed distrust and dissension among us, though as
+yet we have heard of none other. Now, Gilhaize, what I wish you to do,
+and I think you can do it well, is to throw yourself in Sir David's way,
+and, by hook or crook, get with him to St Andrews, and there try by all
+expedient means to gain a knowledge of what the Archbishop is at this
+time plotting--for plotting we are assured from this symptom he is--and
+it is needful to the cause of Christ that his wiles should be
+circumvented."
+
+In saying these words the Earl rose, and, taking a key from his belt,
+opened a coffer that stood in the corner of the room, and took out two
+pieces of gold, which he delivered to my grandfather, to bear the
+expenses of his journey.
+
+"I give you, Gilhaize," said he, "no farther instructions; for, unless I
+am mistaken in my man, you lack no better guide than your own
+discernment. So God be with you, and His blessing prosper the
+undertaking."
+
+My grandfather was much moved at being so trusted, and doubted in his
+own breast if he was qualified for the duty which his master had thus
+put upon him. Nevertheless he took heart from the Earl's confidence,
+and, without saying anything either to his two companions or to Icener
+Cunningham, he immediately, on parting from his master, left the house,
+leaving his absence to be accounted for to the servants according to his
+lord's pleasure.
+
+Having been several times on errands of his father in Edinburgh before,
+he was not ill-acquainted with the town, and the moon being up, he had
+no difficulty in finding his way to Habby Bridle's, a noted stabler's at
+the foot of Leith Wynd, nigh the mouth of the North Loch, where gallants
+and other travellers of gentle condition commonly put up their horses.
+There he thought it was likely Sir David Hamilton had stabled his steed,
+and he divined that, by going thither, he would learn whether that
+knight had set forward to Fife, or when he was expected so to do; the
+which movement, he always said, was nothing short of an instinct from
+Heaven; for just on entering the stabler's yard, a groom came shouting
+to the hostler to get Sir David Hamilton's horses saddled outright, as
+his master was coming.
+
+Thus, without the exposure of any inquiry, he gained the tidings that he
+wanted, and with what speed he could put into his heels, he went forward
+to the pier of Leith, where he found a bark, with many passengers on
+board, ready to set sail for Kirkcaldy, waiting only for the arrival of
+Sir David, to whom, as the Archbishop's kinsman, the boatmen were fain
+to pretend a great outward respect; but many a bitter ban, my
+grandfather said, they gave him for taigling them so long, while wind
+and tide both served--all which was proof and evidence how much the
+hearts of the common people were then alienated from the papistical
+churchmen.
+
+Sir David having arrived, and his horses being taken aboard, the bark
+set sail, and about daybreak next morning she came to anchor at
+Kirkcaldy. During the voyage, my grandfather, who was of a mild and
+comely aspect, observed that the knight was more affable towards him
+than to the lave of the passengers, the most part of whom were coopers
+going to Dundee to prepare for the summer fishing. Among them was one
+Patrick Girdwood, the deacon of the craft, a most comical character, so
+vogie of his honours and dignities in the town council that he could not
+get the knight told often enough what a load aboon the burden he had in
+keeping a' things douce and in right regulation amang the bailies. But
+Sir David, fashed at his clatter, and to be quit of him, came across the
+vessel and began to talk to my grandfather, although, by his apparel, he
+was no meet companion for one of a knight's degree.
+
+It happened that Sir David was pleased with his conversation, which was
+not to be wondered at, for in his old age, when I knew him, he was a man
+of a most enticing mildness of manner, and withal so discreet in his
+sentences that he could not be heard without begetting respect for his
+observance and judgment. So out of the vanity of that vogie tod of the
+town council was a mean thus made by Providence to further the ends and
+objects of the Reformation in so far as my grandfather was concerned;
+for the knight took a liking to him, and being told, as it was
+expedient to give a reason for his journey to St Andrews, that he was
+going thither to work as a ferrier, Sir David promised him not only his
+own countenance, but to commend him to the Archbishop.
+
+There was at that time in Kirkcaldy one Tobit Balmutto, a horse-setter,
+of whom my grandfather had some knowledge by report. This Tobit being
+much resorted to by the courtiers going to and coming from Falkland, and
+well known to their serving-men, who were wont to speak of him in the
+smiddy at Lithgow as a zealous reformer--chiefly, as the prodigals among
+them used to jeer and say, because the priests and friars in their
+journeyings atween St Andrews and Edinburgh took the use of his beasts
+without paying for them, giving him only their feckless benisons instead
+of white money.
+
+To this man my grandfather resolved to apply for a horse, and such a
+one, if possible, as would be able to carry him as fast as Sir David
+Hamilton's. Accordingly, on getting to the land, he inquired for Tobit
+Balmutto, and several of his striplings and hostlers being on the shore,
+having, on seeing the bark arrive, come down to look out for travellers
+that might want horses, he was conducted by one of them to their
+employer, whom he found an elderly man of the corpulent order, sitting
+in an elbow-chair by the fireside, toasting an oaten bannock on a pair
+of tormentors, with a blue puddock-stool bonnet on his head, and his
+grey hose undrawn up, whereby his hairy legs were bare, showing a power
+and girth such as my grandfather had seen few like before, testifying to
+what had been the deadly strength of their possessor in his younger
+years. He was thought to have been an off-gett of the Boswells of
+Balmutto.
+
+When he had made known his want to Tobit, and that he was in a manner
+obligated to be at St Andrews as soon as Sir David Hamilton, the
+horse-setter withdrew the bannock from before the ribs, and seeing it
+somewhat scowthert and blackent on the one cheek, he took it off the
+tormentors and scraped it with them, and blew away the brown burning
+before he made any response; then he turned round to my grandfather, and
+looking at him with the tail of his eye from aneath his broad bonnet,
+said,--
+
+"Then ye're no in the service of his Grace, my Lord the Archbishop? And
+yet, frien', I think na ye're just a peer to Sir Davie, that you need to
+ettle at coping with his braw mare, Skelp-the-dub, whilk I selt to him
+mysel'; but the de'il a bawbee hae I yet han'let o' the price; howsever,
+that's neither here nor there, a day of reckoning will come at last."
+
+My grandfather assured Tobit Balmutto it was indeed very true he was not
+in the service of the Archbishop, and that he would not have been so
+instant about getting to St Andrews with the knight had he not a dread
+and fear that Sir David was the bearer of something that might be sore
+news to the flock o' Christ, and he was fain to be there as soon as him
+to speak in time of what he jealoused, that any of those in the town who
+stood within the reverence of the Archbishop's aversion, on account of
+their religion, might get an inkling and provide for themselves.
+
+"If that's your errand," said the horse-setter, "ye s'all hae the
+swiftest foot in my aught to help you on, and I redde you no to spare
+the spur, for I'm troubled to think ye may be owre late--Satan, or they
+lie upon him, has been heating his cauldrons yonder for a brewing, and
+the Archbishop's thrang providing the malt. Nae farther gane than
+yesterday, auld worthy Mr Mill of Lunan, being discovered hidden in a
+kiln at Dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by
+twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his Grace, and it's thought it
+will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what
+haste ye dow, and the Lord put mettle in the beast that bears you."
+
+With that Tobit Balmutto ordered the lad who brought my grandfather to
+the house to saddle a horse that he called Spunkie; and in a trice he
+was mounted and on the road after Sir David, whom he overtook
+notwithstanding the spirit of his mare, Skelp-the-dub, before he had
+cleared the town of Pathhead, and they travelled onward at a brisk trot
+together, the knight waxing more and more pleased with his companion, in
+so much that by the time they had reached Cupar, where they stopped to
+corn, he lamented that a young man of his parts should think of
+following the slavery of a ferrier's life, when he might rise to trusts
+and fortune in the house of some of the great men of the time, kindly
+offering to procure for him, on their arrival at St Andrews, the favour
+and patronage of his kinsman, the Archbishop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+It was the afternoon when my grandfather and Sir David Hamilton came in
+sight of St Andrews, and the day being loun and bright, the sky clear,
+and the sea calm, he told me that when he saw the many lofty spires and
+towers and glittering pinnacles of the town rising before him, he verily
+thought he was approaching the city of Jerusalem, so grand and glorious
+was the apparition which they made in the sunshine, and he approached
+the barricaded gate with a strange movement of awe and wonder rushing
+through the depths of his spirit.
+
+They, however, entered not into the city at that time, but, passing
+along the wall leftward, came to a road which led to the gate of the
+castle where the Archbishop then dwelt; and as they were approaching
+towards it, Sir David pointed out the window where Cardinal Beaton sat
+in the pomp of his scarlet and fine linen to witness the heretic
+Wishart, as the knight called that holy man, burnt for his sins and
+abominations.
+
+My grandfather, on hearing this, drew his bridle in, and falling behind
+Sir David, raised his cap in reverence and in sorrow at the thought of
+passing over the ground that had been so hallowed by martyrdom, but he
+said nothing, for he knew that his thoughts were full of offence to
+those who were wrapt in the errors and delusions of popery like Sir
+David Hamilton; and, moreover, he had thanked the Lord thrice in the
+course of their journey for the favour which it had pleased Him he
+should find in the sight of the kinsman of so great an adversary to the
+truth as was the Archbishop of St Andrews, whose treasons and
+treacheries against the Church of Christ he was then travelling to
+discover and waylay.
+
+On reaching the castle-yett they alighted; my grandfather, springing
+lightly from the saddle, took hold of Sir David's mare by the
+bridle-rings, while the knight went forward, and whispered something
+concerning his Grace to a stalwart, hard-favoured, grey-haired
+man-at-arms, that stood warder of the port, leaning on his sword, the
+blade of whilk could not be shorter than an ell. What answer he got was
+brief, the ancient warrior pointing at the same time with his right hand
+towards a certain part of the city, and giving a Belial smile of
+significance; whereupon Sir David turned round without going into the
+court of the castle, and bidding my grandfather give the man the beasts
+and follow, which he did, they walked together under the town wall
+towards the east till they came to a narrow sallyport in the rampart,
+wherewith the priory and cathedral had of old been fenced about with
+turrets and bastions of great strength against the lawless kerns of the
+Highlands, and especially the ships of the English, who have in all ages
+been of a nature gleg and glad to mulct and molest the sea-harbour towns
+of Scotland.
+
+On coming to the sallyport, Sir David chapped with his whip twice, and
+from within a wicket was opened in the doors, ribbed with iron
+stainchers on the outside, and a man with the sound of corpulency in his
+voice looked through and inquired what they wanted. Seeing, however, who
+it was that had knocked, he forthwith drew the bar and allowed them to
+enter, which was into a pleasant policy adorned with jonquils and
+jelly-flowers, and all manner of blooming and odoriferous plants, most
+voluptuous to the smell and ravishing to behold, the scents and
+fragrancies whereof smote my grandfather for a time, as he said, with
+the very anguish of delight. But, on looking behind to see who had given
+them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed
+soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel there placed was,
+he saw a large, elderly monk, sitting on a bench with a broken pasty
+smoking on a platter beside him, and a Rotterdam greybeard jug standing
+by, no doubt plenished with cordial drink.
+
+Sir David held no parlance with the feeding friar, but going straight up
+the walk to the door of a lodging, to the which this was the parterre
+and garden, he laid his hand on the sneck, and opening it, bade my
+grandfather come in.
+
+They then went along the trance towards an open room, and on entering it
+they met a fair damsel in the garb of a handmaid, to whom the knight
+spoke in familiarity, and kittling her under the chin, made her giggle
+in a wanton manner. By her he was informed that the Archbishop was in
+the inner chamber at dinner with her mistress, upon which he desired my
+grandfather to sit down, while he went ben to his Grace.
+
+The room where my grandfather took his seat was parted from the inner
+chamber, in which the Archbishop and his lemane were at their
+festivities, by an arras partition, so that he could hear all that
+passed within, and the first words his Grace said on his kinsman going
+ben was,--
+
+"Aweel, Davie, and what says that auld doddard Argyle, will he send me
+the apostate to mak a benfire?"
+
+"He has sent your Grace a letter," replied Sir David, "wherein he told
+me he had expounded the reasons and causes of his protecting Douglas,
+hoping your Grace will approve the same."
+
+"Approve heresy and reprobacy!" exclaimed the Archbishop; "but gi'e me
+the letter, and sit ye down, Davie. Mistress Kilspinnie, my dauty, fill
+him a cup of wine, the malvesie, to put smeddam in his marrow; he'll no
+be the waur o't, after his gallanting at Enbro. Stay! what's this? the
+auld man's been at school since him and me hae swappit paper. My word,
+Argyle, thou's got a tongue in thy pen neb! but this was ne'er indited
+by him; the cloven foot of the heretical Carmelite is manifest in every
+line. Honour and conscience truly!--braw words for a Hielant schore,
+that bigs his bield wi' other folks' gear!"
+
+"Be composed, your sweet Grace, and dinna be so fashed," cried a
+silver-tongued madam, the which my grandfather afterwards found, as I
+shall have to rehearse, was his concubine, the Mrs Kilspinnie. "What
+does he say?"
+
+"Say? Why, that Douglas preaches against idolatry, and he remits to my
+conscience forsooth, gif that be heresy--and he preaches against
+adulteries and fornications too--was ever sic varlet terms written in
+ony nobleman's letter afore this apostate's time--and he refers that to
+my conscience likewise."
+
+"A faggot to his tail would be ower gude for him," cried Mrs Kilspinnie.
+
+"He preaches against hypocrisy," said his Grace, "the which he also
+refers to my conscience--conscience again! Hae, Davie, tak thir
+clishmaclavers to Andrew Oliphant. It'll be spunk to his zeal. We maun
+strike our adversaries wi' terror, and if we canna wile them back to the
+fold, we'll e'en set the dogs on them. Kind Mistress Kilspinnie, help me
+frae the stoup o' sherries, for I canna but say that this scalded heart
+I hae gotten frae that auld shavling-gabbit Hielander has raised my
+corruption, and I stand in need, my lambie, o' a' your winsome
+comforting."
+
+At which words Sir David came forth the chamber with the letter in his
+hand; but seeing my grandfather, whom it would seem he had forgotten, he
+went suddenly back and said to his Grace,--
+
+"Please you, my Lord, I hae brought with me a young man of a good
+capacity and a ripe understanding that I would commend to your Grace's
+service. He is here in the outer room waiting your Grace's pleasure."
+
+"Davie Hamilton," replied the Archbishop, "ye sometimes lack discretion.
+What for did ye bring a stranger into this house--knowing, as ye ought
+to do, that I ne'er come hither but when I'm o' a sickly frame, in need
+o' solace and repose? Howsever, since the lad's there, bid him come
+ben."
+
+Upon this, Sir David came out and beckoned my grandfather to go in; and
+when he went forward, he saw none in that inner chamber but his Grace
+and the Mrs Kilspinnie, with whom he was sitting on a bedside before a
+well-garnished table, whereon was divers silver flagons, canisters of
+comfits, and goblets of the crystal of Venetia.
+
+He looked sharp at my grandfather, perusing him from head to foot, who
+put on for the occasion a face of modesty and reverence, but he was none
+daunted, for all his eyes were awake, and he took such a cognition of
+his Grace as he never afterwards forgot. Indeed, I have often heard him
+say that he saw more of the man in the brief space of that interview
+than of others in many intromissions, and he used to depict him to me as
+a hale, black-avised carl, of an o'ersea look, with a long dark beard
+inclining to grey; his abundant hair, flowing down from his cowl, was
+also clouded and streaked with the kithings of the cranreuch of age.
+There was, however, a youthy and luscious twinkling in his eyes, that
+showed how little the passage of three-and-fifty winters had cooled the
+rampant sensuality of his nature. His right leg, which was naked, though
+on the foot was a slipper of Spanish leather, he laid o'er Mistress
+Kilspinnie's knees as he threw himself back against the pillar of the
+bed, the better to observe and converse with my grandfather; and she,
+like another Delilah, began to prattle it with her fingers, casting at
+the same time glances, unseen by her papistical paramour, towards my
+grandfather, who, as I have said, was a comely and well-favoured young
+man.
+
+After some few questions as to his name and parentage, the prelate said
+he would give him his livery, being then anxious, on account of the
+signs of the times, to fortify his household with stout and valiant
+youngsters; and bidding him draw near and to kneel down, he laid his
+hand on his head and mumbled a benedicite; the which, my grandfather
+said, was as the smell of rottenness to his spirit, the lascivious
+hirkos, then wantoning so openly with his adulterous concubine, for no
+better was Mistress Kilspinnie, her husband, a creditable man, being
+then living, and one of the bailies of Crail. Nor is it to be debated
+that the scene was such as ought not to have been seen in a Christian
+land; but in those days the blasphemous progeny of the Roman harlot were
+bold with the audacious sinfulness of their parent, and set little store
+by the fear of God or the contempt of man. It was a sore trial and a
+struggle in the bosom of my grandfather that day to think of making a
+show of homage and service towards the mitred Belial and high priest of
+the abominations wherewith the realm was polluted, and when he rose from
+under his paw he shuddered, and felt as if he had received the foul erls
+of perdition from the Evil One. Many a bitter tear he long after shed in
+secret for the hypocrisy of that hour, the guilt of which was never
+sweetened to his conscience, even by the thought that he maybe thereby
+helped to further the great redemption of his native land in the blessed
+cleansing of the Reformation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Sir David Hamilton conducted my grandfather back through the garden and
+the sallyport to the castle, where he made him acquainted with his
+Grace's seneschal, by whom he was hospitably entertained when the knight
+had left them together, receiving from him a cup of hippocras and a
+plentiful repast, the like of which, for the savouriness of the viands,
+was seldom seen out of the howfs of the monks.
+
+The seneschal was called by name Leonard Meldrum, and was a most douce
+and composed character, well stricken in years, and though engrained
+with the errors of papistry, as was natural for one bred and cherished
+in the house of the speaking horn of the Beast, for such the high priest
+of St Andrews was well likened to, he was nevertheless a man of a humane
+heart and great tenderness of conscience.
+
+The while my grandfather was sitting with him at the board, he lamented
+that the Church, so he denominated the papal abomination, was so far
+gone with the spirit of punishment and of cruelty as rather to shock
+men's minds into schism and rebellion than to allure them back into
+worship and reverence, and to a repentance of their heresies--a strain
+of discourse which my grandfather so little expected to hear within the
+gates and precincts of the guilty castle of St Andrews that it made him
+for a time distrust the sincerity of the old man, and he was very
+guarded in what he himself answered thereto. Leonard Meldrum was,
+however, honest in his way, and rehearsed many things which had been
+done within his own knowledge against the reformers that, as he said,
+human nature could not abide, nor the just and merciful Heavens well
+pardon.
+
+Thus, from less to more, my grandfather and he fell into frank
+communion, and he gave him such an account of the bloody Cardinal Beaton
+as was most awful to hear, saying that his then present master, with all
+his faults and prodigalities, was a saint of purity compared to that
+rampagious cardinal, the which to hear, my grandfather thinking of what
+he had seen in the lodging of Madam Kilspinnie, was seized with such a
+horror thereat that he could partake no more of the repast before him,
+and he was likewise moved into a great awe and wonder of spirit that the
+Lord should thus, in the very chief sanctuary of papistry in all
+Scotland, be alienating the affections of the servants from their
+master, preparing the way, as it were, for an utter desertion and
+desolation to ensue.
+
+They afterwards talked of the latter end of that great martyr, Mr George
+Wishart, and the seneschal informed him of several things concerning the
+same that were most edifying, though sorrowful to hear.
+
+"He was," said he, "placed under my care, and methinks I shall ever see
+him before me, so meek, so holy, and so goodly was his aspect. He was of
+tall stature, black haired, long bearded, of a graceful carriage,
+elegant, courteous, and ready to teach. In his apparel he was most
+comely, and in his diet of an abstemious temperance. On the morning of
+his execution, when I gave him notice that he was not to be allowed to
+have the sacrament, he smiled with a holiness of resignation that almost
+melted me to weep. I then invited him to partake of my breakfast, which
+he accepted with cheerfulness, saying,--
+
+"'I will do it very willingly, and so much the rather, because I
+perceive you to be a good Christian, and a man fearing God.'
+
+"I then ordered in the breakfast, and he said,--
+
+"'I beseech you, for the love you bear to our Saviour, to be silent a
+little while, till I have made a short exhortation, and blessed this
+bread we are to eat.'
+
+"He then spoke about the space of half an hour of our Saviour's death
+and passion, exhorting me, and those who were present with me, to mutual
+love and holiness of life; and giving thanks, brake the bread,
+distributing a part to those about him; then taking a cup, he bade us
+remember that Christ's blood was shed to wash away our sins, and,
+tasting it himself, he handed it to me, and I likewise partook of it:
+then he concluded with another prayer, at the end of which he said, 'I
+will neither drink nor eat any more in this world,' and he forthwith
+entered into an inner chamber where his bed was, leaving us filled with
+admiration and sorrow, and our eyes flowing with tears."
+
+To this the seneschal added, "I fear, I fear, we are soon to have
+another scene of the same sort, for to-morrow the Bishops of Murray, and
+Brechin, and Caithness, with other dignitaries, are summoned to the
+cathedral to sit in judgment on the aged priest of Lunan, that was
+brought hither from Dysart yestereen, and from the head the newfangled
+heresies are making, there's little doubt that the poor auld man will be
+made an example. Woes me! far better would it be an they would make an
+example of the like of the Earls of Argyle and Glencairn, by whom the
+reprobates are so encouraged."
+
+"And is this Mill," inquired my grandfather with diffidence, for his
+heart was so stung with what he heard, that he could scarcely feign the
+necessary hypocrisy which the peril he stood in required--"Is this Mill
+in the castle?"
+
+"Sorry am I to say it," replied the seneschal, "and under my keeping;
+but I darena show him the pity that I would fain do to his grey hairs
+and aged limbs. Some of the monks of the priory are with him just now,
+trying to get him to recant his errors, with the promise of a bein
+provision for the remainder of his days in the abbey of Dunfermline, the
+whilk I hope our blessed Lady will put it into his heart to accept."
+
+"I trust," said my grandfather in the core of his bosom, "that the Lord
+will fortify him to resist the temptation."
+
+This, however, the seneschal heard not, for it was ejaculated inwardly,
+and he subjoined,--
+
+"When the monks go away, I will take you in to see him, for truly he is
+a sight far more moving to compassion than displeasure, whatsoever his
+sins and heresies may be."
+
+In this manner, for the space of more than an hour, did my grandfather
+hold converse and communion with Leonard Meldrum, in whom, he was often
+heard to say, there was more of the leaven of a sanctified nature than
+in the disposition of many zealous and professing Christians.
+
+When the two shavlings that had been afflicting Master Mill with the
+offer of the wages of Satan were departed from the castle, the seneschal
+rose, and bidding my grandfather to come after him, they went out of the
+room, and traversing a narrow dark passage with many windings, came to
+the foot of a turnpike stair which led up into the sea-tower, so called
+because it stood farthermost of all the castle in the sea, and in the
+chamber thereof they found Master Mill alone, sitting at the window,
+with his ancient and shrivelled lean hand resting on the sole and
+supporting his chin, as he looked through the iron stainchers abroad on
+the ocean that was sleeping in a blessed tranquillity around, all
+glowing and golden with the shimmer of the setting sun.
+
+"How fares it with you?" said the seneschal with a kindly accent;
+whereupon the old man, who had not heard them enter, being tranced in
+his own holy meditations, turned round, and my grandfather said he felt
+himself, when he beheld his countenance, so smitten with awe and
+admiration, that he could not for some time advance a step.
+
+"Come in, Master Meldrum, and sit ye down by me!" said the godly man.
+"Draw near unto me, for I am a thought hard of hearing. The Lord has of
+late, by steeking the doors and windows of my earthly tabernacle, been
+admonishing me that the gloaming is come, and the hour of rest cannot be
+far off."
+
+His voice, said my grandfather, was as the sound of a mournful melody,
+but his countenance was brightened with a solemn joyfulness. He was of a
+pale and spiritual complexion; his eyes beamed, as it were, with a
+living light, and often glanced thoughts of heavenly imaginings, even as
+he sat in silence. He was then fourscore and two years old; but his
+appearance was more aged, for his life had been full of suffering and
+poverty; and his venerable hands and skinny arms were heart-melting
+evidences of his ineffectual power to struggle much longer in the
+warfare of this world. In sooth, he was a chosen wheat-ear, ripened and
+ready for the garnels of salvation.
+
+"I have brought, Master Mill," said the seneschal, "a discreet youth to
+see you, not out of a vain curiosity, for he sorrows with an exceeding
+grief that such an aged person should be brought into a state of so
+great jeopardy; but I hope, Master Mill, it will go well with you yet,
+and that ye'll repent and accept the boon that I hae heard was to be
+proffered."
+
+To these words the aged saint made no reply for the space of about a
+minute; at the end of which he raised his hands, and casting his eyes
+heavenward, exclaimed,--
+
+"I thank Thee, O Lord, for the days of sore trial, and want, and hunger,
+and thirst, and destitution which Thou hast been pleased to bestow upon
+me, for by them have I, even now as I stand on the threshold of life,
+been enabled, through Thy merciful heartenings, to set at nought the
+temptations wherewith I have been tempted."
+
+And, turning to the seneschal, he added mildly, "But I am bound to you,
+Master Meldrum, in great obligations, for I know that in the hope you
+have now expressed there is the spirit of much charitableness, albeit
+you discern not the deadly malady that the sin of compliance would bring
+to my poor soul. No, sir, it would na be worth my while now, for world's
+gain, to read a recantation. And, blessed be God, it's no in my power to
+yield, so deeply are the truths of His laws engraven upon the tablet of
+my heart."
+
+They then fell into more general discourse, and while they were
+speaking, a halberdier came into the room with a paper, whereby the
+prisoner was summoned to appear in the cathedral next day by ten
+o'clock, to answer divers matters of heresy and schism laid to his
+charge; and the man having delivered the summons, said to the seneschal
+that he was ordered by Sir Andrew Oliphant to bid him refrain from
+visiting the prisoner, and to retire to his own lodging.
+
+The seneschal to this command said nothing, but rose, and my grandfather
+likewise rose. Fain would he have knelt down to beg the blessing of the
+martyr, but the worthy Master Meldrum signified to him with a look to
+come at once away; and when they were returned back into his chamber
+where the repast had been served, he told him that there was a danger of
+falling under the evil thoughts of Oliphant, were he to be seen
+evidencing anything like respect towards prisoners accused of the sin of
+heresy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The next day was like a cried fair in St. Andrews. All the country from
+ayont Cupar, and many reformed and godly persons even from Dundee and
+Perth, were gathered into the city to hear the trial of Master Walter
+Mill. The streets were filled with horses and men with whips in their
+hands and spurs at their heels, and there was a great going to and fro
+among the multitude; but, saving in its numbers, the congregation of the
+people was in no other complexion either like a fair or a tryst. Every
+visage was darkened with doure thoughts; none spoke cheerfully aloud;
+but there was whispering and muttering, and ever and anon the auld men
+were seen wagging their heads in sorrow, while the young cried often
+"Shame! shame!" and with vehement gestures clave the air with their
+right hands, grasping their whips and staffs with the vigour of
+indignation.
+
+At last the big bell of the cathedral began to jow, at the doleful sound
+of which there was, for the space of two or three minutes, a silence and
+pause in the multitude as if they had been struck with panic and
+consternation, for till then there was a hope among them that the
+persecutors would relent; but the din of the bell was as the signal of
+death and despair, and the people were soon awakened from their
+astonishment by the cry that "the bishops are coming," whereat there
+was a great rush towards the gates of the church, which was presently
+filled, leaving only a passage up the middle aisle.
+
+In the quire a table was spread with a purple velvet cloth, and at the
+upper end, before the high place of the mass, was a stool of state for
+the Archbishop; on each side stood chairs for the Bishops of Murray,
+Brechin and Caithness and his other suffragans, summoned to sit in
+judgment with him.
+
+My grandfather, armed and wearing the Archbishop's livery, was with
+those that guarded the way for the cruel prelates, and by the pressure
+of the throng in convoying them into their place, he was driven within
+the screen of the quire, and saw and heard all that passed.
+
+When they had taken their seats, Master Mill was brought before them
+from the prior's chamber, whither he had been secretly conducted early
+in the morning, to the end that his great age might not be seen of the
+people to work on their compassion. But, notwithstanding the forethought
+of this device, when he came in, his white hair and his saintly look and
+his feeble, tottering steps softened every heart. Even the very legate
+of Antichrist, the Archbishop himself, my grandfather said, was
+evidently moved, and for a season looked at the poor infirm old man as
+he would have spared him, and a murmur of universal commiseration ran
+through the church.
+
+On being taken to the bottom of the table and placed fornent the
+Archbishop, Master Mill knelt down and prayed for support in a voice so
+firm and clear and eloquent that all present were surprised, for it rung
+to the farthest corner of that great edifice, and smote the hearts of
+his oppressors as with the dread of a menacing oracle.
+
+Sir Andrew Oliphant, who acted as clerk and chancellor on the occasion,
+began to fret as he heard him thus strengthened of the Lord, and cried
+peevishly,--
+
+"Sir Walter Mill, get up and answer, for you keep my lords here too
+long."
+
+He, however, heeded not this command, but continued undisturbed till he
+had finished his devotion, when he rose and said,--
+
+"I am bound to obey God more than man, and I serve a mightier Lord than
+yours. You call me Sir Walter, but I am only Walter. Too long was I one
+of the Pope's knights; but now say what you have to say."
+
+Oliphant was somewhat cowed by this bold reply, and he bowed down, and
+turning over his papers, read a portion of one of them to himself, and
+then raising his head, said,--
+
+"What thinkest thou of priests' marriage?"
+
+The old man looked bravely towards the bishops, and answered with an
+intrepid voice,--
+
+"I esteem marriage a blessed bond, ordained by God, approved by Christ,
+and made free to all sorts of men; but you abhor it, and in the meantime
+take other men's wives and daughters; you vow chastity, and keep it
+not."
+
+My grandfather at these words looked unawares towards the Archbishop,
+thinking of what he had seen in the lodging of Mistress Kilspinnie, and
+their eyes chancing to meet, his Grace turned his head suddenly away as
+if he had been rebuked.
+
+Divers other questions were then put by Oliphant touching the
+sacraments, the idolatry of the mass, and transubstantiation, with other
+points concerning bishops and pilgrimages, and the worshipping of God in
+unconsecrated places, to all which Master Mill answered in so brave a
+manner, contrary to the papists, that even Oliphant himself often looked
+reproved and confounded. At last the choler of that sharp weapon of
+persecution began to rise, and he said to him sternly,--
+
+"If you will not recant I will pronounce sentence against you."
+
+"I know," replied Master Mill, with an apostolic constancy and
+fortitude, "I know that I must die once, and therefore, as Christ said
+to Judas, What thou doest do quickly. You shall know that I will not
+recant the truth, for I am corn and not chaff. I will neither be blown
+away by the wind nor burst with the flail, but will abide both."
+
+At these brave words a sough of admiration sounded through the church,
+but, instead of deterring the prelates from proceeding with their wicked
+purpose, it only served to harden their hearts and to rouse their anger,
+for when they had conferred a few minutes apart, Oliphant was ordered to
+condemn him to the fire, and to deliver him over to the temporal
+magistrates to see execution done.
+
+No sooner was the sentence known, than a cry like a howl of wrath rose
+from all the people, and the provost of the town, who was present with
+the bailies, hastily quitted the church and fled, abhorring the task,
+and fearful it would be put upon him to see it done, he being also
+bailie of the Archbishop's regalities.
+
+When the sentence was pronounced, the session of the court was
+adjourned, and the bishops, as they were guarded back to the castle,
+heard many a malison from the multitude who were ravenous against them.
+
+The aged martyr being led back to the prior's chamber, was, under cloud
+of night, taken to the castle; but my grandfather saw no more of him,
+nor of Master Meldrum, the seneschal; for there was a great fear among
+the bishops' men that the multitude would rise and attempt a rescue; and
+my grandfather, not being inclined to go so far with his disguise as to
+fight against that cause, took occasion, in the dusk of the evening, to
+slip out of the castle, and to hide himself in the town, being resolved,
+after what he had witnessed, no longer to abide, even as a spy, in a
+service which his soul loathed.
+
+All the night long there was a great commotion in the streets, and
+lights in many houses, and a sound of lamentation mingled with rage. The
+noise was as if some dreadful work was going on. There was no shouting,
+nor any sound of men united together, but a deep and hoarse murmur rose
+at times from the people, like the sound of the bandless waves of the
+sea when they are driven by the strong impulses of the tempest. The
+spirit of the times was indeed upon them, and it was manifest to my
+grandfather that there wanted that night but the voice of a captain to
+bid them hurl their wrath and vengeance against the towers and
+strongholds of the oppressors.
+
+At the dawn of day the garrison of the castle came forth, and, on the
+spot where the martyrdom of Mr George Wishart had been accomplished, a
+stake was driven into the ground, and faggots and barrels of tar were
+placed around it, piled up almost as high as a man; in the middle, next
+to the stake, a place was left for the sufferer.
+
+But when all things were prepared, no rope could be had--no one in all
+the town would give or sell a cord to help that sacrifice of iniquity,
+nor would any of the magistrates come forth to see the execution done,
+so it was thought for a time that the hungry cruelty of the persecutors
+would be disappointed of its banquet. One Somerville, however, who was
+officer of the Archbishop's guard, bethought himself, in this extremity,
+of the ropes wherewith his master's pavilion was fastened, and he went
+and took the same; and then his men brought forth the aged martyr, at
+the sight of whom the multitude set up a dreadful imprecation, the roar
+and growling groan of which was as if a thousand furious tigresses had
+been robbed of their young. Many of Somerville's halberdiers looked
+cowed, and their faces were aghast with terror; and some cried,
+compassionately, as they saw the blessed old man brought, with his hands
+tied behind him, to the stake, "Recant, recant!"
+
+The monks and friars of the different monasteries, who were all there
+assembled around, took up the word, and bitterly taunting him, cried
+likewise, "Recant, recant and save thyself!" He, however, replied to
+them with an awful austerity,--
+
+"I marvel at your rage, ye hypocrites, who do so cruelly pursue the
+servants of God. As for me, I am now fourscore and two years old, and by
+course of nature cannot live long; but hundreds shall rise out of my
+ashes who shall scatter you, ye persecutors of God's people."
+
+Sir Andrew Oliphant, who was that day the busiest high priest of the
+horrible sacrifice, at these words pushed him forward into the midst of
+the faggots and fuel around the stake. But, nothing moved by this
+remorseless indignity, the martyr looked for a moment at the pile with a
+countenance full of cheerful resignation, and then requested permission
+to say a few words to the people.
+
+"You have spoken too much," cried Oliphant, "and the bishops are
+exceedingly displeased with what you have said."
+
+But the multitude exclaimed, "Let him be heard! let him speak what he
+pleases! Speak, and heed not Oliphant." At which he looked towards them
+and said,--
+
+"Dear friends, the cause why I suffer this day is not for any crime laid
+to my charge, though I acknowledge myself a miserable sinner, but only
+for the defence of the truths of Jesus Christ, as set forth in the Old
+and New Testaments."
+
+He then began to pray, and while his eyes were shut, two of Somerville's
+men threw a cord with a running loop round his body, and bound him to
+the stake. The fire was then kindled, and at the sight of the smoke the
+multitude uttered a shriek of anguish, and many ran away, unable to bear
+any longer the sight of that woful tragedy. Among others, my grandfather
+also ran, nor halted till he was come to a place under the rocks on the
+south side of the town, where he could see nothing before him but the
+lonely desert of the calm and soundless ocean.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Many a time did my grandfather, in his old age, when all things he spoke
+were but remembrances, try to tell what passed in his bosom while he was
+sitting alone, under those cliffy rocks, gazing on the silent and
+innocent sea, thinking of that dreadful work, more hideous than the
+horrors of winds and waves, with which blinded men, in the lusts of
+their idolatry, were then blackening the ethereal face of heaven; but he
+was ever unable to proceed for the struggles of his spirit and the
+gushing of his tears. Verily it was an awful thing to see that
+patriarchal man overcome by the recollections of his youth; and the
+manner in which he spoke of the papistical cruelties was as the pouring
+of the energy of a new life into the very soul, instigating thoughts and
+resolutions of an implacable enmity against those ruthless adversaries
+to the hopes and redemption of the world, insomuch that, while yet a
+child, I was often worked upon by what he said, and felt my young heart
+so kindled with the live coals of his godly enthusiasm, that he himself
+has stopped in the eloquence of his discourse, wondering at my fervour.
+Then he would lay his hand upon my head, and say, the Lord had not
+gifted me with such zeal without having a task in store for my riper
+years. His words of prophecy, as shall hereafter appear, have greatly
+and wonderfully come to pass. But it is meet that for a season I should
+rehearse what ensued to him, for his story is full of solemnities and
+strange accidents.
+
+Having rested some time on the sea-shore, he rose and walked along the
+toilsome shingle, scarcely noting which way he went--his thoughts being
+busy with the martyrdom he had witnessed, flushing one moment with a
+glorious indignation, and fainting the next with despondent reflections
+on his own friendless state. For he looked upon himself as adrift on the
+tides of the world, believing that his patron, the Earl of Glencairn,
+would to a surety condemn his lack of fortitude in not enduring the
+servitude of the Archbishop, after having been in so miraculous a manner
+accepted into it, even as if Providence had made him a special
+instrument to achieve the discoveries which the Lords of the
+Congregation had then so much at heart. And while he was walking along
+in this fluctuating mood, he came suddenly upon a man who was sitting,
+as he had so shortly before been himself, sad and solitary, gazing on
+the sea. The stranger, on hearing him approach, rose hastily, and was
+moving quickly away; but my grandfather called to him to stop and not to
+be afraid, for he would harm no one.
+
+"I thought," said the melancholy man, "that all his Grace's retainers
+were at the execution of the heretic."
+
+There was something in the way in which he uttered the latter clause of
+the sentence that seemed to my grandfather as if he would have made use
+of better and fitter words, and therefore, to encourage him into
+confidence, he replied,--
+
+"I belong not to his Grace."
+
+"How is it, then, that you wear his livery, and that I saw you, with Sir
+David Hamilton, enter the garden of that misguided woman?"
+
+He could proceed no farther, for his heart swelled, and his utterance
+was for a while stifled, he being no other than the misfortunate Bailie
+of Crail, whose light wife had sunk into the depravity of the
+Archbishop's lemane. She had been beguiled away from him and her five
+babies, their children, by the temptations of a Dominican, who, by habit
+and repute, was pandarus to his Grace, and the poor man had come to try
+if it was possible to wile her back.
+
+My grandfather was melted with sorrow to see his great affection for the
+unworthy concubine, calling to mind the scene of her harlotry and wanton
+glances, and he reasoned with him on the great folly of vexing his
+spirit for a woman so far lost to all shame and given over to iniquity.
+But still the good man of Crail would not be persuaded, but used many
+earnest entreaties that my grandfather would assist him to see his wife,
+in order that he might remonstrate with her on the eternal perils in
+which she had placed her precious soul.
+
+My grandfather, though much moved by the importunity of that weak,
+honest man, nevertheless withstood his entreaties, telling him that he
+was minded to depart forthwith from St Andrews, and make the best of his
+way back to Edinburgh, and so could embark in no undertaking whatever.
+
+Discoursing on that subject in this manner, they strayed into the
+fields, and being wrapt up in their conversation, they heeded not which
+way they went, till, turning suddenly round the corner of an orchard,
+they saw the castle full before them, about half a mile off, and a dim
+white vapour mounting at times from the spot, still surrounded by many
+spectators, where the fires of martyrdom had burnt so fiercely.
+Shuddering and filled with dread, my grandfather turned away, and seeing
+several countrymen passing, he inquired if all was over.
+
+"Yes," said they, "and the soldiers are slockening the ashes; but a' the
+waters of the ocean-sea will never quench in Scotland the flame that was
+kindled yonder this day."
+
+The which words they said with a proud look, thinking my grandfather, by
+his arms and gabardine, belonged to the Archbishop's household; but the
+words were as manna to his religious soul, and he gave inward praise and
+thanks that the selfsame tragical means which had been devised to
+terrify the reformers was thus, through the mysterious wisdom of
+Providence, made more emboldening than courageous wine to fortify their
+hearts for the great work that was before them.
+
+Nothing, however, farther passed; but, changing the course of their
+walk, my grandfather and the sorrowful Master Kilspinnie--for so the
+poor man of Crail was called--went back, and, entering the bow at the
+Shoegate, passed on towards a vintner's that dwelt opposite to the
+convent of the Blackfriars; for the day was by this time far advanced,
+and they both felt themselves in need of some refreshment.
+
+While they were sitting together in the vintner's apartment, a stripling
+came several times into the room, and looked hard at my grandfather, and
+then went away without speaking. This was divers times repeated, and at
+last it was so remarkable that even Master Kilspinnie took notice of
+him, observing, that he seemed as if he had something very particular to
+communicate, if an opportunity served, offering at the same time to
+withdraw, to leave the room clear for the youth to tell his errand.
+
+My grandfather's curiosity was, by this strange and new adventure to
+him, so awakened, that he thought what his companion proposed a discreet
+thing; so the honest Bailie of Crail withdrew himself, and, going into
+the street, left my grandfather alone.
+
+No sooner was he gone out of the house than the stripling, who had been
+sorning about the door, again came in, and, coming close up to my
+grandfather's ear, said, with a significance not to be misconstrued,
+that if he would follow him he would take him to free quarters, where he
+would be more kindly entertained.
+
+My grandfather, though naturally of a quiet temperament, was
+nevertheless a bold and brave youth, and there was something in the
+mystery of this message--for such he rightly deemed it--that made him
+fain to see the end thereof. So he called in the vintner's wife and paid
+her the lawin', telling her to say to the friend who had been with him,
+when he came back, that he would soon return.
+
+The vintner's wife was a buxom and jolly dame, and before taking up the
+money, she gave a pawkie look at the stripling, and as my grandfather
+and he were going out at the door, she hit the gilly a bilf on the back,
+saying it was a ne'er-do-weel trade he had ta'en up, and that he wasna
+blate to wile awa' her customers, crying after him, "I redde ye warn
+your madam that gin she sends you here again, I'll maybe let his Grace
+ken that her cauldron needs clouting." However, the graceless gilly but
+laughed at the vintner's wife, winking as he patted the side of his nose
+with his fore-finger, which testified that he held her vows of vengeance
+in very little reverence; and then he went on, my grandfather following.
+
+They walked up the street till they came to the priory yett, when,
+turning down a wynd to the left, he led my grandfather along between two
+dykes, till they were come to a house that stood by itself within a fair
+garden. But instead of going to the door in an honest manner, he bade
+him stop, and going forward he whistled shrilly, and then flung three
+stones against a butt, that was standing at the corner of the house on a
+gauntrees to kep rain water from the spouting image of a stone puddock
+that vomited what was gathered from the roof in the rones, and soon
+after an upper casement was opened, and a damsel looked forth; she
+however said nothing to the stripling, but she made certain signs which
+he understood, and then she drew in her head, shutting the casement
+softly, and he came back to my grandfather, to whom he said it was not
+commodious at that time for him to be received into the house, but if he
+would come back in the dark, at eight o'clock, all things would be ready
+for his reception.
+
+To this suggestion my grandfather made no scruple to assent, but
+promised to be there; and he bargained with the lad to come for him,
+giving him at the same time three placks for a largess. He then returned
+to the vintner's, where he found the Crail man sitting waiting for him;
+and the vintner's wife, when she saw him so soon back, jeered him, and
+would fain have been jocose, which he often after thought a woful
+immorality, considering the dreadful martyrdom of a godly man that had
+been done that day in the town; but at the time he was not so over
+strait-laced as to take offence at what she said; indeed, as he used to
+say, sins were not so heinous in those papistical days as they
+afterwards became, when men lost faith in penance, and found out the
+perils of purchased pardons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+My grandfather having, as I have told, a compassion for the silly
+affection wherewith the honest man of Crail still regarded his wanton
+wife, told him the circumstantials of his adventure with the stripling;
+without, however, letting wot he had discovered that the invitation was
+from her; the which was the case, for the damsel who looked out at the
+window was no other than the giglet he had seen in her lodging when he
+went thither with Sir David Hamilton, and he proposed to the
+disconsolate husband that he should be his friend in the adventure;
+meaning thereby to convince the unhappy man, by the evidence of his own
+eyes and ears, that her concubinage with the Antichrist was a blessed
+riddance to him and his family.
+
+At first Master Kilspinnie had no zest for any such frolic, for so it
+seemed to him, and he began to think my grandfather's horror at the
+martyrdom of the aged saint but a long-fac't hypocrisy; nevertheless he
+was wrought upon to consent; and they sat plotting and contriving in
+what manner they should act their several parts, my grandfather
+pretending great fear and apprehension at the thoughts of himself, a
+stranger, going alone into the traps of a house where there were sic
+forerunners of shame and signs of danger. At last he proposed that they
+should go together and spy about the precincts of the place, and try to
+discover if there was no other entrance or outgate to the house than the
+way by which the stripling conducted him, though well he remembered the
+sallyport, where the fat friar kept watch, eating the pasty.
+
+Accordingly they went forth from the vintner's, and my grandfather, as
+if he knew not the way, led his companion round between the priory and
+the sea, till they came near the aforesaid sallyport, when, mounting
+upon a stone, he affected to discover that the house of the madam stood
+in the garden within, and that the sallyport could be no less than a
+back yett thereto.
+
+While they were speaking concerning the same, my grandfather observed
+the wicket open in the gate, and guessing therefrom that it was one
+spying to forewarn somebody within who wanted to come out unremarked, he
+made a sign to his companion, and they both threw themselves flat on the
+ground, and hirsled down the rocks to conceal themselves. Presently the
+gate was opened, and then out came the fat friar, and looked east and
+west, holding the door in his hand; and anon out came his Grace the
+Antichrist, hirpling with a staff in his hand, for he was lame with that
+monkish malady called the gout. The friar then drew the yett to, and
+walked on towards the castle, with his Grace leaning on his arm. In the
+meantime the poor man of Crail was grinding the teeth of his rage at the
+sight of the cause of his sorrow, and my grandfather had a sore struggle
+to keep him down, and prevent him from running wud and furious at the
+two sacerdotal reprobates, for no lightlier could they be called.
+
+Thus, without any disclosure on my grandfather's part, did Master
+Kilspinnie come to jealouse that the lemane who had trysted him was no
+other than his own faithless wife, and he smote his forehead and wept
+bitterly, to think how she was become so dreadless in sin. But he vowed
+to put her to shame; so it was covenanted between them, that in the
+dusk of the evening the afflicted husband should post himself near to
+where they then stood, and that when my grandfather was admitted by the
+other entrance to the house, he should devise some reason for walking
+forth into the garden, and while there admit Master Kilspinnie.
+
+Accordingly, betimes my grandfather was ready, and the stripling, as had
+been bargained, came for him to the vintner's, and conducted him to the
+house, where, after giving the signals before enumerated, the damsel
+came to the door and gave him admittance, leading him straight to the
+inner chamber before described, where her mistress was sitting in a
+languishing posture, with the table spread for a banquet.
+
+She embraced my grandfather with many fond protestations, and filled him
+a cup of hot malvesie, while her handmaid brought in divers savoury
+dishes; but he, though a valiant young man, was not at his ease, and he
+thought of the poor husband and the five babies that the adultress had
+left for the foul love of the papist high-priest, and it was a chaste
+spell and a restraining grace. Still he partook a little of the rich
+repast which had been prepared, and feigned so long a false pleasance,
+that he almost became pleased in reality. The dame, however, was herself
+at times fearful, and seemed to listen if there was any knocking at the
+door, telling my grandfather that his Grace was to be back after he had
+supped at the castle. "I thought," said she, "to have had you here when
+he was at the burning of the heretic, but my gilly could not find you
+among the troopers till it was owre late; for when he brought you my
+Lord had come to solace himself after the execution. But I was so
+nettled to be so baulked, that I acted myself into an anger till I got
+him away, not, however, without a threat of being troubled with him
+again at night."
+
+Scarcely had madam said this, when my grandfather started up and feigned
+to be in great terror, begging her to let him hide himself in the garden
+till his Grace was come and gone. To this, with all her blandishments,
+the guilty woman made many obstacles, but he was fortified of the Lord
+with the thoughts of her injured children, and would not be entreated,
+but insisted on scogging himself in the garden till the Archbishop was
+sent away, the hour of his coming being then near at hand. Seeing him
+thus peremptory, Madam Kilspinnie was obligated to conform; so he was
+permitted to go into the garden, and no sooner was he there than he went
+to the sallyport and admitted her husband; and well it was that he had
+been so steadfast in his purpose, for scarcely were they moved from the
+yett into a honeysuckle bower hard by when they heard it again open, and
+in came his Grace with his corpulent pandarus, who took his seat on the
+bench before spoken of, to watch, while his master went into the house.
+
+The good Bailie of Crail breathed thickly, and he took my grandfather by
+the hand, his whole frame trembling with a passion of grief and rage. In
+the lapse of some four or five minutes, the giglet damsel came out of
+the house, and by the glimpse of a light from a window as she passed
+they saw she had a tankard of smoking drink in her hand, with which she
+went to the friar; and my grandfather and his companion, taking
+advantage of this, slipped out of their hiding-place and stole softly
+into the house and reached the outer chamber that was parted from
+madam's banquet bower by the arras partition. There they stopped to
+listen, and heard her complaining in a most dolorous manner of great
+heart-sickness, ever and anon begging the deluded prelate Hamilton to
+taste the feast she had prepared for him, in the hope of being able to
+share it with him and the caresses of his sweet love, to which his Grace
+as often replied, with great condolence and sympathy, how very grieved
+he was to find her in that sad and sore estate, with many other fond
+cajoleries, most odious to my grandfather to hear from a man so far
+advanced in years, and who, by reason of the reverence of his office,
+ought to have had his tongue schooled to terms of piety and temperance.
+
+The poor husband meanwhile said nothing, but my grandfather heard his
+heart panting audibly, and three or four times he was obligated to brush
+away his hand, for, having no arms himself, the bailie clutched at the
+hilt of his sword and would have drawn it from the scabbard.
+
+The Antichrist, seeing his lemane in such great malady as she so well
+feigned, he at last, to her very earnest supplication, consented to
+leave her that night, and kissed her as he came away; but her husband
+broke in upon them with the rage of a hungry lion, and seizing his
+Grace by the cuff of the neck, swung him away from her with such
+vehemence that he fell into the corner of the room like a sack of duds.
+As for madam, she uttered a wild cry, and threw herself back on the
+couch where she was sitting and seemed as if she had swooned, having no
+other device so ready to avoid the upbraidings and just reproaches of
+her spouse. But she was soon roused from that fraudulent dwam by my
+grandfather, who, seizing a flagon of wine, dashed it upon her face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Mrs Kilspinnie uttered a frightful screech, and, starting up, attempted
+to run out of the room, but her husband caught her by the arm, and my
+grandfather was empowered, by a signal grant of great presence of mind
+to think that the noise might cause alarm, whereupon he sprang instanter
+to the door that led into the garden just as the damsel was coming up,
+and the fat friar hobbling as fast as he could behind her; and he had
+but time to say to her, as it was with an inspiration, to keep all quiet
+in the garden and he would make his escape by the other door. She, on
+hearing this, ran back to stop the pandarus, and my grandfather closed
+and bolted fast that back door, going forthwith to the one by which he
+had been himself admitted, and which, having opened wide to the wall, he
+returned to the scene of commotion.
+
+In the meantime the prelatic dragon that was so ravished from the woman
+had hastily risen upon his legs, and, red with a dreadful wrath, raged
+as if he would have devoured her husband. In sooth, to do his Grace
+justice, he lacked not the spirit of a courageous gentleman, and he
+could not, my grandfather often said, have borne himself more proudly
+and valiantly had he been a belted knight, bred in camps and fields of
+war, so that a discreet retreat and evasion of the house was the best
+course they could take. But Master Kilspinnie fain would have continued
+his biting taunts to the mistress, who was enacting a most tragical
+extravagance of affliction and terror. My grandfather, however, suddenly
+cut him short, crying, "Come, come, no more of this; an alarm is given,
+and we must save ourselves." With that he seized him firmly by the arm,
+and in a manner harled him out of the house and into the lane between
+the dykes, along which they ran with nimble heels. On reaching the
+Showgate they slackened their speed, still, however, walking as fast as
+they could till they came near the port, when they again drew in the
+bridle of their haste, going through among the guards that were
+loitering around the door of the wardroom, and passed out into the
+fields as if they had been indifferent persons.
+
+On escaping the gate they fell in with divers persons going along the
+road, who, by their discourse, were returning home to Cupar, and they
+walked leisurely with them till they came to a cross-road, where my
+grandfather, giving Master Kilspinnie a nodge, turned down the one that
+went to the left, followed by him, and it happened to be the road to
+Dysart and Crail.
+
+"This will ne'er do," said Master Kilspinnie, "they will pursue us this
+gait."
+
+Upon hearing this reasonable apprehension, my grandfather stopped and
+conferred with himself, and received on that spot a blessed experience
+and foretaste of the protection wherewith, to a great age, he was all
+his days protected. For it was in a manner revealed to him that he
+should throw away the garbardine and sword which he had received in the
+castle, and thereby appear in his simple craftsman's garb, and that they
+should turn back and cross the Cupar road, and go along the other, which
+led to the Dundee waterside ferry. This he told to his fearful
+companion, and likewise, that as often as they fell in with or heard
+anybody coming up, the bailie should hasten on before or den himself
+among the brechans by the roadside, to the end that it might appear they
+were not two persons in company together.
+
+But they had not long crossed the Cupar road and travelled the one
+leading to the ferry when they heard the whirlwind sound of horsemen
+coming after them, at which the honest man of Crail darted aside and lay
+flat on his grouff ayont a bramble bush, while my grandfather began to
+lilt as blithely as he could, "The Bonny Lass of Livingston," and the
+spring was ever after to him as a hymn of thanksgiving, but the words he
+then sang was an auld, ranting, godless and graceless ditty of the
+grooms and serving-men that sorned about his father's smiddy, and the
+closer that the horsemen came he was strengthened to sing the louder and
+the clearer.
+
+"Saw ye twa fellows ganging this gait?" cried the foremost of the
+pursuers, pulling up.
+
+"What like were they?" said my grandfather, in a simple manner.
+
+"Ane of them was o' his Grace's guard," replied the man, "but the other,
+curse tak me gin I ken what he was like, but he's the bailie or provost
+of a burrough's town, and should by rights hae a big belly."
+
+To this my grandfather answered briskly, "Nae sic twa ha'e past me, but
+as I was coming along whistling, thinking o' naething, twa sturdy loons,
+ane o' them no unlike the hempies o' the castle, ran skirring along, and
+I hae a thought that they took the road to Crail or Dysart."
+
+"That was my thought, too," cried the horseman, as he turned his beast,
+and the rest that were with him doing the same, bidding my grandfather
+good-night, away they scampered back; by which a blessed deliverance was
+there wrought to him and his companion on that spot, in that night.
+
+As soon as the horsemen had gone by, Bailie Kilspinnie came from his
+hiding-place, and both he and my grandfather proved that no bird-lime
+was on their feet till they got to the ferry-house at the waterside,
+where they found two boats taking passengers on board, one for Dundee
+and the other for Perth. Here my grandfather's great gift of
+foreknowledge was again proven, for he proposed that they should bargain
+with the skipper of the Dundee boat to take them to that town and pay
+him like the other passengers, at once, in an open manner, but that, as
+the night was cloudy and dark, they should go cannily aboard the boat
+for Perth, as it were in mistake, and feign not to discover their error
+till they were far up the river when they should proceed to the town,
+letting wot that by the return of the tide they would go in the morning
+by the Perth boat to Dundee, with which Master Kilspinnie was well
+acquainted, he having had many times, in the way of his traffic as a
+plaiding merchant, cause to use the same, and thereby knew it went twice
+a week, and that the morrow was one of the days. All this they were
+enabled to do with such fortitude and decorum that no one aboard the
+Perth boat could have divined that they were not honest men in great
+trouble of mind at discovering they had come into the wrong boat.
+
+But nothing showed more that Providence had a hand in all this than what
+ensued, for all the passengers in the boat had been at St Andrews to
+hear the trial and see the martyrdom, and they were sharp and vehement
+not only in their condemnation of the mitred Antichrist, but grieved
+with a sincere sorrow that none of the nobles of Scotland would stand
+forth in their ancient bravery to resist and overthrow a race of
+oppressors more grievous than the Southrons that trode on the neck of
+their fathers in the hero-stirring times of the Wallace wight and King
+Robert the Bruce. Truly, there was a spirit of unison and indignation in
+the company on board that boat, everyone thirsting with a holy ardour to
+avenge the cruelties of which the papistical priesthood were daily
+growing more and more crouse in the perpetration, and they made the
+shores ring with the olden song of--
+
+   "O for my ain king, quo' gude Wallace,
+     The rightfu' king of fair Scotlan';
+   Between me and my sovereign dear
+     I think I see some ill seed sawn."
+
+It was the grey of the morning before they reached Perth, and as soon as
+they were put on the land the bailie took my grandfather with him to the
+house of one Sawners Ruthven, a blanket-weaver with whom he had
+dealings, a staid and discreet man, who, when he had supplied them with
+breakfast, exhorted them not to tarry in the town, then a place that had
+fallen under the suspicion of the clergy, the lordly monks of Scoone
+taking great power and authority, in despite of the magistrates, against
+all that fell under their evil thoughts anent heresy. And he counselled
+them not to proceed, as my grandfather had proposed, straight on to
+Edinburgh by the Queensferry, but to hasten up the country to Crieff and
+thence take the road to Stirling. In this there was much prudence, but
+Bailie Kilspinnie was in sore tribulation on account of his children,
+whom he had left at his home in Crail, fearing that the talons of
+Antichrist would lay hold of them and keep them as hostages till he was
+given up to suffer for what he had done, none doubting that Baal, for so
+he nicknamed the prelatic Hamilton, would impute to him the
+unpardonable sin of heresy and schism, and leave no stone unturned to
+bring him to the stake.
+
+But Sawners Ruthven comforted him with the assurance that his Grace
+would not venture to act in that manner, for it was known how Mistress
+Kilspinnie then lived at St Andrews as his concubine. Nevertheless, the
+poor man was in sore affliction, and as he and my grandfather travelled
+towards Crieff, many a bitter prayer did his vexed spirit pour forth in
+its grief that the right arm of the Lord might soon be manifested
+against the Roman locust that consumed the land and made its corruption
+naught in the nostrils of Heaven.
+
+Thus was it manifest that there was much of the ire of a selfish revenge
+mixt up with the rage which was at that time kindled in so unquenchable
+a manner against the Beast and its worshippers, for in the history of
+the honest man of Crail there was a great similitude to other foul and
+worse things which the Roman idolaters seemed to regard among their
+pestiferous immunities, and counted themselves free to do without dread
+of any earthly retribution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+My grandfather and his companion hastened on in their journey, but
+instead of going to Stirling they crossed the river at Alloa, and so
+passed by the water-side way to Edinburgh, where, on entering the
+West-port, they separated. The bailie, who was a fearful man and in
+constant dread and terror of being burned as a heretic for having broke
+in upon the dalliance of his incontinent wife and the carnal-minded
+primate of St Andrews, went to a cousin of his own, a dealer in serge
+and temming in the Lawnmarket, with whom he concealed himself for some
+weeks, but my grandfather proceeded straight towards the lodging of the
+Earl of Glencairn to recount to his lordship the whole passages of what
+he had been concerned in, from the night that he departed from his
+presence.
+
+It was by this time the mirkest of the gloaming, for they had purposely
+tarried on their journey that they might enter Edinburgh at dusk. The
+shops of the traders were shut, for in those days there was such a
+resort of sorners and lawless men among the trains of the nobles and
+gentry that it was not safe for honest merchants to keep their shops
+open after nightfall. Nevertheless the streets were not darkened, for
+there were then many begging-boxes, with images of the saints, and
+cruisies burning afore them, in divers parts of the High Street and
+corners of the wynds, insomuch that it was easy, as I have heard my
+grandfather tell, to see and know anyone passing in the light thereof.
+And, indeed, what befel himself was proof of it, for as he was coming
+through St Giles' Kirkyard, which is now the Parliament Close, and
+through which at that time there was a style and path for passengers, a
+young man, whom he had observed following him, came close up just as he
+reached a begging image of the Virgin Mary with its lamp that stood on a
+pillar at the south-east corner of the cathedral, and touching him on
+the left shoulder at that spot made him look round in such a manner that
+the light of the Virgin's lamp fell full on his face.
+
+"Dinna be frighted," said the stranger, "I ken you, and I'm in Lord
+Glencairn's service; but follow me and say nothing."
+
+My grandfather was not a little startled by this salutation; he,
+however, made no observe, but replied, "Go on, then."
+
+So the stranger went forward, and, after various turnings and windings,
+led him down into the Cowgate and up a close on the south side thereof,
+and then to a dark timber stair that was so frail and creaking and
+narrow that his guide bade him haul himself up with the help of a rope
+that hung down dangling for that purpose.
+
+When they had raised themselves to the stairhead, the stranger opened a
+door and they went together into a small and lonesome chamber, in the
+chimla-nook of which an old iron cruisie was burning with a winking and
+wizard light.
+
+"I hae brought you here," said his conductor, "for secrecy, for my Lord
+disna want that ye should be seen about his lodging. I'm ane of three
+that hae been lang seeking you, and, as a token that ye're no deceived,
+I was bade to tell you that before parting from my lord he gi'ed you two
+pieces of gold out of his coffer in the chamber where he supped."
+
+My grandfather thought this very like a proof that he had been so
+informed by the Earl himself, but happening to remark that he sat with
+his back to the light and kept his face hidden in the shadow of the
+darkness, Providence put it into his head to jealouse that he might
+nevertheless be a spy, one perhaps that had been trusted in like manner
+as he had himself been trusted, and who had afterwards sold himself to
+the perdition of the adversaries' cause; he was, accordingly, on his
+guard, but replied with seeming frankness that it was very true he had
+received two pieces of gold from the Earl at his departure.
+
+"Then," said the young man, "by that token ye may know that I am in the
+private service of the Earl, who, for reasons best known to himsel',
+hath willed that you should tell me, that I may report the same secretly
+to him, what espionage you have made."
+
+My grandfather was perplexed by this speech, but distrust having crept
+into his thoughts, instead of replying with a full recital of all his
+adventures, he briefly said that he had indeed effected nothing, for his
+soul was sickened by the woful martyrdom of the godly Master Mill to so
+great a disease that he could not endure to abide in St Andrews, and
+therefore he had come back.
+
+"But you have been long on the way--how is that?--it is now many days
+since the burning," replied the stranger.
+
+"You say truly," was my grandfather's answer, "for I came round by
+Perth, but I tarried at no place longer than was needful to repair and
+refresh nature."
+
+"Perth was a wide bout gait to take frae St Andrews to come to
+Edinburgh. I marvel how ye went so far astray," said the young man,
+curiously.
+
+"In sooth it was, but being sorely demented with the tragical end of the
+godly old man," replied my grandfather, "and seeing that I could do the
+Earl no manner of service, I wist not well what course to take, so after
+meickle tribulation of thought and great uncertainty of purpose I e'en
+resolved to come hither."
+
+Little more passed; the young man rose and said to my grandfather he
+feared the Earl would be so little content with him that he had better
+not go near him but seek some other master. And when they had descended
+the stair and were come into the street he advised him to go to the
+house of a certain Widow Rippet, that let dry lodgings in the
+Grass-market, and roost there for that night. The which my grandfather
+in a manner signified he would do, and so they parted.
+
+The stranger at first walked soberly away, but he had not gone many
+paces when he suddenly turned into a close leading up to the
+High-street, and my grandfather heard the pattering of his feet running
+as swiftly as possible, which confirmed to him what he suspected; and
+so, instead of going towards the Widow Rippet's house he turned back and
+went straight on to St Mary's Wynd, where the Earl's lodging was, and
+knocking at the yett was speedily admitted and conducted instanter to my
+Lord's presence, whom he found alone reading many papers which lay on a
+table before him.
+
+"Gilhaize," said the Earl, "how is this? why have you come back? and
+wherefore is it that I have heard no tidings from you?"
+
+Whereupon my grandfather recounted to him all the circumstantials which
+I have rehearsed, from the hour of his departure from Edinburgh up till
+the very time when he then stood in his master's presence. The Earl made
+no inroad on his narrative while he was telling it, but his countenance
+often changed and he was much moved at different passages--sometimes
+with sorrow and sometimes with anger; and he laughed vehemently at the
+mishap which had befallen the grand adversary of the Congregation and
+his concubine. The adventure, however, with the unknown varlet in the
+street appeared to make his Lordship very thoughtful, and no less than
+thrice did he question my grandfather if he had indeed given but those
+barren answers which I have already recited; to all which he received
+the most solemn asseverations that no more was said. His Lordship then
+sat some time cogitating with his hands resting on his thighs, his brows
+bent, and his lips pursed as with sharp thought. At last he said,--
+
+"Gilhaize, you have done better in this than I ought to have expected of
+one so young and unpractised. The favour you won with Sir David Hamilton
+was no more than I thought your looks and manners would beget. But you
+are not only well-favoured but well-fortuned; and had you not found
+yourself worthily bound to your duty I doubt not you might have
+prospered in the Archbishop's household. The affair with Madam
+Kilspinnie was a thing I reckoned not of, yet therein you have proved
+yourself not only a very Joseph, but so ripe in wit beyond your years
+that your merits deserve more commendation than I can afford to give,
+for I have not sufficient to bestow on the singular prudence and
+discernment wherewith you have parried the treacherous thrusts of that
+Judas Iscariot, Winterton, for so I doubt not is the traitor who waylaid
+you. He was once in my service and is now in the Queen Regent's. In
+sending off my men on errands similar to yours, I was wont to give them
+two pieces of gold, and this the false loon has gathered to be a custom
+from others as well as by his own knowledge, and he has made it the key
+to open the breasts of my servants. To know this, however, is a great
+discovery. But, Gilhaize, not to waste words, you have your master's
+confidence. Go, therefore, I pray you, with all speed to the Widow
+Rippet's and do as Winterton bade you and as chance may require. In the
+morning come again hither, for I have this night many weighty affairs,
+and you have shown yourself possessed of a discerning spirit, that may,
+in these times of peril and perjury, help the great cause of all good
+Scotchmen."
+
+In saying these most acceptable words, he clapped my grandfather on the
+shoulder, and encouraged him to be as true-hearted as he was
+sharp-witted, and he could not fail to earn both treasure and trusts. So
+my grand-father left him, and went to the Widow Rippet's in the
+Grass-market; and around her kitchen fire he found some four or five
+discarded knaves that were bargaining with her for beds, or for leave to
+sleep by the hearth; and he had not been long seated among them when his
+heart was grieved with pain to see Winterton come in, and behind him the
+two simple lads of Lithgow that had left their homes with him, whom, it
+appeared, the varlet had seduced from the Earl of Glencairn's service
+and inveigled into the Earl of Seaton's, a rampant papist, by the same
+wiles wherewith he thought he had likewise made a conquest of my
+grandfather, whom they had all come together to see; for the two Lithgow
+lads, like reynard the fox when he had lost his tail, were eager that he
+too should make himself like them. He feigned, however, great weariness,
+and indeed his heart was heavy to see such skill of wickedness in so
+young a man as he saw in Winterton. So, after partaking with them of
+some spiced ale which Winterton brought from the Salutation tavern,
+opposite the gallow's-stone, he declared himself overcome with sleep,
+and perforce thereof obligated to go to bed. But when they were gone,
+and he had retired to his sorry couch, no sleep came to his eyelids, but
+only hot and salt tears; for he thought that he had been in a measure
+concerned in bringing away the two thoughtless lads from their homes,
+and he saw that they were not tempered to resist the temptations of the
+world, but would soon fall away from their religious integrity, and
+become lewd and godless roisters, like the wuddy worthies that paid
+half-price for leave to sleep on the widow's hearth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+At the first blink of the grey eye of the morning my grandfather rose,
+and, quitting the house of the Widow Rippet, went straight to the Earl's
+lodgings, and was admitted. The porter at the door told him that their
+master, having been up all night, had but just retired to bed; but while
+they were speaking, the Earl's page, who slept in the ante-chamber,
+called from the stairhead to inquire who it was that had come so early,
+and being informed thereof, he went into his master, and afterwards came
+again and desired my grandfather to walk up, and conducted him to his
+Lordship, whom he found on his couch, but not undressed, and who said to
+him on his entering, when the page had retired,--
+
+"I am glad, Gilhaize, that you have come thus early, for I want a trusty
+man to go forthwith into the west country. What I wish you to do cannot
+be written, but you will take this ring;" and he took one from the
+little finger of his right hand, on the gem of which his cipher was
+graven, and gave it to my grandfather. "On showing it to Lord Boyd, whom
+you will find at the Dean Castle, near Kilmarnock, he will thereby know
+that you are specially trusted of me. The message whereof you are the
+bearer is to this effect,--That the Lords of the Congregation have, by
+their friends in many places, received strong exhortations to step
+forward and oppose the headlong fury of the churchmen; and that they
+have in consequence deemed it necessary to lose no time in ascertaining
+what the strength of the Reformed may be, and to procure declarations
+for mutual defence from all who are joined in professing the true
+religion of Christ. Should he see meet to employ you in this matter, you
+will obey his orders and instructions, whatsoever they may be."
+
+The Earl then put his hand aneath his pillow and drew out a small
+leathern purse, which he gave to my grandfather, who, in the doing of
+this, observed that he had several other similar purses ready under his
+head. In taking it, my grandfather was proceeding to tell him what he
+had observed at the Widow Rippet's, but his Lordship interrupted him,
+saying,--
+
+"Such things are of no issue now, and your present duty is in a higher
+road; therefore make haste, and God be with you."
+
+With these words, his Lordship turned himself on his couch, and composed
+himself to sleep, which my grandfather, after looking on for about a
+minute or so, observing, came away; and having borrowed a frock and a
+trot-cozey for the journey from one of the grooms of the hall, he went
+straight to Kenneth Shelty's, a noted horse-setter in those days, who
+lived at the West-port, and bargained with him for the hire of a beast
+to Glasgow, though Glasgow was not then the nearest road to Kilmarnock;
+but he thought it prudent to go that way, in case any of the papistical
+emissaries should track his course.
+
+There was, however, a little oversight in this, which did not come to
+mind till he was some miles on the road, and that was the obligation it
+put him under of passing through Lithgow, where he was so well known,
+and where all his kith and kin lived--there being then no immediate
+route from Edinburgh to Glasgow but by Lithgow. And he debated with
+himself for a space of time whether he ought to proceed, or turn back
+and go the other way, and his mind was sorely troubled with doubts and
+difficulties. At last he considered that it was never deemed wise or
+fortunate to turn back in any undertaking, and besides, having for the
+service of the Saviour left his father's house and renounced his
+parents, like a bird that taketh wing and knoweth the nest where it was
+bred no more, he knit up his ravelled thoughts into resolution, and
+clapping spurs to his horse, rode bravely on.
+
+But when he beheld the towers of the palace, and the steeples of his
+native town, rising before him, many remembrances came rushing to his
+heart, and all the vexations he had suffered there were lost in the
+sunny recollections of the morning of life, when everyone was kind, and
+the eyes of his parents looked on him with the brightness of delight, in
+so much, that his soul yearned within him, and his cheeks were wetted
+with fast-flowing tears. Nevertheless, he overcame this thaw of his
+fortitude, and went forward in the strength of the Lord, determined to
+swerve not in his duty to the Earl of Glencairn, nor in his holier
+fealty to a far greater Master. But the softness that he felt in his
+nature made him gird himself with a firm purpose to ride through the
+town without stopping. Scarcely, however, had he entered the port, when
+his horse stumbled and lost a shoe, by which he was not only constrained
+to stop, but to take him to his father's smiddy, which was in sight when
+the mischance happened.
+
+On going to the door, he found, as was commonly the case, a number of
+grooms and flunkies of the courtiers, with certain friars, holding
+vehement discourse concerning the tidings of the time, the burden of
+which was the burning of the aged Master Mill, a thing that even the
+monks durst not, for humanity, venture very strenuously to defend. His
+father was not then within; but one of the prentice lads, seeing who it
+was that had come with a horse to be shod, ran to tell him; and at the
+sight of my grandfather, the friars suspended their controversies with
+the serving-men, and gathered round him with many questions. He replied,
+however, to them all with few words, bidding the foreman to make haste
+and shoe his horse, hoping that he might thereby be off and away before
+his father came.
+
+But, while the man was throng with the horse's foot, both father and
+mother came rushing in, and his mother was weeping bitterly, and
+wringing her hands, chiding him as if he had sold himself to the Evil
+One, and beseeching him to stop and repent. His father, however, said
+little, but inquired how he had been, what he was doing, and where he
+was going; and sent the prentice lad to bring a stoup of spiced ale from
+a public hard by, in which he pledged him, kindly hoping he would do
+well for himself and he would do well for his parents. The which
+fatherliness touched my grandfather more to the quick than all the loud
+lament and reproaches of his mother; and he replied that he had entered
+into the service of a nobleman, and was then riding on his master's
+business to Glasgow; but he mentioned no name, nor did his father
+inquire. His mother, however, burst out into clamorous revilings,
+declaring her dread that it was some of the apostate heretics; and,
+giving vent to her passion, was as one in a frenzy, or possessed of a
+devil. The very friars were confounded at her distraction, and tried to
+soothe her and remove her forth the smiddy, which only made her more
+wild, so that all present compassionated my grandfather, who sat silent
+and made no answer, wearying till his horse was ready.
+
+But greatly afflicted as he was by this trial, it was nothing to what
+ensued, when, after having mounted, and shaken his father by the hand,
+he galloped away to the West-port. There, on the outside, he was met by
+two women and an old man, parents of the lads whom he had taken with him
+to Edinburgh. Having heard he was at his father's smiddy, instead of
+going thither, they had come to that place, in order that they might
+speak with him more apart, and free from molestation, concerning their
+sons.
+
+One of the women was a poor widow, and she had no other child, nor the
+hope of any other bread-winner for her old age. She, however, said
+nothing, but stood with the corner of her apron at her eyes, sobbing
+very afflictedly, while her friends, on seeing my grandfather coming out
+of the port, stepped forward, and the old man caught the horse by the
+bridle, and said gravely,--
+
+"Ye maun stop and satisfy three sorrowful parents! What hae ye done with
+your twa thoughtless companions?"
+
+My grandfather's heart was as if it would have perished in his bosom;
+for the company he had seen the lads with, and the talk they had held,
+and above all their recklessness of principle, came upon him like a
+withering flash of fire. He, however, replied soberly, that he had seen
+them both the night before, and that they were well in health and jocund
+in spirit.
+
+The mother that was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this,
+and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did
+hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever
+been all his days a brisk and a valiant bairn.
+
+But the helpless widow was not content, and she came forward drying her
+tears, saying, "And what is my poor fatherless do-na-gude about? I'm
+fearfu, fearfu to be particular; for, though he was aye kind-hearted to
+me, he was easily wised, and I doubt, I doubt he'll prove a blasting or
+a blessing, according to the hands he fa's among."
+
+"I hope and pray," said my grandfather, "that he'll be protected from
+scaith, and live to be a comfort to all his friends." And, so saying, he
+disengaged his bridle with a gentle violence from the old man's hold,
+telling them he could not afford to stop, being timed to reach Glasgow
+that night. So he pricked the horse with his rowals, and shot away; but
+his heart, all the remainder of his day's journey, was as if it had been
+pierced with many barbed arrows, and the sad voice of the poor anxious
+widow rung in his ears like the sound of some doleful knell.
+
+Saving this affair at Lithgow, nothing befell him till he came to the
+gates of Glasgow; by which time it was dark, and the ward and watch set,
+and they questioned him very sharply before giving him admission. For
+the Queen Regent was then sojourning in the castle, and her fears and
+cares were greatly quickened at that time, by rumours from all parts of
+the kingdom concerning the murder, as it was called, of Master Mill. On
+this account the French guards, which she had with her, were instructed
+to be jealous of all untimeous travellers, and they being joined with a
+ward of burghers, but using only their own tongue, caused no small
+molestation to every Scotsman that sought admission after the sun was
+set: for the burghers, not being well versed in military practices, were
+of themselves very propugnacious in their authority, making more ado
+than even the Frenchmen. It happened, however, that there was among
+those valiant traders and craftsmen of Glasgow one Thomas Sword, the
+deacon of the hammermen, and he having the command of those stationed at
+the gate, overheard what was passing with my grandfather, and coming out
+of the wardroom, inquired his name, which when he heard, and that he was
+son to Michael Gilhaize, the Lithgow ferrier, he advised to let him in,
+saying he knew his father well, and that they had worked together, when
+young men, in the King's armoury at Stirling; and he told him where he
+lived, and invited him, when his horse was stabled, to come to supper,
+for he was glad to see him for his father's sake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+At this time an ancient controversy between the Archbishops of St
+Andrews and of Glasgow, touching their respective jurisdictions, had
+been resuscitated with great acrimony, and in the debates concerning the
+same the Glasgow people took a deep interest, for they are stouthearted
+and of an adventurous spirit, and cannot abide to think that they or
+their town should, in anything of public honour, be deemed either slack
+or second to the foremost in the realm, and none of all the worthy
+burgesses thereof thought more proudly of the superiority and renown of
+their city than did Deacon Sword. So it came to pass, as he was sitting
+at supper with my grandfather, that he enlarged and expatiated on the
+inordinate pretensions of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and took
+occasion to diverge from the prelate's political ambition to speak of
+the enormities of his ecclesiastical government, and particularly of
+that heinous and never-to-be-forgotten act, the burning of an aged man
+of fourscore and two years, whose very heresies, as the deacon
+mercifully said, ought rather to have been imputed to dotage than
+charged as offences.
+
+My grandfather was well pleased to observe such vigour of principle and
+bravery of character in one having such sway and weight in so great a
+community as to be the chief captain of the crafts who were banded with
+the hammermen, namely, the cartwrights, the saddlers, the masons, the
+coopers, the mariners, and all whose work required the use of
+edge-tools, the hardiest and buirdliest of the trades, and he allowed
+himself to run in with the deacon's humour, but without letting wot
+either in whose service he was, or on what exploit he was bound, sowing
+however, from time to time, hints as to the need that seemed to be
+growing of putting a curb on the bold front wherewith the Archbishop of
+St Andrews, under the pretext of suppressing heresies, butted with the
+horns of oppression against all who stood within the reverence of his
+displeasure.
+
+Deacon Sword had himself a leaning to the reformed doctrines, which,
+with his public enmity to the challenger of his own Archbishop, made him
+take to those hints with so great an affinity, that he vowed to God,
+shaking my grandfather by the hand over the table, that if some steps
+were not soon taken to stop such inordinate misrule, there were not
+wanting five hundred men in Glasgow who would start forward with weapons
+in their grip at the first tout of a trump to vindicate the liberties of
+the subject, and the wholesome administration by the temporal judges of
+the law against all offenders as of old. And, giving scope to his
+ardour, he said there was then such a spirit awakened in Glasgow that
+men, women and children thirsted to see justice executed on the
+churchmen, who were daily waxing more and more wroth and insatiable
+against everyone who called their doctrines or polity in question.
+
+Thus out of the very devices which had been devised by those about the
+Queen Regent to intercept the free communion of the people with one
+another was the means brought about whereby a chosen emissary of the
+Congregation came to get at the emboldening knowledge of the sense of
+the citizens of Glasgow with regard to the great cause which at that
+period troubled the minds and fears of all men.
+
+My grandfather was joyfully heartened by what he heard, and before
+coming away from the deacon who, with the hospitality common to his
+townsmen, would fain have had him to prolong their sederunt over the
+gardevine, he said that if Glasgow were as true and valiant as it was
+thought, there could be no doubt that her declaration for the Lords of
+the Congregation would work out a great redress of public wrongs. For,
+from all he could learn and understand, those high and pious noblemen
+had nothing more at heart than to procure for the people the free
+exercise of their right to worship God according to their conscience and
+the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments.
+
+But though over the liquor-cup the deacon had spoken so dreadless and
+like a manly citizen, my grandfather resolved with himself to depart
+betimes for Kilmarnock, in case of any change in his temper.
+Accordingly, he requested the hostler of the hostel where he had taken
+his bed, to which his day's hard journey early inclined him, to have his
+horse in readiness before break of day. But this hostel, which was
+called the Cross of Rhodes, happened to be situated at the Water-port,
+and besides being a tavern and inn, was likewise the great ferryhouse of
+the Clyde when the tide was up, or the ford rendered unsafe by the
+torrents of the speats and inland rains--the which caused it to be much
+frequented by the skippers and mariners of the barks that traded to
+France and Genoa with the Renfrew salmon, and by all sorts of travellers
+at all times even to the small hours of the morning. In short it was a
+boisterous house, the company resorting thereto of a sort little in
+unison with the religious frame of my grandfather. As soon, therefore,
+as he came from the deacon's, he went to bed without taking off his
+clothes, in order that he might be fit for the road as he intended; and
+his bed being in the public room, with sliding doors, he drew them upon
+him, hoping to shut out some of the din and to win a little repose. But
+scarcely had he laid his head on the pillow when he heard the voice of
+one entering the room, and listening eagerly, he discovered that it was
+no other than the traitor Winterton's, the which so amazed him with
+apprehension that he shook as he lay, like the aspen leaf on the tree.
+
+Winterton called like a braggart for supper and hot wine, boasting he
+had ridden that day from Edinburgh, and that he must be up and across
+his horse by daylight in the morning, as he had need to be in Kilmarnock
+by noon. In this, which vanity made him tell in bravado, my grandfather
+could not but discern a kind Providence admonishing himself, for he had
+no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit of him, and thankful he was that
+he had given no inkling to anyone in the house as to whence he had come
+and where he was going. But had this thought not at once entered his
+head, he would soon have had cause to think it, for while Winterton was
+eating his supper he began to converse with their host, and to inquire
+what travellers had crossed the river. Twice or thrice, in as it were an
+off-hand manner, he spoke of one whom he called a cousin, but, in
+describing his garb, he left no doubt in my grandfather's bosom that it
+was regarding him he seemed at once both so negligent and so anxious.
+Most providential therefore it was that my grandfather had altered his
+dress before leaving Edinburgh, for the marks which Winterton gave of
+him were chiefly drawn from his ordinary garb, and by them their host in
+consequence said he had seen no such person.
+
+When Winterton had finished his repast, and was getting his second
+stoup of wine heated, he asked where he was to sleep, to the which
+question the host replied that he feared he would, like others, be
+obligated to make a bench by the fireside his couch, all the beds in the
+house being already bespoke or occupied. "Every one of them is double,"
+said the man, "save only one, the which is paid for by a young man that
+goes off at break of day and who is already asleep."
+
+At this Winterton swore a dreadful oath that he would not sleep by the
+fire after riding fifty miles while there was half a bed in the house,
+and commanded the host to go and tell the young man that he must half
+blankets with him.
+
+My grandfather knew that this could only refer to him; so, when their
+host came and opened the sliding doors of the bed, he feigned himself to
+be very fast asleep at the back of the bed, and only groaned in
+drowsiness when he was touched.
+
+"O, let him alane," cried Winterton, "I ken what it is to be tired; so,
+as there's room enough at the stock, when I have drank my posset I'll
+e'en creep in beside him."
+
+My grandfather, weary as he was, lay panting with apprehension, not
+doubting that he should be speedily discovered; but when Winterton had
+finished his drink and came swaggering and jocose to be his bedfellow,
+he kept himself with his face to the wall, and snored like one who was
+in haste to sleep more than enough, insomuch that Winterton, when he lay
+down, gave him a deg with his elbow and swore at him to be quiet. His
+own fatigue, however, soon mastered the disturbance which my grandfather
+made, and he began himself to echo the noise in defenceless sincerity.
+
+On hearing him thus fettered by sleep, my grandfather began to consider
+with himself what he ought to do, being both afraid and perplexed he
+knew not wherefore; and he was prompted by a power that he durst not and
+could not reason with to rise and escape from the jeopardy wherein he
+then was. But how could this be done, for the house was still open, and
+travellers and customers were continually going and coming. Truly his
+situation was one of great tribulation, and escape therefrom a thing
+seemingly past hope and the unaided wisdom of man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+After lying about the period of an hour in great perturbation, he began
+to grow more collected, and the din and resort of strangers in the house
+also subsided, by which he was enabled, with help from on high, to
+gather his scattered thoughts and to bind them up into the sheaves of
+purpose and resolution. Accordingly, when all was still, and several
+young men that were sitting by the fire on account of every bed being
+occupied, gave note, by their deep breathing, that sleep had descended
+upon them, and darkened their senses with her gracious and downy wings,
+he rose softly from the side of Winterton, and stepping over him,
+slipped to the door, which he unbarred, and the moon shining bright he
+went to the stable to take out his horse. It was not his intent to have
+done this, but to have gone up into the streets of the city and walked
+the walls thereof till he thought his adversary was gone, but seeing the
+moon so fair and clear he determined to take his horse and forthwith
+proceed on his journey, for the river was low and fordable, and trintled
+its waters with a silvery sheen in the stillness of the beautiful light.
+
+Scarcely, however, had he pulled the latch of the stable door--even as
+he was just entering in--when he heard Winterton coming from the house
+rousing the hostler, whom he profanely rated for allowing him to
+oversleep himself. For, wakening just as his bedfellow rose, he thought
+the morning was come and that his orders had been neglected.
+
+In this extremity my grandfather saw no chance of evasion. If he went
+out into the moonshine he would to a surety be discovered, and in the
+stable he would to a certainty be caught. But what could he do and the
+danger so pressing? He had hardly a choice; however, he went into the
+stable, shut the door, and running up to the horses that were farthest
+ben, mounted into the hack, and hid himself among the hay.
+
+In that concealment he was scarcely well down when Winterton, with an
+hostler that was half asleep, came with a lantern to the door, banning
+the poor knave as if he had been cursing him with bell, book and candle,
+the other rubbing his eyes and declaring it was still far from morning,
+and saying he was sure the other traveller was not gone. To the which
+there was speedy evidence, for on going towards Winterton's horse the
+hostler saw my grandfather's in its stall and told him so.
+
+At that moment a glimpse of the lantern fell on the horse's legs, and
+its feet being white, "Oho!" cried Winterton, "let us look here--Kenneth
+Shelty's Lightfoot--the very beast; and hae I been in the same hole wi'
+the tod and no kent it. The deil's black collie worry my soul, but this
+is a soople trick. I did nae think the sleekit sinner had art enough to
+play't. Nae doubt he's gane to hide himsel in the town till I'm awa, for
+he has heard what I said yestreen. But I'll be up sides wi' him. The
+de'il a foot will I gang this morning till he comes back for his horse."
+And with these words he turned out of the stable with the hostler and
+went back to the house.
+
+No sooner were they well gone than my grandfather came from his
+hiding-place, and twisting a wisp of straw round his horse's feet, that
+they might not dirl or make a din on the stones, he led it cannily out
+and down to the river's brink, and, there mounting, took the ford, and
+was soon free on the Gorbals side. Riding up the gait at a brisk trot,
+he passed on for a short time along the road that he had been told led
+to Kilmarnock, but fearing he would be followed, he turned off at the
+first wynd he came to on the left, and a blessed thing it was that he
+did so, for it led to the Reformation-leavened town of Paisley, where he
+arrived an hour before daylight. Winterton, little jealousing what had
+happened, went again to bed, as my grandfather afterwards learnt, and
+had fallen asleep. In the morning when he awoke and was told that both
+man and horse were flown, he flayed the hostler's back and legs in more
+than a score of places, believing he had connived at my grandfather's
+secret flight.
+
+My grandfather had never before been in the town of Paisley, but he had
+often heard from Abercorn's serving-men that were wont to sorn about his
+father's smiddy, of a house of jovial entertainment by the water-side,
+about a stone-cast from the abbey-yett, the hostess whereof was a
+certain canty dame called Maggy Napier, then in great repute with the
+shavelings of the abbey. Thither he directed his course, the abbey
+towers serving him for her sign, and the moonlight and running river
+were guides to her door, at the which he was not blate in chapping. She
+was, however, long of giving entrance, for it happened that some nights
+before the magistrates of the town had been at a carousal with the abbot
+and chapter, the papistical denomination for the seven heads and ten
+horns of a monastery, and when they had come away and were going home,
+one of them, Bailie Pollock, a gaucy widower, was instigated by the
+devil and the wine he had drunk to stravaig towards Maggy Napier's--a
+most unseemly thing for a bailie to do--especially a bailie of Paisley,
+but it was then the days of popish sinfulness. And when Bailie Pollock
+went thither the house was full of riotous swankies, who, being the waur
+of drink themselves, had but little reverence for a magistrate in the
+same state, so they handled him to such a degree that he was obliged to
+keep his bed and put collops to his eyes for three days. The consequence
+of which was that the house fell under the displeasure of the Town
+Council, and Maggie was admonished to keep it more orderly and
+doucely--though the fault came neither from her nor her customers, as
+she told my grandfather, for detaining him so long, it being requisite
+that she should see he was in a condition of sobriety before letting him
+in. But, when admitted, he was in no spirit to enjoy her jocosity
+concerning Bailie Pollock's spree, so he told her that he had come far
+and had far to go, and that having heard sore tidings of a friend, he
+was fain to go to bed and try if he could compose himself with an hour
+or two of sleep.
+
+Maggie accordingly refrained from her jocularity, and began to soothe
+and comfort him, for she was naturally of a winsome way, and prepared a
+bed for him with her best sheets, the which, she said, were gi'en her in
+gratus gift frae the Lord Abbot, so that he undressed himself and
+enjoyed a pleasant interregnum of anxiety for more than five hours; and
+when he awoke and was up, he found a breakfast worthy of the abbot
+himself ready, and his hostess was most courtly and kind, praising the
+dainties, and pressing him to eat. Nor when he proposed to reckon with
+her for the lawin would she touch the money, but made him promise, when
+he came back, he would bide another night with her, hoping he would then
+be in better spirits, for she was wae to see so braw a gallant sae
+casten down, doless and dowie.
+
+When they had settled their contest, and my grandfather had come out to
+mount his beast, which a stripling was holding ready for him at a
+louping-on-stane near the abbey-yett, as he was going thither, a young
+friar, who was taking a morning stroll along the pleasant banks of the
+Cart, approached towards him, and, after looking hard at him for some
+time, called him by name and took him by both the hands, which he
+pressed with a brotherly affection.
+
+This friar was of Lithgow parentage and called Dominick Callender, and
+when he and my grandfather were playing-bairns, they had spent many a
+merry day of their suspicion-less young years together. As he grew up,
+being a lad of shrewd parts, and of a very staid and orderly deportment,
+the monks set their snares for him, and before he could well think for
+himself he was wiled into their traps, and becoming a novice, in due
+season professed himself a monk. But it was some time before my
+grandfather knew him again, for the ruddy of youth had fled his cheek,
+and he was pale and of a studious countenance; and when the first
+sparklings of his pleasure at the sight of his old play-marrow had gone
+off, his eyes saddened into thoughtfulness, and he appeared like one
+weighed down with care and heavy inward dule.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+After Dominick Callender and my grandfather had conversed some time,
+with many interchanges of the kindly remembrances of past pleasures, the
+gentle friar began to bewail his sad estate in being a professed monk,
+and so mournfully to deplore the rashness with which inexperienced youth
+often takes upon itself a yoke it can never lay down, that the
+compassion of his friend was sorrowfully awakened, for he saw he was
+living a life of bitterness and grief. He heard him, however, without
+making any reply or saying anything concerning his own lot of hazard and
+adventure; for, considering Dominick to be leagued with the papistical
+orders, he did not think him safe to be trusted, notwithstanding the
+unchanged freshness of the loving-kindness which he still seemed to bear
+in his heart; nor even, had he not felt this jealousy, would he have
+thought himself free to speak of his errand, far less to have given to
+any stranger aught that might have been an inkling of his noble master's
+zealous, but secret, stirrings for the weal of Scotland and the
+enfranchisement of the worshippers of the true God.
+
+When my grandfather had arrived at his horse, and prepared to mount,
+Dominick Callender said to him if he would ride slowly for a little way
+he would walk by his side, adding, "For maybe I'll ne'er see you
+again--I'm a-weary of this way of life, and the signs of the times bode
+no good to the church. I hae a thought to go into some foreign land
+where I may taste the air of a freeman, and I feel myself comforted
+before I quit our auld, hard-favoured but warm-hearted Scotland, in
+meeting wi' ane that reminds me how I had once sunny mornings and summer
+days."
+
+This was said so much in the sincerity of a confiding spirit that my
+grandfather could not refrain from observing, in answer, that he feared
+his friar's cloak did not sit easy upon him, which led him on to
+acknowledge that it was so.
+
+"I am speaking to you, Gilhaize," said he, "with the frank heart of auld
+langsyne, and I dinna scruple to confess to one that I hae often thought
+of, and weary't to see again, and wondered what had become of, that my
+conscience has revolted against the errors of the papacy, and that I am
+now upon the eve of fleeing my native land and joining the Reformed at
+Geneva. And maybe I'm no ordain'd to spend a' my life in exile, for no
+man can deny that the people of Scotland are not inwardly the warm
+adversaries of the church. That last and cruellest deed, the sacrifice
+of the feckless old man of fourscore and upward, has proven that the
+humanity of the world will no longer endure the laws and pretensions of
+the church, and there are few in Paisley whom the burning of auld Mill
+has not kindled with the spirit of resistance."
+
+The latter portion of these words was as joyous tidings to my
+grandfather, and he tightened his reins and entered into a more
+particular and inquisitive discourse with his companion, by which he
+gathered that the martyrdom of Master Mill had indeed caused great
+astonishment and wrath among the pious in and about Paisley, and not
+only among them, but had estranged the affections even of the more
+worldly from the priesthood, of whom it was openly said that the sense
+of pity towards the commonalty of mankind was extinguished within them,
+and that they were all in all for themselves.
+
+But as they were proceeding through the town and along the road,
+conversing in a familiar but earnest manner on these great concerns,
+Dominick Callender began to inveigh against the morals of his brethren,
+and to lament again, in a very piteous manner, that he was decreed, by
+his monastic profession, from the enjoyment of the dearest and tenderest
+pleasures of man. And before they separated, it came out that he had
+been for some time touched with the soft enchantments of love for a
+young maiden, the daughter of a gentleman of good account in Paisley,
+and that her chaste piety was as the precious gum wherewith the
+Egyptians of old preserved their dead in everlasting beauty, keeping
+from her presence all taint of impurity and of thoughts sullying to
+innocence, insomuch that, even were he inclined, as he said many of his
+brethren would have been, to have acted the part of a secret canker to
+that fair blossom, the gracious and holy embalmment of her virtues would
+have proved an incorruptible protection.
+
+"But," he exclaimed, with a sorrowful voice, "that which is her glory
+and my admiration and praise is converted by the bondage of my unnatural
+vows into a curse to us both. The felicity that we might have enjoyed
+together in wedded life is forbidden to us as a great crime. But the
+laws of God are above the canons of the church, the voice of Nature is
+louder than the fulminations of the Vatican, and I have resolved to obey
+the one and give ear to the other despite the horrors that await on
+apostacy. Can you, Gilhaize, in aught assist my resolution?"
+
+There was so much vehemence and the passion of grief in these
+ejaculations, that my grandfather wist not well what to say. He told
+him, however, not to be rash in what he did, nor to disclose his intents
+save only to those in whom he could confide, for the times were perilous
+to everyone that slackened in reverence to the papacy, particularly to
+such as had pastured within the chosen folds of the church.
+
+"Bide," said he, "till you see what issue is ordained to come from this
+dreadful deed which so shaketh all the land, making the abbey towers
+topple and tremble to their oldest and deepest foundations. Truth is
+awakened and gone forth conquering and to conquer. It cannot be that
+ancient iniquities will be much longer endured, the arm of Wrath is
+raised against them, the sword of Revenge is drawn forth from its
+scabbard by Justice, and Nature has burst asunder the cords of the Roman
+harlot and stands in her freedom, like Samson, when the Spirit of the
+Lord was mightily poured upon him, as he awoke from the lap of Delilah."
+
+The gentle friar, as my grandfather often told, stood for some time
+astounded at this speech, and then he said,--
+
+"I dreamt not, Gilhaize, that beneath a countenance so calm and comely,
+the zealous fires of a warrior's bravery could have been kindled to so
+vehement a heat. But I will vex you with no questions. Heaven is on your
+side, and may its redeeming promptings never allow its ministers to rest
+till the fetters are broken and the slaves are set free."
+
+With these words he stepped forward to shake my grandfather by the hand
+and to bid him farewell, but just as he came to the stirrup he halted
+and said,--
+
+"It is not for nothing that the remembrance of you has been preserved so
+much brighter and dearer to me than that of all my kin. There was aye
+something about you in our heedless days that often made me wonder, I
+could not tell wherefore, and now, when I behold you in the prime of
+manhood, it fills me with admiration and awe and makes me do homage to
+you as a master."
+
+Much more he added to the same effect, which the modesty of my
+grandfather would not allow him to repeat; but when they had parted, and
+my grandfather had ridden forward some two or three miles, he recalled
+to mind what had passed between them, and he used to say that this
+discourse with his early friend first opened to him a view of the
+grievous captivity which Nature suffered in the monasteries and
+convents, notwithstanding the loose lives imputed to their inmates; and
+he saw that the Reformation would be hailed by many that languished in
+the bondage of their vows as a great and glorious deliverance. But still
+he was wont to say, even with such as these, it was overly mingled with
+temporal concernments, and that they longed for it less on account of
+its immortal issues than for its sensual emancipations.
+
+And as he was proceeding on his way in this frame of mind, and thinking
+on all that he had seen and learnt from the day in which he bade adieu
+to his father's house, he came to a place where the road forked off in
+two different airts, and not knowing which to take, he stopped his horse
+and waited till a man drew nigh whom he observed coming towards him. By
+this man he was told that the road leading leftward led to Kilmarnock
+and Ayr, and the other on the right to Kilwinning; so, without saying
+anything, he turned his horse's head into the latter, the which he was
+moved to do by sundry causes and reasons. First, he had remarked that
+the chances in his journey had, in a very singular manner, led him to
+gain much of that sort of knowledge which the Lords of the Congregation
+thirsted for; and second, he had no doubt that Winterton was in pursuit
+of him to Kilmarnock, for some purpose of frustration or circumvention,
+the which, though he was not able to divine, he could not but consider
+important, if it was, as he thought, the prime motive of that varlet's
+journey.
+
+But he was chiefly disposed to prefer the Kilwinning road, though it was
+several miles more of bout-gait, on account of the rich abbacy in that
+town, hoping he might glean and gather some account how the clergy there
+stood affected, the meeting with Dominick Callender having afforded him
+a vista of friends and auxiliaries in the enemy's camp little thought
+of. Besides all this, he reflected, that as it was of consequence he
+should reach the Lord Boyd in secrecy, he would be more likely to do so
+by stopping at Kilwinning and feeing someone there to guide him to the
+Dean Castle by moonlight. I have heard him say, however, the speakable
+motives of his deviation from the straight road were at the time far
+less effectual in moving him thereto than a something which he could not
+tell, that with an invisible hand took his horse, as it were, by the
+bridle-rings and constrained him to go into the Kilwinning track. In the
+whole of this journey there was indeed a very extraordinary
+manifestation of a special providence, not only in the protection
+vouchsafed towards himself, but in the remarkable accidents and
+occurrences by which he was enabled to enrich himself with the knowledge
+so precious at that time to those who were chosen to work the great work
+of the Gospel in Scotland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+As my grandfather came in sight of Kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with
+its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of Cunningham
+between it and the sea, it seemed to him as if a huge leviathan had come
+up from the depths of the ocean and was devouring the green inland,
+having already consumed all the herbage of the wide waste that lay so
+bare and yellow for many a mile, desert, and lonely in the silent
+sunshine, and he ejaculated to himself that the frugal soil of poor
+Scotland could ne'er have been designed to pasture such enormities.
+
+As he rode on, his path descended from the heights into pleasant tracks
+along banks feathered with the fragrant plumage of the birch and hazel,
+and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the Garnock
+waters, as they swirled among the pebbles by the roadside, the
+pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the
+ignorance of the world to raise such costly monuments of the
+long-suffering patience of Heaven, while they showed how much the divine
+nature of the infinite God and the humility of His eternal Son had been
+forgotten in this land among professing Christians.
+
+When he came nigh the town he inquired for an hostel, and a stripling,
+the miller's son, who was throwing stones at a flock of geese belonging
+to the abbey, then taking their pleasures uninvited in his father's
+mill-dam, guided him to the house of Theophilus Lugton, the chief
+vintner, horse-setter and stabler in the town, where, on alighting, he
+was very kindly received; for the gudewife was of a stirring, household
+nature, and Theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a
+publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in
+his trade but from a disinterested good-will. He was, indeed, as my
+grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great
+respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the
+abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of Irvine, the most
+regular of his customers. For they being then in the darkness of
+papistry, were as much given to the idolatry of holidays and masses as,
+thanks be and praise! they are now to the hunting out of sound gospel
+preachers and sacramental occasions. Many a stoup of burnt wine and
+spiced ale they were wont at Pace and Yule and other papistal high times
+to partake of together in the house of Theophilus Lugton, happy and well
+content when their possets were flavoured with the ghostly conversation
+of some gawsie monk well versed in the mysteries of requiems and
+purgatory.
+
+Having parted with his horse to be taken to the stable by Theophilus
+himself, my grandfather walked into the house, and Dame Lugton set for
+him an elbow-chair by the chimla lug, and while she was preparing
+something for a repast they fell into conversation, in the course of
+which she informed him that a messenger had come to the abbey that
+forenoon from Edinburgh, and a rumour had been bruited about soon after
+his arrival that there was great cause to dread a rising among the
+heretics, for, being ingrained with papistry, she so spoke of the
+Reformers.
+
+This news troubled my grandfather not a little, and the more he inquired
+concerning the tidings the more reason he got to be alarmed and to
+suspect that the bearer was Winterton, who being still in the town, and
+then at the abbey--his horse was in Theophilus Lugton's stable--he could
+not but think that in coming to Kilwinning instead of going right on to
+Kilmarnock he had run into the lion's mouth. But, seeing it was so, and
+could not be helped, he put his trust in the Lord and resolved to swerve
+in no point from the straight line which he had laid down for himself.
+
+While he was eating of Dame Lugton's fare with the relishing sauce of a
+keen appetite, in a manner that no one who saw him could have supposed
+he was almost sick with a surfeit of anxieties, one James Coom, a smith,
+came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale, and he, seeing a traveller, said,--
+
+"Thir's sair news! The drouth of cauld iron will be slockened in men's
+blood ere we hear the end o't."
+
+"'Deed," replied my grandfather, "it's very alarming; Lucky, here, has
+just been telling me that there's likely to be a straemash among the
+Reformers. Surely they'll ne'er daur to rebel."
+
+"If a' tales be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the
+froth from the cap in which Dame Lugton handed him the ale, and taking a
+right good-willy waught.
+
+"But what's said?" inquired my grandfather, when the smith had fetched
+his breath.
+
+"Naebody can weel tell," was his response; "a' that's come this length
+is but the sough afore the storm. Within twa hours there has been a
+great riding hither and yon, and a lad straight frae Embro' has come to
+bid my Lord Abbot repair to the court; and three chiels hae been at me
+frae Eglinton Castle to get their beast shod for a journey. My Lord
+there is hyte and fykie; there's a gale in his tail, said they, light
+where it may. Now, atween oursels, my Lord has na the heart of a true
+bairn to that aged and worthy grannie of the papistry, our leddy the
+Virgin Mary--here's her health, poor auld deaf and dumb creature--she
+has na, I doubt, the pith to warsle wi' the blast she ance in a day
+had."
+
+"Haud that heretical tongue o' thine, Jamie Coom," exclaimed Dame
+Lugton. "It's enough to gaur a body's hair stand on end to hear o' your
+familiarities wi' the Holy Virgin. I won'er my Lord Abbot has na
+langsyne tethert thy tongue to the kirk door wi' a red-het nail for sic
+blasphemy. But fools are privileged, and so's seen o' thee."
+
+"And wha made me familiar wi' her, Dame Lugton, tell me that?" replied
+James; "was na it my Lord himself at last Marymas, when he sent for me
+to make a hoop to mend her leg that sklintered aff as they were dressing
+her for the show. Eh! little did I think that I was ever to hae the
+honour and glory of ca'ing a nail intil the timber hip o' the Virgin
+Mary! Ah, Lucky, ye would na hae tholed the dirl o' the dints o' my
+hammer as she did. But she's a saint, and ye'll ne'er deny that ye're a
+sinner."
+
+To this Dame Lugton was unable to reply, and the smith, cunningly
+winking, dippet his head up to the lugs in the ale-cap.
+
+"But," said my grandfather, "no to speak wi' disrespeck of things
+considered wi' reverence, it does na seem to me that there is ony cause
+to think the Reformers hae yet rebelled."
+
+"I am sure," replied the smith, "if they hae na they ought, or the de'il
+a spunk's amang them. Isna a' the monks frae John o' Groat's to the
+Border getting ready their spits and rackses, frying-pans and branders
+to cook them like capons and doos for Horney's supper? I never hear my
+ain bellows snoring at a gaud o' iron in the fire but I think o' fat
+Father Lickladle, the abbey's head kitchener, roasting me o'er the low
+like a laverock in his collop-tangs; for, as Dame Lugton there weel
+kens, I'm ane o' the Reformed. Heh! but it's a braw thing this
+Reformation. It used to cost me as muckle siller for the sin o' getting
+fu', no aboon three or four times in the year, as would hae kept ony
+honest man blithe and ree frae New'erday to Hogmanae; but our worthy
+hostess has found to her profit that I'm now ane of her best customers.
+What say ye, Lucky?"
+
+"Truly," said Dame Lugton, laughing, "thou's no an ill swatch o' the
+Reformers; and naebody need be surprised at the growth o' heresy wha
+thinks o' the dreadfu' cost the professors o't used to be at for
+pardons. But maybe they'll soon find that the de'il's as hard a taxer as
+e'er the kirk was; for ever since thou has refraint frae paying penance,
+thy weekly calks ahint the door ha'e been on the increase, Jamie, and no
+ae plack has thou mair to spare. So muckle gude thy reforming has done
+thee."
+
+"Bide awee, Lucky," cried the smith, setting down the ale-cap which he
+had just emptied; "bide awee, and ye'll see a change. Surely it was to
+be expecket, considering the spark in my hass, that the first use I
+would mak' o' the freedom o' the Reformation would be to quench it,
+which I never was allowed to do afore; and whenever that's done, ye'll
+see me a geizen't keg o' sobriety, tak the word o' a drouthy smith
+for't."
+
+At this jink o' their controversy who should come into the house,
+ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling
+rowels o' his spurs, but Winterton, without observing my grandfather,
+who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair
+at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered Dame Lugton to spice him a
+drink of her best brewing, he began to joke and jibe with the
+blacksmith, the which allowing my grandfather time to compose his wits,
+which were in a degree startled. He saw that he could not but be
+discovered, so he thought it was best to bring himself out. Accordingly,
+in as quiet a manner as he was able to put on, he said to Winterton,--
+
+"I hae a notion that we twa ha'e forgathered no lang sincesyne."
+
+At the sound of these words Winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped
+on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and
+then a shout, crying,--
+
+"Ha, ha! tod lowrie! hae I yirded you at last?" But instanter he
+recollected himsel', and giving my grandfather a significant look, as if
+he wished him no to be particular, he said, "I heard o' you, Gilhaize,
+on the road, and I was fain to hae come up wi' you, that we might hae
+travelled thegither. Howsever, I lost scent at Glasgow." And then he
+continued to haver with him, in his loose and profligate manner, anent
+the Glasgow damsels, till the ale was ready, when he pressed my
+grandfather to taste, never letting wot how they had slept together in
+the same bed; and my grandfather, on his part, was no less circumspect,
+for he discerned that Winterton intended to come over him, and he was
+resolved to be on his guard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When Winterton had finished his drink, which he did hastily, he proposed
+to my grandfather that they should take a stroll through the town; and
+my grandfather being eager to throw stour in his eyes, was readily
+consenting thereto.
+
+"Weel," said the knave, when he had warily led him into the abbey
+kirk-yard, "I didna think ye would hae gane back to my Lord; but it's a'
+very weel, since he has looked o'er what's past, and gi'en you a new
+dark."
+
+"He's very indulgent," replied my grandfather, "and I would be looth to
+wrang so kind a master;" and he looked at Winterton. The varlet,
+however, never winced, but rejoined lightly,--
+
+"But I wish you had come back to Widow Rippet's, for ye would hae spar't
+me a hard ride. Scarcely had ye ta'en the road when my Lord mindit that
+he had neglekit to gie you the sign, by the which ye were to make
+yoursel and message kent to his friends, and I was sent after to tell
+you."
+
+"I'm glad o' that," replied my grandfather; "what is't?" Winterton was a
+thought molested by this thrust of a question, and for the space of
+about a minute said nothing, till he had considered with himself, when
+he rejoined,--
+
+"Three lads were sent off about the same time wi' you, and the Earl was
+nae quite sure, he said, whilk of you a' he had forgotten to gie the
+token whereby ye would be known as his men. But the sign for the Earl of
+Eglinton, to whom I guess ye hae been sent, by coming to Kilwinning, is
+no the same as for the Lord Boyd, to whom I thought ye had been
+missioned; for I hae been at the Dean Castle, and finding you not there,
+followed you hither."
+
+"I'll be plain wi' you," said my grandfather to this draughty speech.
+"I'm bound to the Lord Boyd; but coming through Paisley, when I reached
+the place where the twa roads branched, I took the ane that brought me
+here, instead of the gate to Kilmarnock; so, as soon as my beast has
+eaten his corn, I mean to double back to the Dean Castle."
+
+"How, in the name of the saints and souls, did ye think, in going frae
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, o' taking the road to Paisley?"
+
+"'Deed, an' ye were acquaint," said my grandfather, "wi' how little I
+knew o' the country, ye would nae speir that question; but since we hae
+fallen in thegither, and are baith, ye ken, in my Lord Glencairn's
+service, I hope you'll no objek to ride back wi' me to the Lord Boyd's."
+
+"Then it's no you that was sent to the Earl of Eglinton?" exclaimed
+Winterton, pretending more surprise than he felt; "and all my journey
+has been for naething. Howsever, I'll go back wi' you to Kilmarnock, and
+the sooner we gang the better."
+
+Little farther discourse then passed, for they returned to the hostel,
+and ordering out their horses, were soon on the road; and as they
+trotted along, Winterton was overly outspoken against the papisticals,
+calling them all kinds of ill names, and no sparing the Queen Regent.
+But my grandfather kept a calm tongue, and made no reflections.
+
+"Howsever," said Winterton, pulling up his bridle and walking his horse
+as they were skirting the moor of Irvine, leaving the town about a mile
+off on the right, "you and me, Gilhaize, that are but servants, need nae
+fash our heads wi' sic things. The wyte o' wars lie at the doors of
+kings, and the soldiers are free o' the sin o' them. But how will ye get
+into the presence and confidence of the Lord Boyd?"
+
+"I thought," replied my grandfather, pawkily, "that ye had gotten our
+master's token; and I maun trust to you."
+
+"Oh," cried Winterton, "I got but the ane for the lad sent to Eglinton
+Castle."
+
+"And ha'e ye been there?" said my grandfather.
+
+Winterton didna let wot that he heard this, but, stooping over on the
+off-side of his horse, pretended he was righting something about his
+stirrup-leather. My grandfather was, however, resolved to prob him to
+the quick; so, when he was again sitting upright, he repeated the
+question, if he had been to Eglinton Castle.
+
+"O, ay," cried the false loon; "I was there, but the bird was flown."
+
+"And how got he the ear of the Earl," said my grandfather, "not having
+the sign?"
+
+"In for a penny in for a pound," was Winterton's motto, and ae lie with
+him was father to a race. "Luckily for him," replied he, "some of the
+serving-men kent him as being in Glencairn's service, so they took him
+to their master."
+
+My grandfather had no doubt that there was some truth in this, though he
+was sure Winterton knew little about it; for it agreed with what James
+Coom, the smith, had said about the lads from Eglinton that had been at
+his smiddy to get the horses shod, and remembering the leathern purses
+under the Earl his master's pillow, he was persuaded that there had been
+a messenger sent to the head of the Montgomeries, and likewise to other
+lords, friends of the Congregation; but he saw that Winterton went by
+guess, and lied at random. Still, though not affecting to notice it, nor
+expressing any distrust, he could not help saying to him, that he had
+come a long way, and after all it looked like a gowk's errand.
+
+The remark, however, only served to give Winterton inward satisfaction,
+and he replied with a laugh, that it made little odds to him where he
+was sent, and that he'd as lief ride in Ayrshire as sorn about the
+causey of Enbrough.
+
+In this sort of talk and conference they rode on together, the o'ercome
+every now and then of Winterton's discourse being concerning the proof
+my grandfather carried with him, whereby the Lord Boyd would know he was
+one of Glencairn's men. But, notwithstanding all his wiles and devices
+to howk the secret out of him, his drift being so clearly discerned, my
+grandfather was enabled to play with him till they were arrived at
+Kilmarnock, where Winterton proposed to stop till he had delivered his
+message to the Lord Boyd, at the Dean Castle.
+
+"That surely cannot be," replied my grandfather; "for ye ken, as there
+has been some mistak about the sign whereby I am to make myself known,
+ye'll ha'e to come wi' me to expound, in case of need. In trooth, now
+that we hae forgatherit, and as I ha'e but this ae message to a' the
+shire of Ayr, I would fain ha'e your company till I see the upshot."
+
+Winterton could not very easily make a refusal to this, but he hesitated
+and swithered, till my grandfather urged him again;--when, seeing no
+help for it, and his companion, as he thought, entertaining no suspicion
+of him, he put on a bold face and went forward.
+
+When they had come to the Dean Castle, which stands in a pleasant green
+park about a mile aboon the town-head of Kilmarnock, on entering the
+gate, my grandfather hastily alighted, and giving his horse a sharp
+prick of his spur as he lap off, the beast ran capering out of his hand,
+round the court of the castle.
+
+With the well-feigned voice of great anxiety, my grandfather cried to
+the servants to shut the gate and keep it in; and Winterton alighting,
+ran to catch it, giving his own horse to a stripling to hold. At the
+same moment, however, my grandfather sprung upon him, and seizing him by
+the throat, cried out for help to master a spy.
+
+Winterton was so confounded that he gasped and looked round like a man
+demented, and my grandfather ordered him to be taken by the serving-men
+to their master, before whom, when they were all come, he recounted the
+story of his adventures with the prisoner, telling his Lordship what his
+master, the Earl of Glencairn, suspected of him. To which, when
+Winterton was asked what he had to say, he replied bravely, that it was
+all true, and he was none ashamed to be so catched, when it was done by
+so clever a fellow.
+
+He was then ordered by the Lord Boyd to be immured in the dungeon-room,
+the which may be seen to this day; and though his captivity was
+afterwards somewhat relaxed, he was kept a prisoner in the castle till
+after the death of the Queen Dowager, and the breaking-up of her
+two-faced councils. This exploit won my grandfather great favour, and he
+scarcely needed to show the signet-ring when he told his message from
+the Lords of the Congregation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+By such devices and missions, as my grandfather was engaged in for the
+Earl Glencairn with the Lord Boyd, a thorough understanding was
+concerted among the Reformed throughout the kingdom; and encouraged by
+their great strength and numbers, which far exceeded what was expected,
+the Lords of the Congregation set themselves roundly to work, and the
+protestant preachers openly published their doctrines.
+
+Soon after my grandfather had returned from the shire of Ayr, there was
+a weighty consultation held at the Earl his patron's lodging in
+Edinburgh, whereat, among others present, was that pious youth,
+afterwards the good Regent Murray. He was, by office and appointment,
+then the head and lord of the priory of St Andrews; but his soul
+cleaving to the Reformation and the Gospel, he laid down the use of that
+title, and about this time began to be called the Lord James Stuart.
+
+The Lords of the Congregation, feeling themselves strong in the goodness
+of their cause and the number of their adherents, resolved at this
+council, that they should proceed firmly but considerately to work, and
+seek redress as became true lieges, by representation and supplication.
+Accordingly a paper was drawn up, wherein they set forth how, for
+conscience sake, the Reformed had been long afflicted with banishment,
+confiscation of goods, and death in its cruellest forms. That continual
+fears darkened their lives till, being no longer able to endure such
+calamities, they were compelled to beg a remedy against the oppressions
+and tyranny of the Estate Ecclesiastical, which had usurped an unlimited
+domination over the minds of men,--the faggot and the sword being the
+weapons which the prelates employed to enforce their mandates,--plain
+truths that were thus openly stated in order to show that the suppliants
+were sincere; and they concluded with a demand, that the original purity
+of the Christian religion should be restored, and the government so
+improved as to afford them security in their persons, opinions, and
+property.
+
+Sir James Calder of Sandilands was the person chosen to present this
+memorial to the Queen Regent; and never, said my grandfather, was an
+agent more fitly chosen to uphold the dignity of his trust, or to
+preserve the respect which, as good subjects, the Reformed desired to
+maintain and manifest towards the authority regal. He was a man far
+advanced in life; but there was none of the infirmities of age under the
+venerable exterior with which time had clothed his appearance. Of great
+honour and a pure life, he was reverenced by all parties, and had
+acquired both renown and affection, through his services to the realm
+and his manifold virtues.
+
+On a day appointed by the Queen Regent, the Lords and leaders of the
+Congregation attended Sandilands, each with a stately retinue, to
+Holyrood House; my grandfather having leave from the Earl, his master,
+to wait on his person on that occasion.
+
+It was a solemn day to the worshippers of the true God, who came in
+great multitudes to the town, many from distant parts, to be present,
+and to hear the issue of a conference that was to give liberty to the
+consciences of all devout Scotchmen. From the house in the Lawnmarket,
+where the Lords assembled, down to the very yetts of the palace, the
+sight was as if the street had been paved with faces, and windows over
+windows, roofs and lum-heads, were clustered with women and children.
+All temporal cares and businesses were that day suspended: in the
+accents and voices of men there was an awful sobriety, few speaking, and
+what was said, sounded as if every one was affected with the sense of
+some high and everlasting interest at stake.
+
+When the Lords went down into the street, there was, for a brief
+interval, a stir and a murmur in the multitude, which opened to the
+right and left as when the waves of the Red Sea were opened, and through
+the midst thereof prepared a miraculous road for the children of Israel.
+A deep silence succeeded, and Sandilands, with his hoary head uncovered,
+bearing in his hand the supplication and remonstrance, walked forward;
+and the Lords went after also all bareheaded, and every one with them
+followed in like manner as reverentially as their masters. The people,
+as they passed along, slowly and devoutly, took off their caps and
+bonnets, and bowed their heads as when the ark of the covenant of the
+Lord was of old brought back from the Philistines; and many wept, and
+others prayed aloud, and there was wonder, and awe, and dread, mingled
+with thoughts of unspeakable confidence and glory.
+
+When Sandilands and those with him were conducted into the presence of
+the Queen Dowager, she was standing under a canopy of state, surrounded
+by many of the nobles and prelates, and by her maidens of honour. My
+grandfather had not seen her before, and having often heard her
+suspected of double-dealing, and of a superstitious zeal and affection
+for the papal abominations and cruelties, he had pictured to himself a
+lean and haggard woman, with a pale and fierce countenance, and was
+therefore greatly amazed when he beheld a lady of a most sweet and
+gracious aspect, with mild dark eyes beaming with a chaste dignity, and
+a high and fair forehead, bright and unwrinkled with any care, and lips
+formed to speak soft and gentle sentences. In her apparel she was less
+gay than her ladies, but nevertheless she was more queenly. Her dress
+and mantle were of the richest purple Genoese unadorned with embroidery,
+and round her neck she wore a ruff of fine ermine and a string of
+princely pearls. A small golden cross of curious graven gold dangled to
+her waist from a loup in the vale of her bosom.
+
+Sandilands advanced several paces before the Lords by whom he was
+attended, and falling on his knees, read with a loud and firm voice the
+memorial of the Reformed; and when he had done so and was risen, the
+Queen received a paper that was given to her by her secretary, who stood
+behind her right shoulder, and also read an answer which had been
+prepared, and in which she was made to deliver many comfortable
+assurances, that at the time were received as a great boon with much
+thankfulness by all the Reformed, who had too soon reason to prove the
+insincerity of those courtly flatteries. For no steps were afterwards
+taken to give those indulgences by law that were promised; but the
+papists stirring themselves with great activity, and foreign matters and
+concerns coming in aid of their stratagems, long before a year passed
+the mind of the Queen and government was fomented into hostility against
+the protestants. She called into her favour and councils the Archbishop
+of St Andrews, with whom she had been at variance; and the devout said,
+when they heard thereof, that when our Saviour was condemned, on the
+same day Herod and Pilate were made friends, applying the text to this
+reconcilation; and boding therefrom woe to the true church. Moved by the
+hatred which his Grace bore to the Reformers, the Queen cited the
+protestant preachers to appear at Stirling to answer to the charges
+which might there be preferred against them.
+
+My grandfather, when this perfidy came to a head, was at
+Finlayston-house, in the shire of Renfrew, with the Earl, his master,
+who, when he heard of such a breach of faith, smote the table, as he was
+then sitting at dinner, with his right hand, and said, "Since the false
+woman has done this, there is nothing for us but the banner and the
+blade;" and starting from his seat he forthwith ordered horses, and,
+attended by my grandfather and ten armed servants, rode to Glasgow,
+where Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudon, then sheriff of Ayr, and other
+worthies of the time, were assembled on business before the Lords of
+Justiciary; and it was instanter agreed, that they should forthwith
+proceed to Stirling where the court was, and remonstrate with the Queen.
+So, leaving all temporal concerns, Sir Hugh took horse, and they arrived
+at Stirling about the time her Highness supped, and going straight to
+the castle, they stood in the ante-chamber to speak, if possible, with
+her as she passed.
+
+On entering the room to pass to her table she saw them, and looked
+somewhat surprised and displeased; but without saying anything
+particular she desired the Earl to follow her, and Sir Hugh, unbidden,
+went also into the banquet-room. It was seldom that she used state in
+her household, and on this occasion, it being a popish fast, her table
+was frugally spread, and only herself sat at the board.
+
+"Well, Glencairn," said she, "what has brought you hither from the west
+at this time? Is the realm to be forever tossed like the sea by this
+tempest of heresies? The royal authority is not always to be insulted
+with impunity, and in spite of all their friends the protestant
+preachers shall be banished from Scotland, aye, though their doctrines
+were as sound as St Paul's."
+
+The Earl, as my grandfather heard him afterwards relate, replied, "Your
+Majesty gave your royal promise that the Reformed should be protected,
+and they have done nothing since to cause the forfeiture of so gracious
+a boon: I implore your Majesty to call that sacred pledge to mind."
+
+"You lack reason, my Lord," she cried, sharply; "it becomes not subjects
+to burden their princes with promises which it may be inconvenient to
+keep."
+
+"If these, madam, are your sentiments," replied the Earl, proudly, "the
+Congregation can no longer acknowledge your authority, and must renounce
+their allegiance to your government."
+
+She had, at the moment, lifted the salt-cellar to sprinkle her
+salad,--but she was so astonished at the boldness of this speech, that
+she dropped it from her hand, and the salt was spilt on the floor,--an
+evil omen which all present noted.
+
+"My Lord Glencairn," said she, thoughtfully, "I would execute my great
+duties honestly, but your preachers trouble the waters, and I know not
+where the ford lies that I may safest ride. Go ye away and try to keep
+your friends quiet, and I will consider calmly what is best to be done
+for the weal of all."
+
+At these words the Earl and Sir Hugh Campbell bowed, and, retiring, went
+to the lodging of the Earl of Monteith, where they were minded to pass
+the night, but when they had consulted with that nobleman, my
+grandfather was ordered to provide himself with a fresh horse from
+Monteith's stable, and to set out for Edinburgh with letters for the
+Lord James Stuart.
+
+"Gilhaize," said his master, as he delivered them, "I foresee we must
+buckle on our armour; but the cause of the Truth does not require that
+the first blow should come from our side. By this time John Knox, who
+has been long expected, may be hourly looked for; and as no man stands
+higher in the aversion of the papists than that brave, honest man, we
+shall know by the reception he meets with what we ought to do."
+
+So my grandfather, putting the letters in his bosom, retired from the
+presence of the Earl, and by break of day reached the West-port and went
+straight on to the Lord James Stuart's lodging in the Canongate. But,
+though the household were astir, it was some time before he got
+admittance, for their master was a young man of great method in all
+things, and his chaplain was at the time reading the first prayers of
+the morning, during which the doors were shut, and no one, however
+urgent his business, could gain admission into that house while the
+inmates were doing their homage to the King of kings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+As my grandfather, in the grey of the morning, was waiting in the
+Canongate till the worship was over in the house of the Lord James
+Stuart, he frequently rode up and down the street as far the
+Luckenbooths and the Abbey's sanctuary siver, and his mind was at times
+smitten with the remorse of pity when he saw, as the dawn advanced, the
+numbers of poor labouring men that came up out of the closes and
+gathered round the trone, abiding there to see who would come to hire
+them for the day. But his compassion was soon changed into a frame of
+thankfulness at the boundless variety of mercies which are dealt out to
+the children of Adam, for he remarked, that, for the most part, these
+poor men, whose sustenance was as precarious as that of the wild birds
+of the air, were cheerful and jocund, many of them singing and whistling
+as blithely as the lark, that carries the sweet incense of her melodious
+songs in the censer of a sinless breast to the golden gates of the
+morning.
+
+Hitherto he had never noted, or much considered, the complicated cares
+and trials wherewith the lot of man in every station is chequered and
+environed; and when he heard those bondmen of hard labour, jocund after
+sound slumbers and light suppers, laughing contemptuously as they beheld
+the humiliating sight, which divers gallants and youngsters, courtiers
+of the court, degraded with debauch, made of themselves as they stumbled
+homeward, he thought there was surely more bliss in the cup that was
+earned by the constancy of health and a willing mind, than in all the
+possets and malvesia that the hoards of ages could procure. So he
+composed his spirit, and inwardly made a vow to the Lord, that as soon
+as the mighty work of the redemption of the Gospel from the perdition of
+papistry was accomplished, he would retire into the lea of some pleasant
+green holm, and take, for the purpose of his life, the attainment of
+that happy simplicity which seeks but the supply of the few wants with
+which man comes so rich from the hands of his Maker, that all changes in
+his natural condition of tilling the ground and herding the flocks only
+serve to make him poorer by increasing.
+
+While he was thus ruminating in the street, he observed two strangers
+coming up the Canongate. One of them had the appearance of a servant,
+but he was of a staider and more thoughtful aspect than belongs to men
+of that degree, only he bore on his shoulder a willease, and had in his
+hand a small package wrapt in a woollen cover and buckled with a
+leathern strap. The other was the master; and my grandfather halted his
+horse to look at him as he passed, for he was evidently no common man
+nor mean personage, though in stature he was jimp the ordinary size. He
+was bent more with infirmities than the load of his years. His hair and
+long flowing beard were very grey and venerable, like those of the
+ancient patriarchs who enjoyed immediate communion with God. But though
+his appearance was thus aged, and though his complexion and countenance
+betokened a frail tenement, yet the brightness of youth shone in his
+eyes, and they were lighted up by a spirit over which time had no power.
+
+In his steps and gait he was a little hasty and unsteady, and twice or
+thrice he was obliged to pause in the steep of the street to draw his
+breath; but even in this there was an affecting and great earnestness, a
+working of a living soul within, as if it panted to enter on the
+performance of some great and solemn hest.
+
+He seemed to be eager and zealous like the apostle Peter in his temper,
+and as dauntless as the mighty and courageous Paul. Many in the street
+stopped, and looked after him with reverence and marvelling, as he
+proceeded with quick and desultory steps, followed by his sedate
+attendant. Nor was it surprising, for he was, indeed, one of those who,
+in their lives, are vast and wonderful,--special creations that are sent
+down from heaven, with authority attested by the glowing impress of the
+signet of God on their hearts, to avenge the wrongs done to His truths
+and laws in the blasphemies of the earth.--It was John Knox!
+
+When he had passed, my grandfather rode back to the yett of the Lord
+James Stuart's lodgings, which by this time was opened, and instanter,
+on mentioning to the porter from whom he had come, was admitted to his
+master.
+
+That great worthy was at the time sitting alone in a back chamber, which
+looked towards Salisbury Crags, and before him, but on the opposite side
+of the table, among divers letters and papers of business, lay a large
+Bible, with brass clasps thereon, in which, it would seem, some one had
+been expounding to him a portion of the Scriptures.
+
+When my grandfather presented to him the letter from the Earl of
+Glencairn, he took it from him without much regarding him, and broke
+open the seal, and began to peruse it to himself in that calm and
+methodical manner for which he was so famed and remarkable. Before,
+however, he had read above the half thereof, he gave as it were a sudden
+hitch, and turning round, looked my grandfather sharply in the face, and
+said,--
+
+"Are you Gilhaize?"
+
+But before any answer could be made, he waved his hand graciously,
+pointing to a chair, and desired him to sit down, resuming at the same
+time the perusal of the letter; and when he had finished it, he folded
+it up for a moment; but, as if recollecting himself, he soon runkled it
+up in his hand and put it into the fire.
+
+"Your Lord informs me," said he, "that he has all confidence, not only
+in your honesty, Gilhaize, but in your discernment; and says, that in
+respect to the high question anent Christ's cause, you may be trusted to
+the uttermost. Truly, for so young a man, this is an exceeding renown.
+His letter has told me what passed last night with the Queen's Highness.
+I am grieved to hear it. She means well; but her feminine fears make her
+hearken to counsels that may cause the very evils whereof she is so
+afraid. But the sincerity of her favour to the Reformed will soon be
+tried, for last night John Knox arrived, and I was with him; and, strong
+in the assurances of his faith, he intends to lead on to the battle.
+This morning he was minded to depart for Fife.--'Our Captain, Christ
+Jesus,' said he, 'and Satan, his adversary, are now at open defiance;
+their banners are displayed, and the trumpet is blown on both sides for
+assembling their armies.' As soon as it is known that he is within the
+kingdom, we shall learn what we may expect, and that presently too; for
+this very day the clergy meet in the monastery of the Greyfriars, and
+doubtless they will be advertised of his coming. You had as well try if
+you can gain admittance among the other auditors, to hear their
+deliberations; afterwards come again to me, and report what takes place;
+by that time I shall be advised whether to send you back to Glencairn or
+elsewhere."
+
+My grandfather, after this and some farther discourse, retired to the
+hall, and took breakfast with the household, where he was much edified
+with the douce deportment of all present, so unlike that of the lewd and
+graceless varlets who rioted in the houses of the other nobles. Verily,
+he used to say, the evidences of a reforming spirit were brightly seen
+there; and, to rule every one into a chaste sobriety of conversation, a
+pious clerk sate at the head of the board, and said grace before and
+after the meal, making it manifest how much all things about the Lord
+James Stuart were done in order.
+
+Having taken breakfast, and reposed himself some time, for his long ride
+had made him very weary, he rose, and, changing his apparel, went to the
+Greyfriars church, where the clergy were assembling, and elbowing
+himself gently into the heart of the people waiting around for
+admission, he got in with the crowd when the doors were opened.
+
+The matter that morning to be considered concerned the means to be
+taken, within the local jurisdictions of those there met, to enforce the
+process of the summons which had been issued against the reformed
+preachers to appear at Stirling.
+
+But while they were busily conversing and contriving how best to aid and
+further that iniquitous aggression of perfidious tyranny, there came in
+one of the brethren of the monastery, with a frightened look, and cried
+aloud, that John Knox was come, and had been all night in the town. At
+the news the spectators, as if moved by one spirit, gave a triumphant
+shout,--the clergy were thunderstruck,--some started from their seats,
+unconscious of what they did,--others threw themselves back where they
+sat,--and all appeared as if a judgment had been pronounced upon them.
+In the same moment the church began to skail,--the session was
+adjourned,--and the people ran in all directions. The cry rose
+everywhere, "John Knox is come!" All the town came rushing into the
+streets,--the old and the young, the lordly and the lowly, were seen
+mingling and marvelling together,--all tasks of duty, and servitude, and
+pleasure, were forsaken,--the sick-beds of the dying were deserted,--the
+priests abandoned their altars and masses, and stood pale and trembling
+at the doors of their churches,--mothers set down their infants on the
+floors, and ran to inquire what had come to pass,--funerals were
+suspended, and the impious and the guilty stood aghast, as if some
+dreadful apocalypse had been made;--travellers, with the bridles in
+their hands, lingering in profane discourse with their hosts, suddenly
+mounted, and speeded into the country with the tidings. At every cottage
+door and wayside bield, the inmates stood in clusters, silent and
+wondering, as horseman came following horseman, crying, "John Knox is
+come!" Barks that had departed, when they heard the news, bore up to
+tell others that they saw afar at sea. The shepherds were called in from
+the hills;--the warders on the castle, when, at the sound of many
+quickened feet approaching, they challenged the comers, were answered,
+"John Knox is come!" Studious men were roused from the spells of their
+books;--nuns, at their windows, looked out fearful and inquiring,--and
+priests and friars were seen standing by themselves, shunned like
+lepers. The whole land was stirred as with the inspiration of some new
+element, and the hearts of the persecutors were withered.
+
+"No tongue," often said my grandfather, "could tell the sense of that
+great event through all the bounds of Scotland, and the papistical
+dominators shrunk as if they had suffered in their powers and
+principalities, an awful and irremediable overthrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+When my grandfather left the Greyfriars, he went to the lodging of the
+Lord James Stuart, whom he found well instructed of all that had taken
+place, which he much marvelled at, having scarcely tarried by the way in
+going thither.
+
+"Now, Gilhaize," said my Lord, "the tidings fly like wildfire, and the
+Queen Regent, by the spirit that has descended into the hearts of the
+people, will be constrained to act one way or another. John Knox, as you
+perhaps know, stands under the ban of outlawry for conscience sake. In a
+little while we shall see whether he is still to be persecuted. If left
+free, the braird of the Lord, that begins to rise so green over all the
+land, will grow in peace to a plentiful harvest. But if he is to be
+hunted down, there will come such a cloud and storm as never raged
+before in Scotland. I speak to you thus freely, that you may report my
+frank sentiments to thir noble friends and trusty gentlemen, and say to
+them that I am girded for the field, if need be."
+
+He then put a list of several well-known friends of the Reformation
+ayont the frith into my grandfather's hands, adding, "I need not say
+that it is not fitting now to trust to paper, and therefore much will
+depend on yourself. The confidence that my friend the Earl, your master,
+has in you, makes me deal thus openly with you; and I may add, that if
+there is deceit in you, Gilhaize, I will never again believe the
+physiognomy of man--so go your ways; see all these, wheresoever they may
+be,--and take this purse for your charges."
+
+My grandfather accepted the paper and the purse; and reading over the
+paper, imprinted the names in it on his memory, and then said--
+
+"My Lord, I need not risk the possession of this paper; but it may be
+necessary to give me some token by which the lords and lairds therein
+mentioned may have assurance that I come from you."
+
+For some time the Lord James made no reply, but stood ruminating, with
+the forefinger of his left hand pressing his nether lip; then he
+observed,--
+
+"Your request is very needful;" and taking the paper, he mentioned
+divers things of each of the persons named in it, which he told my
+grandfather had passed between him and them severally, when none other
+was present. "By remembering them of these things," said he, "they will
+know that you are in verity sent from me."
+
+Being thus instructed, my grandfather left the Lord James, and
+proceeding forthwith to the pier of Leith, embarked in the Burntisland
+ferry-boat--and considering with himself, that the farthest way of those
+whom he was missioned to see ought to be the first informed, as the
+nearer had other ways and means of communion, he resolved to go forward
+to such of them as dwelt in Angus and Merns; by which resolution he
+reached Dundee shortly after the arrival there of the champion of the
+Reformation, John Knox.
+
+This resolution proved most wise and fortunate, for, on landing in that
+town, he found a great concourse of the Reformed from the two shires
+assembled there, and among them many of those to whom he was specially
+sent. They had come to go with their ministers before the Queen Regent's
+counsel at Stirling, determined to avow their adherence to the doctrines
+of which those pious men were accused. And it being foreseen that, as
+they went forward others would join, my grandfather thought he could do
+no better in his mission than mingle with them, the more especially as
+John Knox was also to be of that great company.
+
+On the day following, they accordingly all set forward towards
+Perth,--and they were a glorious army, mighty with the strength of their
+great ally the Lord of the hosts of heaven. No trumpet sounded in their
+march, nor was the courageous drum heard among them,--nor the shouts of
+earthly soldiery,--nor the neigh of the war-horse,--nor the voice of any
+captain. But they sang hymns of triumph, and psalms of the great things
+that Jehovah had of old done for his people; and though no banner was
+seen there, nor sword on the thighs of men of might, nor spears in the
+grasp of warriors, nor crested helmet, nor aught of the panoply of
+battle, yet the eye of faith beheld more than all these, for the hills
+and heights of Scotland were to its dazzled vision covered that day with
+the mustered armies of the dreadful God: the angels of his wrath in
+their burning chariots; the archangels of his omnipotence, calm in their
+armour of storms and flaming fires, and the Rider on the white horse,
+were all there.
+
+As the people with their ministers advanced, their course was like a
+river, which continually groweth in strength and spreadeth its waters as
+it rolls onward to the sea. On all sides came streams of new adherents
+to their holy cause, in so much that when they arrived at Perth it was
+thought best to halt there, lest the approach of so great a multitude,
+though without weapons, should alarm the Queen Regent's government.
+Accordingly they made a pause, and Erskine of Dun, one of the Lord James
+Stuart's friends, taking my grandfather with him, and only two other
+servants, rode forward to Stirling to represent to her Highness the
+faith and the firmness of the people.
+
+When they arrived, they found the town in consternation. Busy were the
+bailies, marshalling such of the burgesses as could be persuaded to take
+up arms, but all who joined them were feckless aged men, dealers and
+traffickers in commodities for the courtiers. Proud was the provost that
+day, and a type of the cause for which he was gathering his papistical
+remnants. At the sight of Dun and his three followers riding up the
+street to the castle, he was fain to draw out his sword and make a
+salutation; but it stuck sae dourly in that he was obligated to gar ane
+of the town-officers hold the scabbard, while he pulled with such might
+and main at the hilt, that the blade suddenly broke off, and back he
+stumbled, and up flew his heels, so that even my grandfather was
+constrained, notwithstanding the solemnity of the occasion, to join in
+the shout of laughter that rose thereat from all present. But provosts
+and bailies, not being men of war, should not expose themselves to such
+adversities.
+
+Nor was the fyke of impotent preparation within the walls of the castle
+better. The Queen had been in a manner lanerly with her ladies when the
+sough of the coming multitude reached her. The French guards had not
+come from Glasgow, and there was none of the warlike nobles of the
+papistical sect at that time at Stirling. She had therefore reason both
+for dread and panic, when the news arrived that all Angus and Merns had
+rebelled, for so it was at first reported.
+
+On the arrival of Dun, he was on the instant admitted to her presence;
+for she was at the time in the tapestried chamber, surrounded by her
+priests and ladies, and many officers, all consulting her according to
+their fears. The sight, said my grandfather, for he also went into the
+presence, was a proof to him that the cause of the papacy was in the
+dead-thraws, the judgments of all present being so evidently in a state
+of discomfiture and desertion.
+
+Dun going forward with the wonted reverences, the Queen said to him
+abruptly,--
+
+"Well, Erskine, what is this?"
+
+Whereupon he represented to her, in a sedate manner, that the Reformed
+ministers were not treated as they had been encouraged to hope;
+nevertheless, to show their submission to those in temporal authority
+over them, they were coming, in obedience to the citation, to stand
+trial.
+
+"But their retinue--when have delinquents come to trial so attended?"
+she exclaimed eagerly.
+
+"The people, please your Highness," said Dun, with a steadfastness of
+manner that struck every one with respect for him, "the people hold the
+same opinions and believe the same doctrines as their preachers, and
+they feel that the offence, if it be offence, of which the ministers are
+accused, lies equally against them, and therefore they have resolved to
+make their case a common cause."
+
+"And do they mean to daunt us from doing justice against seditious
+schismatics?" cried her Highness somewhat in anger.
+
+"They mean," replied Dun, "to let your Highness see whether it be
+possible to bring so many to judgment. Their sentiment, with one voice,
+is, Cursed be they that seek the effusion of blood, or war, or
+dissension. Let us possess the evangile, and none within Scotland shall
+be more obedient subjects. In sooth, madam, they hold themselves as
+guilty of the crime charged as their ministers are, and they will suffer
+with them."
+
+"Suffer! Call you rebellion suffering?" exclaimed the Queen.
+
+"They have not yet rebelled," said Dun, calmly; "they come to
+remonstrate with your Highness first; for, as Christians, they are loth
+to draw the sword. They have no arms with them, to the end that no one
+may dare to accuse them of any treason."
+
+"It is a perilous thing when subjects," said the Queen, much troubled,
+"declare themselves so openly against the authority of their rulers."
+
+"It is a bold thing for rulers," replied Dun, "to meddle with the
+consciences of their subjects."
+
+"How!" exclaimed the Queen, startled and indignant.
+
+"I will deal yet more plainly with your Highness," said he, firmly.
+"This pretended offence of which the Reformed are accused is not against
+the royal authority. They are good and true subjects, and, by their walk
+and conversation, bear testimony to the excellence and purity of those
+doctrines for which they are resolved to sacrifice their lives rather
+than submit to any earthly dictation. Their controversies pertain to
+things of Christ's kingdom,--it is a spiritual warfare. But the papists,
+conscious of their weakness in the argument, would fain see your
+Highness abandon that impartial justice which you were called of Heaven
+to administer in your great office, and to act factiously on their
+side, as if the cause of the Gospel could be determined by the arm of
+flesh."
+
+"What has brought you here?" exclaimed the Queen, bursting into tears.
+
+"To claim the fulfilment of your royal promises," said Dun, making a
+lowly reverence that by its humility took away all arrogance from the
+boldness of the demand.
+
+"I will," said she. "I am ever willing to be just, but this rising has
+shaken me with apprehensions; therefore, I pray you, Erskine, write to
+your brethren; bid them disperse; and tell them from me, that their
+ministers shall neither be tried nor molested."
+
+At these words, she took the arm of one of her ladies and hastily
+retired. Dun also withdrew, and the same hour sent my grandfather back
+to Perth with letters to the Congregation to the effect of her request
+and assurance.
+
+That same evening the multitude broke up and returned to their
+respective homes, rejoicing with an exceeding great joy at so blessed a
+termination of their weaponless Christian war. Dun, however, distrusting
+the influence of some of those who were of the Queen's council, and who
+had arrived at the castle soon after my grandfather's departure, did not
+return, as he had intended, next morning to Perth, but resolved to wait
+over the day of trial; or, at least, until the ministers were absolved
+from attendance on the summons, either by proclamation or other forms of
+law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+John Knox, among all the ministers who remained at Perth after the
+Congregation of the Reformed had dispersed, was the only one, my
+grandfather has been heard to say, that expressed no joy nor exultation
+at the assurances of the Queen Regent. "We shall see, we shall see," was
+all he said to those among them who gloried in the victory; adding, "But
+if there is truth in the Word of God, it is not in the nature of the
+Beast to do otherwise than evil," and his words of discernment and of
+wisdom were soon verified.
+
+Erskine of Dun, while he remained at Stirling, had his eyes and ears
+open; and in their porches he placed for sentinels, Distrust and
+Suspicion. He knew the fluctuating nature of woman; how every succeeding
+wave of feeling washes away the deepest traces that are traced on the
+quicksands of her unstable humours; and the danger having passed, he
+jealoused that the Queen Regent would forget her terrors, and give
+herself up to the headlong councils of the adversaries, whom, from her
+known adherence to the Romish ritual, he justly feared she was inclined
+to favour. Nor was he left long in doubt.
+
+On the evening before the day which had been appointed for the trial, no
+proclamation or other token was promulged to appease the anxiety of the
+cited preachers. He, therefore, thought it needful to be prepared for
+the worst; so, accordingly, he ordered his two serving-men to have his
+horses in readiness forth the town in the morning, and there to abide
+his orders.
+
+Without giving any other about him the slightest inkling of what he had
+conceited, he went up betimes to the castle, having learnt that the
+Queen Regent was that day to hold a council. And being a man held in
+great veneration by all parties, and well known to the household of the
+court, he obtained access to the ante-chamber after the council was met;
+and standing there, he was soon surprised by her Highness coming out,
+leaning on the arm of the Lord Wintoun, and seemingly much disturbed. On
+seeing him she was startled, and paused for a moment, but soon
+collecting all her pride, she dropped the Lord Wintoun's arm, and walked
+straight through the apartment without noticing any one, and holding
+herself aloft with an air of resolute dignity.
+
+Dun augured no good from this; but following till the Lord Wintoun had
+attended her to the end of the long painted gallery, where she stopped
+at the door that opened to her private apartments, he there awaited that
+nobleman's return, and inquired of him if the process against the
+protestant ministers had been rescinded.
+
+"No," said Wintoun, peevishly; "the summons have been called over, and
+they have not appeared, either in person or by agents."
+
+"Say you so, my Lord?" cried Dun; "and what is the result?"
+
+"Outlawry, for non-appearance, is pronounced against them," replied
+Wintoun, haughtily, and went straight back into the council-chamber.
+
+Dun thought it unnecessary to inquire farther; so, without making more
+ado, he instanter left the castle, and, going down the town, went to the
+spot where his horses stood ready, and, mounting, rode off with the
+tidings to Perth, grieving sorely at the gross perfidy and sad deceit
+which the Queen Regent had been so practised on, by the heads of the
+papist faction, to commit.
+
+It happened on the same day, that John Knox, who remained at Perth, a
+wakeful warder on a post of peril, was moved by the Spirit of God to
+preach a sermon, in which he exposed the idolatry of the mass and the
+depravity of image-worship. My grandfather was present, and he often
+said that preaching was an era and epoch worthy to be held in
+everlasting remembrance. It took place in the Greyfriars church. There
+was an understanding among the people that it was to be there; but many
+fearing the monks might attempt to prevent it, a vast concourse, chiefly
+men, assembled at the ordinary mass hour, and remained in the church
+till the Reformer came, so that, had the friars tried to keep him out,
+they could not have shut the doors.
+
+A lane was made through the midst of the crowd to admit the preacher to
+the pulpit; and when he was seen advancing, aged and feeble, and leaning
+on his staff, many were moved with compassion, and doubted if it could
+be the wonderful man of whom every tongue spoke. But when he had
+ascended and began, he seemed to undergo a great transfiguration. His
+abject mien and his sickly visage became majestic and glorious. His eyes
+lightened; his countenance shone as with the radiance of a spirit that
+blazed within; and his voice dirled to the heart like vehement thunder.
+
+Sometimes he spoke to the understandings of those who heard him, of that
+insane doctrine which represented the mission of the Redeemer to consist
+of believing, in despite of sight, and smell, and touch, and taste, that
+wafers and wine were actually the flesh and blood of a man that was
+crucified, with nails driven through his feet and hands, many hundred
+years ago. Then, rising into the contemplation of the divinity of the
+Saviour, he trampled under the feet of his eloquence a belief so
+contrary to the instincts and senses with which Infinite Wisdom has
+gifted his creatures; and bursting into ecstasy at the thought of this
+idolatrous invention, he called on the people to look at the images and
+the effigies in the building around them, and believe, if they could,
+that such things, the handy-works of carpenters and masons, were endowed
+with miraculous energies far above the faculties of man. Kindling into a
+still higher mood, he preached to those very images, and demanded of
+them, and those they represented, to show any proof that they were
+entitled to reverence. "God forgive my idolatry!" he exclaimed. "I
+forget myself--these things are but stocks and stones."
+
+Not one of all who heard him that day ever gave ear again to papistry.
+
+When he had made an end, and retired from the church, many still
+lingered, discoursing of his marvellous lecture, and among others, my
+grandfather.
+
+An imprudent priest belonging to the convent, little aware of the great
+conversion which had been wrought, began to prepare for the celebration
+of the mass, and a callan who was standing near, encouraged by the
+contempt which some of those around expressed at this folly, jibed the
+priest, and he drove him away. The boy, however, returned, and levelling
+a stone at a crucifix on the altar, shattered it to pieces. In an
+instant, as if caught by a whirlwind, the whole papistical trumpery was
+torn down and dashed into fragments. The cry of "Down with the idols!"
+became universal: hundreds on hundreds came rushing to the spot. The
+magistrates and the ministers came flying to beseech order and to soothe
+the multitude; but a Divine ire was upon the people, who heard no voice
+but only the cry of "Down with the idols!" and their answer was, "Burn,
+burn, and destroy!"
+
+The monasteries of the Black and the Grey Friars were sacked and
+rendered desolate, and the gorgeous edifice of the Carthusian monks
+levelled to the ground.
+
+So dreadful a tumult had never before been heard of within the realm.
+Many of the best of the Reformed deplored the handle it would give to
+the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with
+consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal
+outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and
+complete. Sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious
+overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the
+threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of
+leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light,
+and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. To
+no one did the event give pleasure but to John Knox. "The work," said
+he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the
+nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away."
+
+The thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which
+this intemperance would cause to the Queen Regent; and my grandfather,
+seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return
+the same evening by the Queensferry to the Lord James Stuart at
+Edinburgh. For the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of
+reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous
+offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to
+defend themselves.
+
+Thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the Queen was the
+people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted
+quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their
+respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird
+themselves for battle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations
+which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the
+wrath of the people against the images of the Romish idolatry; and
+therefore I shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what
+farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who,
+when he returned to Edinburgh, found the Lord James Stuart on the point
+of proceeding to the Queen Regent at Stirling, and he went with him
+thither.
+
+On arriving at the castle, they found the French soldiery all collected
+in the town, and her Highness, like another fiery Bellona, vowing to
+avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of Perth;
+and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of substance she
+could think of, to come with their vassals, that she might be enabled to
+chastise such sacrilegious rebellion.
+
+The Lord James Stuart seeing her so bent on extremities, and knowing by
+his secret intelligences, that strong powers were ready to start forward
+at a moment's warning, both in the West, and in Fife, Angus and Merns,
+entreated her to listen to more moderate councils than those of revenge
+and resentment, and rather to think of pacification than of punishment.
+But she was fiery with passion, and a blinded instrument in the hands of
+Providence to work out the deliverance of the land, even by the crooked
+policy that her papistical counsellors hurried her into. So that the
+Lord James, seeing she was transported beyond reason, sent my
+grandfather and other secret emissaries to warn the Lords and leaders of
+the Congregation, and to tell them that her Highness was minded to
+surprise Perth as soon as she had gathered a sufficient array.
+
+The conduct of that great worthy was in this full of wisdom, and
+foresight, and policy. By staying with the Queen he incurred the
+suspicion of the Reformed, to whom he was a devoted friend; but he
+gained a knowledge of the intents of their enemies, by which he was
+enabled to turn aside the edge of vengeance when it was meant to be most
+deadly. Accordingly, reckless of the opinions of men, he went forward
+with the Queen's army towards Perth; but before they had crossed the
+Water of Earn, word was brought to her Highness that the Earl of
+Glencairn, at the head of two thousand five hundred of the Reformed, was
+advancing from the shire of Ayr.
+
+Such were the fruits of my grandfather's mission to the Lord Boyd, and
+he heard likewise that the bold and free lairds of Angus and Merns, with
+all their followers, had formed themselves in battle-array to defend the
+town. Still, however, her Highness was resolute to go on; for she was
+instigated by her feminine anger, even as much as by the wicked councils
+of the papist lords by whom she was surrounded.
+
+But when she reached the heights that overlooked the sweet valley of the
+Tay, whose green and gentle bosom was then sparkling with the glances of
+warlike steel, her heart was softened, and she called to her the Lord
+James Stuart and the young Earl of Argyle--the old Lord, his father, had
+died some time prior,--and sent them to the army of the Congregation,
+that peace might still be preserved. They accordingly went into the
+town, and sending notice to the leaders of the Reformed to appoint two
+of their party to confer with them, John Knox and the Master Willocks
+were nominated. My grandfather, who attended the Lord James on this
+occasion, was directed by him to receive the two deputies at the door
+and to conduct them in; and when they came he was much troubled to
+observe the state of their minds; for Master Willocks was austere in his
+looks as if resolved on quarrel, and the Reformer was agitated and
+angry, muttering to himself as he ascended the stairs, making his staff
+often dirl on the steps. No sooner were they shown into the presence of
+the two lords, even before the door was shut, than John Knox began to
+upbraid the Lord James for having broken the covenant and forsaken the
+Congregation.
+
+Much to that effect, my grandfather afterwards learnt, passed; but the
+Lord James pacified him with the assurance that his heart and spirit
+were still true to the cause, and that he had come with Argyle to
+prevent, if possible, the shedding of blood; he likewise declared both
+for himself and the Earl, who had hitherto always abided by the Queen,
+that if she refused to listen to reasonable terms, or should break any
+treaty entered into, they would openly take part against her.
+
+Upon these assurances a treaty was concluded, by which it was agreed
+that both armies should retire peaceably to their respective
+habitations; that the town should be made accessible to the Queen
+Regent; that no molestation should be given to those who were then in
+arms for the Congregation, and no persecutions undertaken against the
+Reformed,--with other covenants calculated to soothe the Congregation
+and allay men's fears. But no sooner was this treaty ratified, the army
+of the Congregation dispersed, and her Highness in possession of the
+town, than it was manifest no vows nor obligations were binding towards
+the heretics, as the Reformed were called. The Queen's French guards,
+even when attending her into the town, fired into the house of a known
+zealous protestant and killed his son; the inhabitants were plundered
+and insulted with impunity, and the magistrates were dismissed to make
+way for men devoted to papistry.
+
+The Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stuart, filled with wrath and
+indignation at such open perfidy, went straight into her Highness'
+presence without asking audience, and reproached her with deceit and
+craftiness; and having so vented their minds, instanter quitted the
+court and the town, and, attended by my grandfather and a few other
+servants, departed for Fife, to which John Knox had also retired after
+the dispersion of the Congregation at Perth. The Lord James, in virtue
+of being Prior of St Andrews, went thither attended by the Earl, and
+sent my grandfather to Crail, where the Reformer was then preaching, to
+invite him to meet them and others of the Congregation with all
+convenient expedition.
+
+My grandfather never having been before in Crail, and not knowing how
+the people there might stand affected, instead of inquiring for John
+Knox, bethought himself of his acquaintance with Bailie Kilspinnie, and
+so speired his way to his dwelling, little hoping, from the fearful
+nature of that honest man, he would find him within. But, contrary to
+his expectation, he was not only there, but he welcomed my grandfather
+as an old and very cordial friend, leading him into his house and making
+much of him, telling him, with a voice of cheerfulness, that the day of
+reckoning had at last overtaken the lascivious idolaters.
+
+Then he caused to be brought in before my grandfather the five pretty
+babies that his wife had abandoned for her papistical paramour, the
+eldest of whom was but turned of nine years. The thoughts of their
+mother's shame overcame their father at that moment, and the tears
+coming into his eyes he sobbed aloud as he looked at them, and wept
+bitterly, while they flocked around, and wreathed him, as it were, with
+their caresses and innocent blandishments. So tender a scene melted my
+grandfather's spirit into sadness; and he could not remain master of
+himself, when the eldest, a mild and meek little maiden, said to him, as
+if to excuse her father's sorrow, "A foul friar made my mother an
+ill-doer, and took her away ae night when she was just done wi'
+harkening our prayers."
+
+At this juncture, a blooming and modest-eyed damsel came into the room;
+but, seeing a stranger, she drew back and was going away, when the
+bailie, drying his eyes, said,--
+
+"Come ben, Elspa; this is the young man that ye hae heard me sae commend
+for his kind friendship to me, in that dotage-dauner that I made in my
+distraction to St Andrews. This," he added, turning to my grandfather,
+"is Elspa Ruet, the sister of that misfortunate woman;--to my helpless
+bairns she does their mother's duty."
+
+Elspa made a gentle beck as her brother-in-law was speaking, and,
+turning round, dropt a tear on the neck of the youngest baby, as she
+leant down to take it up for a screen to hide her blushing face, that
+reddent with the thought at seeing one who had so witnessed her sister's
+shame.
+
+From that hour her image had a dear place in my grandfather's bosom, and
+after the settlement of the Reformation throughout the realm, he courted
+her, and she became his wife, and in process of time my grandmother. But
+of her manifold excellencies I shall have occasion to speak more at
+large hereafter, for she was no ordinary woman, but a saint throughout
+life, returning in a good old age to her Maker, almost as blameless as
+she came from His pure hands; and nothing became her more in all her
+piety, than the part she acted towards her guilty sister.
+
+Having taken away the children, she then brought in divers refreshments,
+and a flagon of posset; but she remained not with the bailie and my
+grandfather while they partook thereof; so that they were left free to
+converse as they listed, and my grandfather was glad to find, as I have
+already said, that the poor man had triumphed over his fond grief, and
+was reconciled to his misfortunes as well as any father could well be,
+with so many deserted babies, and three of them daughters.
+
+He likewise learnt, with no less solace and satisfaction, that the
+Reformed were strong in Crail, and that the magistrates and beinest
+burgesses had been present on the day before at the preaching of John
+Knox, and had afterwards suffered the people to demolish the images and
+all the monuments of papistry, without molestation or hinderance; so
+that the town was cleansed of the pollution of idolatry, and the worship
+of humble and contrite hearts established there, instead of the pagan
+pageantry of masses and altars.
+
+After the repast was finished, the bailie conducted my grandfather to
+the house where John Knox then lodged, to whom he communicated his
+message from the Lord James Stuart.
+
+"Tell your master," was the reply of the Reformer, "that I will be with
+him, God willing; and God is willing, for this invitation, and the state
+of men's minds, maketh His will manifest. Yea, I was minded myself to go
+thither; for that same city of St Andrews is the Zion of Scotland. Of
+old, the glad tidings of salvation were first heard there,--there,
+amidst the damps and the darkness of ages, the ancient Culdees, men
+whose memory is still fragrant for piety and purity of faith and life,
+supplied the oil of the lamp of the living God for a period of four
+hundred years, independent of pope, prelate, or any human supremacy.
+There it was that a spark of their blessed embers was, in our own day,
+first blown into a flame,--and there, please God, where I, His unworthy
+instrument, was condemned as a criminal for His truth's sake, shall I,
+in His strength, be the herald of His triumph and great victory."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+When my grandfather had returned to the bailie's house after delivering
+his message to the Reformer, he spent an evening of douce but pleasant
+pastime with him and the modest Elspa Ruet, whose conversation was far
+above her degree, and seasoned with the sweet savour of holiness. But
+ever and anon, though all parties strove to eschew the subject, they
+began to speak of her erring sister, the bailie compassionating her
+continuance in sin as a man and a Christian should, but showing no wish
+nor will to mind her any more as kith or kin to him or his; a temper
+that my grandfather was well content to observe he had attained. Not so
+was that of Elspa; but her words were few and well chosen, and they made
+a deep impression on my grandfather; for she seemed fain to hide what
+was passing in her heart.
+
+Twice or thrice she spoke of the ties of nature, intimating that they
+were as a bond and obligation laid on by THE MAKER, whereby kindred were
+bound to stand by one another in weal or in woe, lest those who sinned
+should be utterly abandoned by all the world. The which tender and
+Christian sentiment, though it was melodious to my grandfather's spirit,
+pierced it with a keen pain; for he thought of the manner in which he
+had left his own parents, even though it was for the blessed sake of
+religion, and his bosom was at the moment filled with sorrow. But, when
+he said how much he regretted and was yet unrepentant of that step,
+Elspa cheered him with a consolation past utterance, by reminding him,
+that he had neither left them to want nor to sin; that, by quitting the
+shelter of their wing, he had but obeyed the promptings of nature, and
+that if, at any time hereafter, father or mother stood in need of his
+aid or exhortation, he could still do his duty.
+
+Without well considering what he said, the bailie observed on this, that
+he was surprised to hear her say so, and yet allow her sister to remain
+so long unreproved in her offences.
+
+Elspa Ruet to this made no immediate reply,--she was indeed unable; and
+my grandfather sympathised with her, for the sting had plainly
+penetrated to the very marrow of her soul. At last, however, she said,--
+
+"Your reproach is just, I hae been to blame baith to Heaven and man--but
+the thing has na been unthought, only I kent na how to gang about the
+task; and yet what gars me say sae but a woman's weakness, for the
+road's no sae lang to St Andrews, and surely iniquity does not there so
+abound, that no ane would help me to the donsie woman's bower."
+
+My grandfather, on hearing this, answered, that if she was indeed minded
+to try to rescue her sister, he was ready and willing to do all with her
+and for her that she could desire; but, bearing in mind the light
+woman's open shame, he added, "I'm fearful it's yet owre soon to hope
+for her amendment: she'll hae to fin the evil upshot of her ungodly
+courses, I doubt, before she'll be wrought into a frame of sincere
+penitence."
+
+"Nevertheless," replied Elspa Ruet, "I will try; it's my duty, and my
+sisterly love bids me no to be slothful in the task." At which words she
+burst into sore and sorrowful weeping, saying, "Alas, alas! that she
+should have so fallen!--I loved her--oh! naebody can tell how
+dearly--even as I loved myself. When I first saw my ain face in a
+looking-glass I thought it was her, and kissed it for the likeness, in
+pity that it didna look sae fair as it was wont to be. But it's the
+Lord's pleasure, and in permitting her to sink so low HE has no doubt
+some lesson to teach."
+
+Thus, from less to more, as they continued conversing, it was agreed
+that Elspa Ruet should ride on a pad ahint my grandfather next morning
+to St Andrews, in order to try if the thing could be to move her sister
+to the humiliation of contrition for her loose life. And some small
+preparations being needful, Elspa departed and left the bailie and my
+grandfather together.
+
+"But," said my grandfather to him, after she had been some time away,
+"is't your design to take the unfortunate woman back among your innocent
+lassie bairns?"
+
+"No," replied the bailie; "that's no a thing to be now thought of;
+please Providence, she'll ne'er again darken my door; I'll no, however,
+allow her to want. Her mother, poor auld afflicted woman, that has ne'er
+refraint from greeting since her flight, she'll tak her in; but atween
+her and me there's a divorce for ever."
+
+By daylight my grandfather had his horse at the door; and Elspa having
+borrowed the provost's lady's pad overnight, it was buckled on, and they
+were soon after on the road.
+
+It was a sunny morning in June, and all things were bright, and blithe,
+and blooming. The spirits of youth, joy and enjoyment were spread about
+on the earth. The butterflies, like floating lilies, sailed from blossom
+to blossom, and the gowans, the bright and beautiful eyes of the summer,
+shone with gladness, as Nature walked on bank and brae, in maiden pride,
+spreading and showing her new flowery mantle to the sun. The very airs
+that stirred the glittering trees were soft and genial as the breath of
+life; and the leaves of the aspine seemed to lap the sunshine like the
+tongues of young and happy creatures that delight in their food.
+
+As my grandfather and Elspa Ruet rode along together, they partook of
+the universal benignity with which all things seemed that morning so
+graciously adorned, and their hearts were filled with the hope that
+their united endeavours to save her fallen sister would be blessed with
+success. But when they came in sight of the papal towers and gorgeous
+edifices of St Andrews, which then raised their proud heads, like Babel,
+so audaciously to the heavens, they both became silent.
+
+My grandfather's thoughts ran on what might ensue if the Archbishop were
+to subject him to his dominion, and he resolved, as early as possible,
+to make known his arrival to the Lord James Stuart, who, in virtue of
+being head of the priory, was then resident there, and to claim his
+protection. Accordingly he determined to ride with Elspa Ruet to the
+house of the vintner in the Shoegate, of which I have already spoken,
+and to leave her under the care of Lucky Kilfauns, as the hostess was
+called, until he had done so. But fears and sorrows were busy with the
+fancy of his fair companion; and it was to her a bitter thing, as she
+afterwards told him, to think that the purpose of her errand was to
+entreat a beloved sister to leave a life of shame and sin, and sadly
+doubting if she would succeed.
+
+Being thus occupied with their respective cogitations, they entered the
+city in silence, and reached the vintner's door without having exchanged
+a word for several miles. There Elspa alighted, and being commended to
+the care of Lucky Kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was
+a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait
+to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the
+porter, and was admitted to the Lord Prior, as the Lord James was there
+papistically called.
+
+Having told his Lordship that he had delivered his message to John Knox,
+and that the Reformer would not fail to attend the call, he then related
+partly what had happened to himself in his former sojourn at St Andrews,
+and how and for what end he had brought Elspa Ruet there that day with
+him, entreating the Lord James to give him his livery and protection,
+for fear of the Archbishop; which, with many pleasing comments on his
+devout and prudent demeanour, that noble worthy most readily vouchsafed,
+and my grandfather returned to the vintner's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa
+had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and
+intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising
+with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she
+had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's
+side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and
+never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the
+condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
+But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for
+so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,
+after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa
+should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there
+for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on
+the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former
+guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at
+the widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while
+Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa
+Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the
+priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.
+
+When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and met
+with no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop's
+men, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and looked
+after him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Much
+he desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, the
+seneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquire
+for him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,
+he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught wherein
+there was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.
+
+After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of the
+stripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad to
+search for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where my
+grandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him a
+groat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that he
+would be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's,
+where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an hour
+or two.
+
+The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar
+towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to
+conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with
+all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'
+grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, they
+worked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her or
+my grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he soon
+came with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail to
+keep the tryst.
+
+That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin
+might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky
+Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to
+prepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a milder
+mediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against the
+concubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, and
+blacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with many
+other vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked woman
+deserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for her
+unregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to St
+Andrews only to lay her head in the coffin.
+
+The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky
+Kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it
+was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till
+the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered
+along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds
+and imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderly
+shopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laid
+together; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost between
+two of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and with
+very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the
+causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at
+them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what
+they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends
+and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened
+much sadness of heart.
+
+The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,
+meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to
+a greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at one
+door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.
+One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often
+addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as
+awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been
+a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then
+somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she
+eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among
+the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and
+multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my
+grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's
+daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married
+some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.
+
+As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin
+mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young
+master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning
+on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders
+pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,
+scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was
+obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of
+no comfort.
+
+All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my
+grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not
+like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty
+were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's
+armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,
+and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and
+on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town,
+and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told that
+they expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet to
+preach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so;
+for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit,
+had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer,
+made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.
+But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public
+nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour
+appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he
+found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself,
+weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought
+of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind
+endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+As the time of appointment drew near, Elspa Ruet was enabled to call in
+her wandering and anxious thoughts, and, strengthened by her duty, the
+blessing of the tranquil mind was shed upon her. Her tears were dried
+up, and her countenance shone with a serene benignity. When she was an
+aged, withered woman, my grandfather has been heard to say that he never
+remembered her appearance without marvelling at the special effusion of
+holiness and beauty which beamed and brightened upon her in that trying
+hour, nor without thinking that he still beheld the glory of its
+twilight glowing through the dark and faded clouds of her old age.
+
+They had not sat long when a tapping was heard at the widow's door, and
+my grandfather, starting up, retired into a distant corner of the room,
+behind a big napery press, and sat down in the obscurity of its shadow.
+Elspa remained in her seat beside the table, on which a candle was
+burning, and, as it stood behind the door, she could not be seen by any
+coming in till they had passed into the middle of the floor.
+
+In little more than the course of a minute, the voice of her sister was
+heard, and light footsteps on the timber stair. The door was then
+opened, and Marion swirled in with an uncomely bravery. Elspa started
+from her seat. The guilty and convicted creature uttered a shriek; but
+in the same moment her pious sister clasped her with loving-kindness in
+her arms, and bursting into tears, wept bitterly, with sore sobs, for
+some time on her bosom, which was wantonly unkerchiefed.
+
+After a short space of time, with confusion of face, and frowns of
+mortification, and glances of rage, the abandoned Marion disengaged
+herself from her sister's fond and sorrowful embraces, and, retreating
+to a chair, sat down, and seemed to muster all the evil passions of the
+guilty breast,--fierce anger, sharp hatred, and gnawing contempt; and a
+bad boldness of look that betokened a worse spirit than them all.
+
+"It was na to see the like of you I cam' here," said she, with a
+scornful toss of her head.
+
+"I ken that, Marion," replied Elspa, mournfully.
+
+"And what business then hae ye to come to snool me?"
+
+Elspa for a little while made no answer to this, but, drying her eyes,
+she went to her seat composedly, and then said,--
+
+"'Cause ye're my sister, and brought shame and disgrace on a' your
+family. O, Marion, I'm wae to say this! but ye're owre brave in your
+sin."
+
+"Do ye think I'll e'er gae back to that havering, daunering cuif o' a
+creature, the Crail bailie?"
+
+"He's a man o' mair worth and conduct, Marion," replied her sister,
+firmly, "than to put that in your power--even, woman, if ye were
+penitent, and besought him for charity."
+
+"Weel, weel, no to clishmaclaver about him. How's a' wi' the bairns?"
+
+"Are ye no frighted, Marion, to speer sic a question, when ye think how
+ye left them, and what for ye did sae?"
+
+"Am na I their mither, have na I a right to speer?"
+
+"No," said Elspa; "when ye forgot that ye were their father's wife, they
+lost their mother."
+
+"Ye need na be sae snell wi' your taunts," exclaimed Marion, evidently
+endeavouring to preserve the arrogance she had assumed; "ye need na be
+sae snell; I'm far better off, and happier than e'er I was in James
+Kilspinnie's aught."
+
+"That's no possible," said her sister. "It would be an unco thing of
+Heaven to let wickedness be happier than honesty."
+
+"But, Marion, dinna deceive yoursel, ye hae nae sure footing on the
+steading where ye stan'. The Bishop will nae mair, than your guidman,
+thole your loose life to him. If he kent ye were here, I doubt he would
+let you bide, and what would become of you then?"
+
+"He's no sic a fool as to be angry that I am wi' my sister."
+
+"That may be," replied Elspa: "I'm thinking, however, if in my place
+here he saw but that young man," and she pointed to my grandfather,
+whom her sister had not till then observed, "he would have some cause to
+consider."
+
+Marion attempted to laugh scornfully, but her heart gurged within her,
+and instead of laughter, her voice broke out into wild and horrid yells,
+and falling back in her chair, she grew stiff and ghastly to behold, in
+so much that both Elspa and my grandfather were terrified, and had to
+work with her for some time before they were able to recover her; nor
+indeed did she come rightly to herself till she got relief by tears; but
+they were tears of rage, and not shed for any remorse on account of her
+foul fault. Indeed, no sooner was she come to herself, than she began to
+rail at her sister and my grandfather, calling them by all the terms of
+scorn that her tongue could vent. At last she said,--
+
+"But nae doubt ye're twa Reformers."
+
+"Ay," replied Elspa, "in a sense we are sae, for we would fain help to
+reform you."
+
+But after a long, faithful, and undaunted endeavour on the part of
+Elspa, in this manner, to reach the sore of her sinful conscience, she
+saw that all her ettling was of no avail, and her heart sank, and she
+began to weep, saying, "O, Marion, Marion, ye were my dear sister ance;
+but frae this night, if ye leave me to gang again to your sins, I hope
+the Lord will erase the love I bear you utterly out of my heart, and
+leave me but the remembrance of what ye were when we were twa wee
+playing lassies, clapping our young hands, and singing for joy in the
+bonny spring mornings that will never, never come again."
+
+The guilty Marion was touched with her sorrow, and for a moment seemed
+to relent and melt, replying in a softened accent,--
+
+"But tell me, Eppie, for ye hae na telt me yet, how did ye leave my
+weans?"
+
+"Would you like to see them?" said Elspa, eagerly.
+
+"I would na like to gang to Crail," replied her sister, thoughtfully;
+"but if--" and she hesitated.
+
+"Surely, Marion," exclaimed Elspa, with indignation, "ye're no sae lost
+to all shame as to wish your innocent dochters to see you in the midst
+of your iniquities?"
+
+Marion reddened, and sat abashed and rebuked for a short time in
+silence, and then reverting to her children, she said, somewhat
+humbly,--
+
+"But tell me how they are--poor things!"
+
+"They are as weel as can be hoped for," replied Elspa, moved by her
+altered manner; "but they'll lang miss the loss of their mother's care.
+O, Marion, how could ye quit them! The beasts that perish are kinder to
+their young, for they nourish and protect them till they can do for
+themselves; but your wee May can neither yet gang nor speak. She's your
+very picture, Marion, as like you as--God forbid that she ever be like
+you!"
+
+The wretched mother was unable to resist the energy of her sister's
+appeal, and, bursting into tears, wept bitterly for some time.
+
+Elspa, compassionating her contrition, rose, and, taking her kindly by
+the hand, said, "Come, Marion, we'll gang hame--let us leave this guilty
+city--let us tarry no longer within its walls--the curse of Heaven is
+darkening over it, and the storm of the hatred of its corruption is
+beginning to lighten:--let us flee from the wrath that is to come."
+
+"I'll no gang back to Crail--I dare na gang there--everyone would haud
+out their fingers at me--I canna gang to Crail--Eppie, dinna bid
+me--I'll mak away wi' mysel' before I'll gang to Crail."
+
+"Dinna say that," replied her sister: "O, Marion, if ye felt within the
+humiliation of a true penitent, ye would na speak that way, but would
+come and hide your face in your poor mother's bosom; often, often,
+Marion, did she warn you no to be ta'en up wi' the pride an' bravery of
+a fine outside."
+
+"Ye may gang hame yoursel'," exclaimed the impenitent woman, starting
+from her seat; "I'll no gang wi' you to be looket down on by every one.
+If I should hae had a misfortune, nane's the sufferer but mysel'; and
+what would I hae to live on wi' my mother? She's pinched enough for her
+ain support. No; since I hae't in my power, I'll tak my pleasure o't.
+Onybody can repent when they like, and it's no convenient yet for me.
+Since I hae slippit the tether, I may as well tak a canter o'er the
+knowes. I won'er how I could be sae silly as to sit sae lang willy-waing
+wi' you about that blethering bodie, James Kilspinnie. He could talk o'
+naething but the town-council, the cost o' plaiding, and the price o'
+woo'. No, Eppie, I'll no gang wi' you, but I'll be glad if ye'll gang
+o'er the gait and tak your bed wi' me. I hae a braw bower--and, let me
+tell you, this is no a house of the best repute."
+
+"Is yours ony better?" replied Elspa, fervently. "No, Marion; sooner
+would I enter the gates of death, than darken your guilty door. Shame
+upon you, shame!--But the sweet Heavens, in their gracious hour of
+mercy, will remember the hope that led me here, and some day work out a
+blessed change. The prayers of an afflicted parent, and the cries of
+your desolate babies, will assuredly bring down upon you the purifying
+fires of self-condemnation. Though a wicked pride at this time withholds
+you from submitting to the humiliation which is the just penalty of your
+offences, still the day is not far off when you will come begging for a
+morsel of bread to those that weep for your fall, and implore you to
+eschew the evil of your way."
+
+To these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the
+miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her
+sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger.
+My grandfather then conveyed the mournful Elspa back to the house of
+Lucky Kilfauns, and returned to the priory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The next day, Elspa Ruet, under the escorting of my grandfather, was
+minded to have gone home to Crail, but the news that John Knox was to
+preach on the morrow at St Andrews had spread far and wide; no man could
+tell by what wonderful reverberation the tidings had awakened the whole
+land. From all quarters droves of the Reformed and the pious came
+pressing to the gates of the city, like sheep to the fold and doves to
+the windows. The Archbishop and the priests and friars were smitten with
+dread and consternation; the doom of their fortunes was evident in the
+distraction of their minds--but the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James
+Stuart, at the priory, remained calm and collected.
+
+Foreseeing that the step they had taken would soon be visited by the
+wrath of the Queen Regent, they resolved to prepare for the worst, and
+my grandfather was ordered to hold himself in readiness for a journey.
+Thus was he prevented from going to Crail with Elspa Ruet, who, with a
+heavy heart, went back in the evening with the man and horses that
+brought the Reformer to the town. For John Knox, though under the ban of
+outlawry, was so encouraged with inward assurances from on High, that he
+came openly to the gate, and passed up the crown of the causey on to the
+priory, in the presence of the Archbishop's guards, of all the people,
+and of the astonished and dismayed priesthood.
+
+As soon as the Antichrist heard of his arrival, he gave orders for all
+his armed retainers, to the number of more than a hundred men-at-arms,
+to assemble in the cloisters of the monastery of the Blackfriars; for he
+was a man of a soldierly spirit, and though a loose and immoral
+churchman, would have made a valiant warrior; and going thither himself,
+he thence sent word to the Lord James Stuart at the priory, that if John
+Knox dared to preach in the cathedral, as was threatened, he would order
+his guard to fire on him in the pulpit.
+
+My grandfather, with others of the retinue of the two noblemen, had
+accompanied the Archbishop's messenger into the Prior's chamber, where
+they were sitting with John Knox when this bold challenge to the
+champion of Christ's cause was delivered; and it was plain that both
+Argyle and the Lord James were daunted by it, for they well knew the
+fearlessness and the fierceness of their consecrated adversary.
+
+After the messenger had retired, and the Lord James, in a particular
+manner, had tacitly signified to my grandfather to remain in the room,
+and had taken a slip of paper, he began to write thereon, while Argyle
+said to the Reformer,--
+
+"Master Knox, this is what we could na but expect; and though it may
+seem like a misdooting of our cause now to desist, I'm in a swither if
+ye should mak the attempt to preach."
+
+The Reformer made no answer; and the Lord James, laying down his pen,
+also said, "My thoughts run wi' Argyle's,--considering the weakness of
+our train and the Archbishop's preparations, with his own regardless
+character,--I do think we should for a while rest in our intent. The
+Queen Regent has come to Falkland wi' her French force, and we are in
+no condition to oppose their entrance into the town; besides, your
+appearance in the pulpit may lead to the sacrifice of your own most
+precious life, and the lives of many others who will no doubt stand
+forth in your defence. Whether, therefore, you ought, in such a
+predicament, to think of preaching, is a thing to be well considered."
+
+"In the strength of the Lord," exclaimed John Knox, with the voice of an
+apostle, "I will preach. God is my witness that I never preached in
+contempt of any man, nor would I willingly injure any creature; but I
+cannot delay my call to-morrow if I am not hindered by violence. As for
+the fear of danger that may come to me, let no man be solicitous; for my
+life is in the custody of HIM whose glory I seek, and threats will not
+deter me from my duty when Heaven so offereth the occasion. I desire
+neither the hand nor the weapon of man to defend me; I only crave
+audience, which, if it be denied to me here at this time, I must seek
+where I may have it."
+
+The manner and confidence with which this was spoken silenced and
+rebuked the two temporal noblemen, and they offered no more
+remonstrance, but submitted as servants, to pave the way for this intent
+of his courageous piety. Accordingly, after remaining a short time, as
+if in expectation to hear what the Earl of Argyle might further have to
+say, the Lord James Stuart took up his pen again, and when he had
+completed his writing, he gave the paper to my grandfather (it was a
+list of some ten or twelve names) saying, "Make haste, Gilhaize, and let
+these, our friends in Angus, know the state of peril in which we stand.
+Tell them what has chanced; how the gauntlet is thrown; and that our
+champion has taken it up, and is prepared for the onset."
+
+My grandfather forthwith departed on his errand, and spared not the spur
+till he had delivered his message to every one whose names were written
+in the paper; and their souls were kindled and the spirit of the Lord
+quickened in their hearts.
+
+The roads sparkled with the feet of summoning horsemen, and the towns
+rung with the sound of warlike preparations.
+
+On the third day, towards the afternoon, my grandfather embarked at
+Dundee on his return, and was landed at the Fife water-side. There were
+many in the boat with him; and it was remarked by some among them, that,
+for several days, no one had been observed to smile, and that all men
+seemed in the expectation of some great event.
+
+The weather being loun and very sultry, he travelled slowly with those
+who were bound for St Andrews, conversing with them on the troubles of
+the time, and the clouds that were gathering and darkening over poor
+Scotland; but every one spoke from the faith of his own bosom, that the
+terrors of the storm would not be of long duration--so confident were
+those unlettered men of the goodness of Christ's cause in that epoch of
+tribulation.
+
+While they were thus communing together, they came in sight of the city,
+with its coronal of golden spires, and Babylonian pride of idolatrous
+towers, and they halted for a moment to contemplate the gorgeous
+insolence with which Antichrist had there built up and invested the
+blood-stained throne of his blasphemous usurpation.
+
+"The walls of Jericho," said one of the travellers, "fell at the sound
+but of ram's horns, and shall yon Babel withstand the preaching of John
+Knox?"
+
+Scarcely had he said the words, when the glory of its magnificence was
+wrapt with a shroud of dust; a dreadful peal of thunder came rolling
+soon after, though not a spark of vapour was seen in all the ether of
+the blue sky; and the rumble of a dreadful destruction was then heard.
+My grandfather clapped spurs to his horse, and galloped on towards the
+town. The clouds rose thicker and filled the whole air. Shouts and
+cries, as he drew near, were mingled with the crash of falling edifices.
+The earth trembled, and his horse stood still, regardless of the rowels,
+as if it had seen the angel of the Lord standing in his way. On all
+sides monks and nuns came flying from the town, wringing their hands as
+if the horrors of the last judgment had surprised them in their sins.
+The guards of the Archbishop were scattered among them like chaff in the
+swirl of the wind: then his Grace came himself on Sir David Hamilton's
+fleet mare, with Sir David and divers of his household fast following.
+The wrath of heaven was behind them, and they rattled past my
+grandfather like the distempered phantoms that hurry through the dreams
+of dying men.
+
+My grandfather's horse at last obeyed the spur, and he rode on and into
+the city, the gates of which were deserted. There he beheld on all sides
+that the Lord had indeed put the besom of destruction into the hands of
+the Reformers; and that not one of all the buildings which had been
+polluted by the papistry--no, not one--had escaped the erasing
+fierceness of its ruinous sweep. The presence of the magistrates lent
+the grace of authority to the zeal of the people, and all things were
+done in order. The idols were torn down from the altars, and
+deliberately broken by the children with hammers into pieces. There was
+no speaking; all was done in silence; the noise of the falling churches,
+the rending of the shrines, and the breaking of the images were the only
+sounds heard. But for all that, the zeal of not a few was, even in the
+midst of their dread solemnity, alloyed with covetousness. My
+grandfather himself saw one of the town-council slip the bald head, in
+silver, of one of the twelve apostles into his pouch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+The triumph of the truth at St Andrews was followed by the victorious
+establishment, from that day thenceforward, of the Reformation in
+Scotland. The precautions taken by the deep forecasting mind of the Lord
+James Stuart, through the instrumentality of my grandfather and others,
+were of inexpressible benefit to the righteous cause. It was foreseen
+that the Queen Regent, who had come to Falkland, would be prompt to
+avenge the discomfiture of her sect, the papists; but the zealous
+friends of the Gospel, seconding the resolution of the Lords of the
+Congregation, enabled them to set all her power at defiance.
+
+With an attendance of few more than a hundred horse, and about as many
+foot, the Earl of Argyle and the Lord James set out from St Andrews to
+frustrate, as far as the means they had concerted might, the wrathful
+measures which they well knew her Highness would take. But this small
+force was by the next morning increased to full three thousand fighting
+men; and so ardently did the spirit of enmity and resistance against the
+papacy spread, that the Queen Regent, when she came with her French
+troops and her Scottish levies, under the command of the Duke of
+Chatelherault, to Cupar, found that she durst not encounter in battle
+the growing strength of the Congregation, so she consented to a truce,
+and, as usual in her dissimulating policy, promised many things which
+she never intended to perform. But the protestants, by this time knowing
+that the papists never meant to keep their pactions with them,
+discovering the policy of her Highness, silently moved onward. They
+proceeded to Perth, and having expelled the garrison, took the town, and
+fired the abbey of Scone. But as my grandfather was not with them in
+those raids, being sent on the night of the great demolition at St
+Andrews to apprise the Earl of Glencairn, his patron, of the extremities
+to which matters had come there, it belongs not to the scope of my story
+to tell what ensued, farther than that from Perth the Congregation
+proceeded to Stirling, where they demolished the monasteries;--then they
+went to Lithgow, and herret the nests of the locusts there; and
+proceeding bravely on, purging the realm as they went forward, they
+arrived at Edinburgh, and constrained the Queen Regent, who was before
+them with her forces there, to pack up her ends and her awls, and make
+what speed she could with them to Dunbar. But foul as the capital then
+was, and covered with the leprosy of idolatry, they were not long in
+possession till they so medicated her with the searching medicaments of
+the Reformation, that she was soon scrapit of all the scurf and kell of
+her abominations. There was not an idol or an image within her bounds
+that, in less than three days, was not beheaded like a traitor and
+trundled to the dogs, even with vehemence, as a thing that could be
+sensible of contempt. But as all these things are set forth at large in
+the chronicles of the kingdom, let suffice it to say that my grandfather
+continued for nearly two years after this time a trusted emissary among
+the Lords of the Congregation in their many arduous labours and perilous
+correspondencies, till the Earl of Glencairn was appointed to see
+idolatry banished and extirpated from the West Country; in which
+expedition his Lordship, being minded to reward my grandfather's
+services in the cause of the Reformation, invited him to be of his
+force; to which my grandfather, not jealousing the secularities of his
+patron's intents, joyfully agreed, hoping to see the corner-stone placed
+on the great edifice of the Reformation, which all good and pious men
+began then to think near completion.
+
+Having joined the Earl's force at Glasgow, my grandfather went forward
+with it to Paisley. Before reaching that town, however, they were met by
+a numerous multitude of the people, half way between it and the castle
+of Cruikstone, and at their head my grandfather was blithened to see his
+old friend, the gentle monk Dominick Callender, in a soldier's garb, and
+with a ruddy and emboldened countenance, and by his side, with a sword
+manfully girded on his thigh, the worthy Bailie Pollock, whose nocturnal
+revels at the abbey had brought such dule to the winsome Maggy Napier.
+
+For some reason, which my grandfather never well understood, there was
+more lenity shown to the abbey here than usual; but the monks were
+rooted out, the images given over to destruction, and the old bones and
+miraculous crucifixes were either burnt or interred. Less damage,
+however, was done to the buildings than many expected, partly through
+the exhortations of the magistrates, who were desirous to preserve so
+noble a building for a protestant church, but chiefly out of some
+paction or covenant secretly entered into anent the distribution of the
+domains and property, wherein the house of Hamilton was concerned, the
+Duke of Chatelherault, the head thereof, notwithstanding the papistical
+nature of his blood and kin, having some time before gone over to the
+cause of the Congregation.
+
+The work of the Reformation being thus abridged at Paisley, the Earl of
+Glencairn went forward to Kilwinning, where he was less scrupulous; for
+having himself obtained a grant of the lands of the abbacy, he was fain
+to make a clean hand o't, though at the time my grandfather knew not of
+this.
+
+As soon as the army reached the town, the soldiers went straight on to
+the abbey, and entering the great church, even while the monks were
+chanting their paternosters, they began to show the errand they had come
+on. Dreadful was the yell that ensued, when my grandfather, going up to
+the priest at the high altar, and pulling him by the scarlet and fine
+linen of his pageantry, bade him decamp, and flung the toys and trumpery
+of the mass after him as he fled away in fear.
+
+This resolute act was the signal for the general demolition, and it
+began on all sides; my grandfather giving a leap, caught hold of a fine
+effigy of the Virgin Mary by the leg to pull it down; but it proved to
+be the one which James Coom the smith had mended, for the leg came off,
+and my grandfather fell backwards, and was for a moment stunned by his
+fall. A band of the monks, who were standing trembling spectators, made
+an attempt, at seeing this, to raise a shout of a miracle; but my
+grandfather, in the same moment recovering himself, seized the Virgin's
+timber leg, and flung it with violence at them, and it happened to
+strike one of the fattest of the flock with such a bir, that it was said
+the life was driven out of him. This, however, was not the case; for,
+although the monk was sorely hurt, he lived many a day after, and was
+obligated, in his auld years, when he was feckless, to be carried from
+door to door on a hand-barrow begging his bread. The wives, I have heard
+tell, were kindly to him, for he was a jocose carl; but the weans little
+respected his grey hairs, and used to jeer him as auld Father
+Paternoster, for even to the last he adhered to his beads. It was
+thought, however, by a certain pious protestant gentlewoman of Irvine,
+that before his death he got a cast of grace; for one day, when he had
+been carried over to beg in that town, she gave him a luggie of kail
+ower het, which he stirred with the end of the ebony crucifix at his
+girdle, thereby showing, as she said, a symptom that it held a lower
+place in his spiritual affections than if he had been as sincere in his
+errors as he let wot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+Although my grandfather had sustained a severe bruise by his fall, he
+was still enabled, after he got on his legs, to superintend the
+demolishment of the abbey till it was complete. But in the evening, when
+he took up his quarters in the house of Theophilus Lugton with Dominick
+Callender, who had brought on a party of the Paisley Reformers, he was
+so stiff and sore that he thought he would be incompetent to go over
+next day with the force that the Earl missioned to herry the Carmelyte
+convent at Irvine. Dominick Callender had, however, among other things,
+learnt, in the abbey at Paisley, the salutary virtues of many herbs, and
+how to decoct from them their healing juices; and he instructed Dame
+Lugton to prepare an efficacious medicament, that not only mitigated the
+anguish of the pain, but so suppled the stiffness that my grandfather
+was up by break of day, and ready for the march, a renewed man.
+
+In speaking of this, he has been heard to say, it was a thing much to be
+lamented, that when the regular abolition of the monastries was decreed,
+no care was taken to collect the curious knowledges and ancient
+traditionary skill preserved therein, especially in what pertained to
+the cure of maladies; for it was his opinion--and many were of the same
+mind--that among the friars were numbers of potent physicians, and an
+art in the preparation of salves and syrups, that has not been surpassed
+by the learning of the colleges. But it is not meet that I should detain
+the courteous reader with such irrelevancies; the change, however, which
+has taken place in the realm in all things pertaining to life, laws,
+manners and conduct since the extirpation of the Roman idolatry, is,
+from the perfectest report, so wonderful, that the inhabitants can
+scarcely be said to be the same race of people; and, therefore, I have
+thought that such occasional ancestral intimations might, though they
+proved neither edifying nor instructive, be yet deemed worthy of
+notation in the brief spaces which they happen herein to occupy. But
+now, returning from this digression, I will take up again the thread and
+clue of my story.
+
+The Earl of Glencairn, after the abbey of Kilwinning was sacked, went
+and slept at Eglinton Castle, then a stalwart square tower, environed
+with a wall and moat, of a rude and unknown antiquity, standing on a
+gentle rising ground in the midst of a bleak and moorland domain. And
+his Lordship having ordered my grandfather to come to him betimes in the
+morning with twenty chosen men, the discreetest of the force, for a
+special service in which he meant to employ him, he went thither
+accordingly, taking with him Dominick Callender and twelve godly lads
+from Paisley, with seven others, whom he had remarked in the march from
+Glasgow, as under the manifest guidance of a sedate and pious temper.
+
+When my grandfather with his company arrived at the castle yett, and he
+was admitted to the Earl his patron, his Lordship said to him, more as a
+friend than a master,--
+
+"I am in the hope, Gilhaize, that, after this day, the toilsome and
+perilous errands on which, to the weal of Scotland and the true church,
+you have been so meritoriously missioned ever since you were retained in
+my service, will soon be brought to an end, and that you will enjoy in
+peace the reward you have earned so well, that I am better pleased in
+bestowing it than you can be in the receiving. But there is yet one task
+which I must put upon you. Hard by to this castle, less than a mile
+eastward, stands a small convent of nuns, who have been for time out of
+mind under the protection of the Lord Eglinton's family, and he, having
+got a grant of the lands belonging to their house, is desirous that they
+should be flitted in an amiable manner to a certain street in Irvine
+called the Kirkgate, where a lodging is provided for them. To do this
+kindly I have bethought myself of you, for I know not in all my force
+any one so well qualified. Have you provided yourself with the twenty
+douce men that I ordered you to bring hither?"
+
+My grandfather told his Lordship that he had done as he was ordered.
+"Then," resumed the Earl, "take them with you, and this mandate to the
+superior, and one of Eglinton's men to show you the way; and when you
+have conveyed them to their lodging, come again to me."
+
+So my grandfather did as he was directed by the Earl, and marched
+eastward with his men till he came to the convent, which was a humble
+and orderly house, with a small chapel and a tower, that in after times,
+when all the other buildings were erased, was called the Stane Castle,
+and is known by that name even unto this day. It stood within a high
+wall, and a little gate, with a stone cross over the same, led to the
+porch.
+
+Compassionating the simple and silly sisterhood within, who, by their
+sequestration from the world, were become as innocent as birds in a
+cage, my grandfather halted his men at some distance from the yett, and
+going forward, rung the bell; to the sound of which an aged woman
+answered, who, on being told he had brought a letter to the superior,
+gave him admittance, and conducted him to a little chamber, on the one
+side of which was a grating, where the superior, a short, corpulent
+matron, that seemed to bowl rather than to walk as she moved along, soon
+made her appearance within.
+
+He told her in a meek manner, and with some gentle prefacing, the
+purpose of his visit, and showed her the Earl's mandate; to all which,
+for some time, she made no reply, but she was evidently much moved; at
+last she gave a wild skreigh, which brought the rest of the nuns, to the
+number of thirteen, all rushing into the room. Then ensued a dreadful
+tempest of all feminine passions and griefs, intermingled with
+supplications to many a saint; but the powers and prerogatives of their
+saints were abolished in Scotland, and they received no aid.
+
+Though their lamentation, as my grandfather used to say, could not be
+recited without moving to mirth, it was yet so full of maidenly fears
+and simplicity at the time to him, that it seemed most tender, and he
+was disturbed at the thought of driving such fair and helpless creatures
+into the bad world; but it was his duty;--so, after soothing them as
+well as he could, and representing how unavailing their refusal to go
+would be, the superior composed her grief, and exhorting the nuns to be
+resigned to their cruel fate, which, she said, was not so grievous as
+that which many of the saints had in their day suffered, they all became
+calm and prepared for the removal.
+
+My grandfather told them to take with them whatsoever they best liked in
+the house; and it was a moving sight to see their simplicity therein.
+One was content with a flower-pot; another took a cage in which she had
+a lintie; some of them half-finished patterns of embroidery. One aged
+sister, of a tall and spare form, brought away a flask of eye-water
+which she had herself distilled; but, saving the superior, none of them
+thought of any of the valuables of the chapel, till my grandfather
+reminded them, that they might find the value of silver and gold
+hereafter, even in the spiritual-minded town of Irvine.
+
+There was one young and graceful maiden among them who seemed but little
+moved by the event; and my grandfather was melted to sympathy and sorrow
+by the solemn serenity of her deportment, and the little heed she took
+of anything. Of all the nuns she was the only one who appeared to have
+nothing to care for; and when they were ready, and came forth to the
+gate, instead of joining in their piteous wailings as they bade their
+peaceful home a long and last farewell, she walked forward alone. No
+sooner, however, had she passed the yett, than, on seeing the armed
+company without, she stood still like a statue, and, uttering a shrill
+cry, fainted away, and fell to the ground. Every one ran to her
+assistance; but when her face was unveiled to give her air, Dominick
+Callender, who was standing by, caught her in his arms, and was
+enchanted by a fond and strange enthusiasm. She was indeed no other than
+the young maiden of Paisley, for whom he had found his monastic rows the
+heavy fetters of a bondage that made life scarcely worth possessing; and
+when she was recovered, an interchange of great tenderness took place
+between them, at which the superior of the convent waxed very wroth, and
+the other nuns were exceedingly scandalised. But Magdalene Sauchie, for
+so she was called, heeded them not; for, on learning that popery was put
+down in the land by law, she openly declared that she renounced her
+vows; and during the walk to Irvine, which was jimp a mile, she leant
+upon the arm of her lover: and they were soon after married, Dominick
+settling in that town as a doctor of physic, whereby he afterwards
+earned both gold and reputation.
+
+But to conclude the history of the convent, which my grandfather had in
+this gentle manner herret, the nuns, on reaching the foot of the
+Kirkgate, where the Countess of Eglinton had provided a house for them,
+began to weep anew with great vehemence, fearing that their holy life
+was at an end, and that they would be tempted of men to enter into the
+temporalities of the married state; but the superior, on hearing this
+mournful apprehension, mounted upon the steps of the Tolbooth stair,
+and, in the midst of a great concourse of people, she lifted her hands
+on high, and exclaimed, as with the voice of a prophetess, "Fear not, my
+chaste and pious dochters; for your sake and for my sake, I have an
+assurance at this moment from the Virgin Mary herself, that the calamity
+of the marriage-yoke will never be known in the Kirkgate of Irvine, but
+that all maidens who hereafter may enter, or be born to dwell therein,
+shall live a life of single blessedness unasked and untempted of men."
+Which delightful prediction the nuns were so happy to hear, that they
+dried their tears, and chanted their Ave Maria, joyfully proceeding
+towards their appointed habitation. It stood, as I have been told, on
+the same spot where King James the Sixth's school was afterwards
+erected, and endowed out of the spoils of Carmelytes' monastery, which,
+on the same day, was, by another division of the Earl of Glencairn's
+power, sacked and burnt to the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+When my grandfather had, in the manner rehearsed, disposed of those
+sisters of simplicity in the Kirkgate of Irvine, he returned back in the
+afternoon to the Earl of Glencairn at Eglinton Castle to report what he
+had done; and his Lordship again, in a most laudatory manner, commended
+his prudence and singular mildness of nature, mentioning to the Earl and
+Countess of Eglinton, then present with him, divers of the missions
+wherein he had been employed, extolling his zeal, and above all his
+piety. And the Lady Eglinton, who was a household character, striving,
+with great frugality, to augment the substance of her Lord, by keeping
+her maidens from morning to night eydent at work, some at their
+broidering drums, and some at their distaffs, managing all within the
+castle that pertained to her feminine part in a way most exemplary to
+the ladies of her time and degree, indeed to ladies of all times and
+degrees, promised my grandfather that when he was married, she would
+give his wife something to help the plenishing of their house, for the
+meek manner in which he had comported himself toward her friend, the
+superior of the nuns. Then the Earl of Glencairn said,--
+
+"Gilhaize, madam, is now his own master, and may choose a bride when it
+pleases himself; for I have covenanted with my friend, your Lord, to let
+him have the mailing of Quharist, in excambio for certain of the lands
+of late pertaining to the abbacy of Kilwinning, the which lie more
+within the vicinage of this castle; and, Gilhaize, here is my warrant to
+take possession."
+
+With which words the Earl rose and presented him with a charter for the
+lands, signed by Eglinton and himself, and he shook him heartily by the
+hand, saying, that few in all the kingdom had better earned the guerdon
+of their service than he had done.
+
+Thus it was that our family came to be settled in the shire of Ayr; for
+after my grandfather had taken possession of his fee, and mindful of the
+vow he had made in the street of Edinburgh on that blessed morning when
+John Knox, the champion of the true church, arrived from Geneva, he went
+into the east country to espouse Elspa Ruet, if he found her thereunto
+inclined, which happily he soon did. For their spirits were in unison;
+and from the time they first met, they had felt toward one another as if
+they had been acquaint in loving-kindness before, which made him
+sometimes say, that it was to him a proof and testimony that the souls
+of mankind have, perhaps, a living knowledge of each other before they
+are born into this world.
+
+At their marriage, it was agreed that they should take with them into
+the west Agnes Kilspinnie, one of the misfortunate bailie's daughters.
+As for her mother, from the day of the overthrow and destruction of the
+papistry at St Andrews, she had never been heard of; all the tidings her
+sister could gather concerning her were, that the same night she had
+been conveyed away by some of the Archbishop's servants, but whither no
+one could tell. So they came with Agnes Kilspinnie to Edinburgh; and,
+for a ploy to their sober wedding, they resolved to abide there till the
+coming of Queen Mary from France, that they might partake of the shows
+and pastimes then preparing for her reception. They, however, during the
+season of their sojourn, feasted far better than on royal fare, in the
+gospel banquet of John Knox's sermons, of which they enjoyed the
+inexpressible beatitude three several Sabbath-days before the Queen
+arrived.
+
+Of the joyous preparations to greet Queen Mary withal neither my
+grandfather nor grandmother were ever wont to discourse much at large,
+for they were holy-minded persons, little esteeming the pageantries of
+this world. But my aunt, for Agnes Kilspinnie being in progress of time
+married to my father's fourth brother, became sib to me in that degree,
+was wont to descant and enlarge on the theme with much wonderment and
+loquacity, describing the marvellous fabrics that were to have been hung
+with tapestry to hold the ladies, and the fountains that were to have
+spouted wine, which nobody was to be allowed to taste, the same being
+only for an ostentation, in order that the fact thereof might be
+recorded in the chronicles for after-times. And great things have I
+likewise heard her tell of the paraphernalia which the magistrates and
+town-council were getting ready. No sleep, in a sense, she used to say,
+did Maccalzean of Cliftonhall, who was then provost, get for more than a
+fortnight. From night to morning the sagacious bailies sat in council,
+exercising their sagacity to contrive devices to pleasure the Queen, and
+to help the custom of their own and their neighbours' shops. Busy and
+proud men they were, and no smaller were the worshipful deacons of the
+crafts. It was just a surprise and consternation to everybody, to think
+how their weak backs could bear such a burden of cares. No time had they
+for their wonted jocosity. To those who would fain have speered the
+news, they shook their heads in a Solomon-like manner, and hastened by.
+And such a battle and tribulation as they had with their vassals, the
+magistrates of Leith! who, in the most contumacious manner, insisted
+that their chief bailie should be the first to welcome the Sovereign on
+the shore. This pretence was thought little short of rebellion, and the
+provost and the bailies, and all the wise men that sat in council with
+them, together with the help of their learned assessors, continued
+deliberating anent the same for hours together. It was a dreadful
+business that for the town of Edinburgh. And the opinions of the judges
+of the land, and the lords of the council, were taken, and many a device
+tried to overcome the upsetting, as it was called, of the Leith
+magistrates; but all was of no avail. And it was thought there would
+have been a fight between the bailies of Leith and the bailies of
+Edinburgh, and that blood would have been shed before this weighty
+question, so important to the dearest interests of the commonweal of
+Scotland, could be determined. But, in the midst of their contention,
+and before their preparations were half finished, the Queen arrived in
+Leith Roads; and the news came upon them like the cry to the foolish
+virgins of the bridegroom in the street. Then they were seen flying to
+their respective places of abode to dress themselves in their coats of
+black velvet, their doublets of crimson satin, and their hose of the
+same colour which they had prepared for the occasion. Anon they met in
+the council-chamber--what confusion reigned there! Then how they flew
+down the street! Provost Maccalzean, with the silver keys in his hand,
+and the eldest bailie with the crimson-velvet cod, whereon they were to
+be delivered to her Majesty, following as fast as any member of a city
+corporation could be reasonably expected to do. But how the provost
+fell, and how the bailies and town-council tumbled over him, and how the
+crowd shouted at the sight, are things whereof to understand the
+greatness it is needful that the courteous reader should have heard my
+aunty Agnes herself rehearse the extraordinary particularities.
+
+Meanwhile the Queen left her galley in a small boat, and the bailies of
+Leith had scarcely time to reach the pier before she was on shore. Alas!
+it was an ill-omened landing. Few were spectators, and none cheered the
+solitary lady, who, as she looked around and heard no loyal greeting,
+nor beheld any show of hospitable welcome, seemed to feel as if the
+spirit of the land was sullen at her approach, and grudged at her return
+to the dark abodes of her fierce ancestors. In all the way from Leith to
+Holyrood she never spoke, but the tear was in her eye and the sigh in
+her bosom; and though her people gathered when it was known she had
+landed, and began at last to shout, it was owre late to prevent the
+mournful forebodings, which taught her to expect but disappointments and
+sorrows from subjects so torn with their own factions, as to lack even
+the courtesies due to their sovereign, a stranger, and the fairest lady
+of all her time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+Soon after Queen Mary's return from France, my grandfather, with his
+wife and Agnes Kilspinnie, came from Edinburgh and took up their
+residence on his own free mailing of Quharist, where the Lady Eglinton
+was as good as her word in presenting to them divers articles of fine
+napery, and sundry things of plenishing both for ornament and use; and
+there he would have spent his days in blameless tranquillity, serving
+the Lord, but for the new storm that began to gather over the church,
+whereof it is needful that I should now proceed to tell some of the
+circumstantials.
+
+No sooner had that thoughtless Princess, if indeed one could be so
+called, who, though reckless of all consequences, was yet double beyond
+the imagination of man; no sooner, I say, had she found herself at home,
+than, with all the craft and blandishments of her winning airs and
+peerless beauty, she did set herself to seduce the Lords of the
+Congregation from the sternness wherewith they had thrown down, and were
+determined to resist, the restoration of the Roman idolatry; and with
+some of them she succeeded so far, that the popish priests were
+hearkened, and, knowing her avowed partiality for their sect, the Beast
+began to shoot out its horns again, and they dared to perform the
+abomination of the mass in different quarters of the kingdom.
+
+It is, no doubt, true, that the Queen's council, by proclamation,
+feigned to discountenance that resuscitation of idolatry; but the words
+of their edict being backed by no demonstration of resolution, save in
+the case of a few worthy gentlemen in the shire of Ayr and in Galloway,
+who took up some of the offenders in their district and jurisdiction,
+the evil continued to strike its roots, and to bud and nourish in its
+pestiferous branches.
+
+When my grandfather heard of these things, his spirit was exceedingly
+moved, and he got no rest in the night, with the warsling of troubled
+thoughts and pious fears. Some new call, he foresaw, would soon be made
+on the protestants, to stand forth again in the gap that the Queen's
+arts had sapped in the bulwarks of their religious liberty, and he
+resolved to be ready against the hour of danger. So, taking his wife and
+Agnes Kilspinnie with him, he went in the spring to Edinburgh, and hired
+a lodging for them; and on the same night he presented himself at the
+lodging of the Lord James Stuart, who had some time before been created
+Earl of Murray; but the Earl was gone with the Queen to Loch Leven. Sir
+Alexander Douglas, however, the master of his Lordship's horse, was then
+on the eve of following him with John Knox, to whom the Queen had sent a
+peremptory message, requiring his attendance; and Sir Alexander invited
+my grandfather to come with them; the which invitation he very joyfully
+accepted, on account of the happy occasion of travelling in the
+sanctified company of that brave worthy.
+
+In the journey, however, save in the boat when they crossed the ferry,
+he showed but little of his precious conversation; for the knight and
+the Reformer rode on together some short distance before their train,
+earnestly discoursing, and seemingly they wished not to be overheard.
+But when they were all seated in the ferry-boat, the ardour of the
+preacher, which on no occasion would be reined in, led him to continue
+speaking, by which it would seem that they had been conversing anent the
+Queen's prejudices in matters of religion and the royal authority.
+
+"When I last spoke with her Highness," said John Knox, "she laid sore to
+my charge, that I had brought the people to receive a religion different
+from what their princes allowed, asking sharply, if this was not
+contrary to the Divine command, which enjoins that subjects should obey
+their rulers; so that I was obliged to contend plainly, that true
+religion derived its origin and authority, not from princes, but from
+God; that princes were often most ignorant respecting it, and that
+subjects never could be bound to frame their religious sentiments
+according to the pleasure of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to
+have conformed to the idolatry of Pharaoh, and Daniel and his associates
+to that of Nebuchadnezzar, and the primitive Christians to that of the
+Roman emperors."
+
+"And what could her Highness answer to this?" said Sir Alexander.
+
+"She lacketh not the gift of a shrewd and ready wit," replied Master
+Knox; for she nimbly remarked, "That though it was as I had said, yet
+none of those men raised the sword against their princes;"--which
+enforced me to be more subtle than I was minded to have been, and to
+say, "that nevertheless, they did resist, for those who obey not the
+commandments given them, do in verity resist." "Ay," cried her Highness,
+"but not with the sword," which was a thrust not easy to be turned
+aside, so that I was constrained to speak out, saying, "God, madam, had
+not given them the means and the power." Then said she, still more
+eagerly, "Think you that subjects, having the power, may resist their
+princes?" And she looked with a triumphant smile, as if she had caught
+me in a trap; but I replied, "If princes exceed their bounds, no doubt
+they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour or greater
+obedience is to be given to kings and princes than God has commanded to
+be given to father or mother. But the father may be struck with a
+frenzy, in which he would slay his children; in such a case, if the
+children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from
+him, bind his hands and keep him in prison till the frenzy be over,
+think you, madam," quo' I, "that the children do any wrong? Even so is
+it with princes that would slay the children of God that are subject to
+them. Their blind zeal is nothing but frenzy, and therefore to take the
+power from them till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no
+disobedience to princes, but a just accordance to the will of God. So I
+doubt not," continued the Reformer, "I shall again have to sustain the
+keen encounter of her Highness' wit in some new controversy."
+
+This was the chief substance of what my grandfather heard pass in the
+boat; and when they were again mounted, the knight and preacher set
+forward as before, some twenty paces or so in advance of the retinue.
+
+On reaching Kinross, Master Knox rode straight to the shore, and went
+off in the Queen's barge to the castle, that he might present himself to
+her Highness before supper, for by this time the sun was far down. In
+the meantime, my grandfather went to the house in Kinross where the Earl
+of Murray resided, and his Lordship, though albeit a grave and reserved
+man, received him with the familiar kindness of an old friend, and he
+was with him when the Reformer came back from the Queen, who had dealt
+very earnestly with him to persuade the gentlemen of the west country to
+desist from their interruption of the popish worship.
+
+"But to this," said the Reformer to the Earl, "I was obligated, by
+conscience and the fear of God, to say, that if her Majesty would exert
+her authority in executing the laws of the land, I would undertake for
+the peaceable behaviour of the protestants; but if she thought to evade
+them, there were some who would not let the papists offend with
+impunity."
+
+"Will you allow," exclaimed her Highness, "that they shall take my sword
+in their hands?"
+
+"The sword of justice is God's," I replied, "and is given to princes
+and rulers for an end, which if they transgress, sparing the wicked and
+oppressing the innocent, they who in the fear of God execute judgment
+where God has commanded, offend not God, although kings do it not. The
+gentlemen of the west, madam, are acting strictly according to law; for
+the act of parliament gave power to all judges within their jurisdiction
+to search for and punish those who transgress its enactments;" and I
+added, "it shall be profitable to your Majesty to consider what is the
+thing your Grace's subjects look to receive of your Majesty, and what it
+is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. They are bound to
+obey you, and that not but in God; ye are bound to keep laws to them--ye
+crave of them service, they crave of you protection and defence. Now,
+madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them (which especially craves
+that ye punish malefactors), can ye expect to receive full obedience of
+them? I fear, madam, ye shall not."
+
+"You have indeed been plain with her Highness," said the Earl,
+thoughtfully; "and what reply made she?"
+
+"None," said the Reformer; "her countenance changed; she turned her head
+abruptly from me, and, without the courtesy of a good-night, signified
+with an angry waving of her hand, that she desired to be rid of my
+presence; whereupon I immediately retired, and, please God, I shall,
+betimes in the morning, return to my duties at Edinburgh. It is with a
+sad heart, my Lord, that I am compelled to think, and to say to you, who
+stand so near to her in kin and affection, that I doubt she is not only
+proud but crafty; not only wedded to the popish faith, but averse to
+instruction. She neither is nor will be of our opinion; and it is plain
+that the lessons of her uncle, the Cardinal, are so deeply printed in
+her heart, that the substance and quality will perish together. I would
+be glad to be deceived in this, but I fear I shall not; never have I
+espied such art in one so young; and it will need all the eyes of the
+Reformed to watch and ward that she circumvent not the strong hold in
+Christ, that has been but so lately restored and fortified in this
+misfortunate kingdom."
+
+Nothing farther passed that night; but the servants being called in, and
+the preacher having exhorted them in their duties, and prayed with even
+more than his wonted earnestness, each one retired to his chamber, and
+the Earl gave orders for horses to be ready early in the morning, to
+convey Master Knox back to Edinburgh. This, however, was not permitted;
+for by break of day a messenger came from the castle, desiring him not
+to depart until he had again spoken with her Majesty; adding, that as
+she meant to land by sunrise with her falconer, she would meet him on
+the fields where she intended to take her pastime, and talk with him
+there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+In the morning, all those who were in the house with the Earl of Murray
+and John Knox were early afoot, and after prayers had been said, they
+went out to meet the Queen at her place of landing from the castle,
+which stands on an islet at some distance from the shore; but, before
+they reached the spot, she was already mounted on her jennet and the
+hawks unhooded, so that they were obligated to follow her Highness to
+the ground, the Reformer leaning on the Earl, who proffered him his left
+arm as they walked up the steep bank together from the brim of the lake.
+
+The Queen was on the upland when they drew near to the field, and on
+seeing them approach she came ambling towards them, moving in her
+beauty, as my grandfather often delighted to say, like a fair rose
+caressed by the soft gales of the summer. A smile was in her eye, and it
+brightened on her countenance like the beam of something more lovely
+than light; the glow, as it were, of a spirit conscious of its power,
+and which had graced itself with all its enchantments to conquer some
+stubborn heart. Even the Earl of Murray was struck with the unwonted
+splendour of her that was ever deemed so surpassing fair; and John Knox
+said, with a sigh, "THE MAKER had indeed taken gracious pains with the
+goodly fashion of such perishable clay."
+
+When she had come within a few paces of where they were advancing
+uncovered, she suddenly checked her jennet, and made him dance proudly
+round till she was nigh to John Knox, where, seeming in alarm, she
+feigned as if she would have slipped from the saddle, laying her hand
+on his shoulder for support; and while he, with more gallantry than it
+was thought in him, helped her to recover her seat, she said, with a
+ravishing look, "The Queen thanks you, Master Knox, for this upholding,"
+dwelling on the word this in a special manner; which my grandfather
+noticed the more, as he as well as others of the retinue observed, that
+she was playing as it were in dalliance.
+
+She then inquired kindly for his health, grieving she had not given
+orders for him to bed in the castle; and turning to the Earl of Murray,
+she chided his Lordship with a gentleness that was more winning than
+praise, why he had not come to her with Master Knox, saying, "We should
+then perhaps have not been so sharp in our controversy." But, before the
+Earl had time to make answer, she noticed divers gentlemen by name, and
+taking off her glove, made a most sweet salutation with her lily hand to
+the general concourse of those who had by this time gathered around.
+
+In that gracious gesture, it was plain, my grandfather said, that she
+was still scattering her feminine spells; for she kept her hand for some
+time bare, and though enjoying the pleasure which her beautiful presence
+diffused, like a delicious warmth into the air, she was evidently
+self-collected, and had something more in mind than only the triumph of
+her marvellous beauty.
+
+Having turned her horse's head, she moved him a few paces, saying,
+"Master Knox, I would speak with you." At which he went towards her, and
+the rest of the spectators retired and stood aloof.
+
+They appeared for some time to be in an easy and somewhat gay discourse
+on her part; but she grew more and more earnest, till Mr Knox made his
+reverence and was coming away, when she said to him aloud, "Well, do as
+you will, but that man is a dangerous man."
+
+Their discourse was concerning the titular Bishop of Athens, a brother
+of the Earl of Huntly, who had been put in nomination for a
+superintendent of the church in the West Country, and of whose bad
+character her Highness, as it afterwards proved, had received a just
+account.
+
+But scarcely had the Reformer retired two steps when she called him
+back, and holding out to him her hand, with which, when he approached to
+do his homage, she familiarly took hold of his and held it, playing with
+his fingers as if she had been placing on a ring, saying, loud enough
+to be heard by many on the field,--
+
+"I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me since I came
+into this realm to open to you, and I must have your help in it."
+
+Then, still holding him earnestly by the hand, she entered into a long
+discourse concerning, as he afterwards told the Earl of Murray, a
+difference subsisting between the Earl and Countess of Argyle.
+
+"Her Ladyship," said the Queen, for my grandfather heard him repeat what
+passed, "has not perhaps been so circumspect in everything as one could
+have wished, but her lord has dealt harshly with her."
+
+Master Knox having once before reconciled the debates of that honourable
+couple, told her Highness he had done so, and that not having since
+heard anything to the contrary, he had hoped all things went well with
+them.
+
+"It is worse," replied the Queen, "than ye believe. But, kind sir, do
+this much for my sake, as once again to put them at amity, and if the
+Countess behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour
+of me; but in no wise let Argyle know that I have requested you in this
+matter."
+
+Then she returned to the subject of their contest the preceding evening,
+and said, with her sweetest looks and most musical accents, "I promise
+to do as ye required. I shall order all offenders to be summoned, and
+you shall see that I shall minister justice."
+
+To which he replied, "I am assured then, madam, that you shall please
+God, and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your
+Majesty is more profitable than all the Pope's power can be." And having
+said this much he made his reverence, evidently in great pleasure with
+her Highness.
+
+Afterwards, in speaking to the Earl of Murray, as they returned to
+Kinross, my grandfather noted that he employed many terms of soft
+courtliness, saying of her that she was a lady who might, he thought,
+with a little pains, be won to grace and godliness, could she be
+preserved from the taint of evil counsellors; so much had the winning
+sorceries of her exceeding beauty and her blandishments worked even upon
+his stern honesty and enchanted his jealousy asleep.
+
+When Master Knox had, with the Earl, partaken of some repast, he
+requested that he might be conveyed back to Edinburgh, for that it
+suited not with his nature to remain sorning about the skirts of the
+court; and his Lordship bade my grandfather be of his company, and to
+bid Sir Alexander Douglas, the master of his horse, choose for him the
+gentlest steed in his stable.
+
+But it happened before the Reformer was ready to depart, that Queen Mary
+had finished her morning pastime, and was returning to her barge to
+embark for the castle, which the Earl hearing, went down to the brim of
+the loch to assist at her embarkation. My grandfather, with others, also
+hastened to the spot.
+
+On seeing his Lordship, she inquired for "her friend," as she then
+called John Knox, and signified her regret that he had been so list to
+leave her, expressing her surprise that one so infirm should think so
+soon of a second journey; whereby the good Earl being minded to cement
+their happy reconciliation, from which he augured a great increase of
+benefits both to the realm and the cause of religion, was led to speak
+of his concern thereat likewise, and of his sorrow that all his own
+horses at Kinross being for the chase and road, he had none well-fitting
+to carry a person so aged, and but little used to the toil of riding.
+
+Her Highness smiled at the hidden counselling of this remark, for she
+was possessed of a sharp spirit; and she said, with a look which told
+the Earl and all about her that she discerned the pith of his Lordship's
+discourse, she would order one of her own palfreys to be forthwith
+prepared for him.
+
+When the Earl returned from the shore and informed Master Knox of the
+Queen's gracious condescension, he made no reply, but bowed his head in
+token of his sense of her kindness; and soon after, when the palfrey was
+brought saddled with the other horses to the door, he said, in my
+grandfather's hearing, to his Lordship, "It needs, you see, my Lord,
+must be so; for were I not to accept this grace, it might be thought I
+refused from a vain bravery of caring nothing for her Majesty's favour;"
+and he added, with a smile of jocularity, "whereas I am right well
+content to receive the very smallest boon from so fair and blooming a
+lady."
+
+Nothing of any particularity occurred in the course of the journey; for
+the main part of which Master Knox was thoughtful and knit up in his own
+cogitations, and when from time to time he did enter into discourse with
+my grandfather, he spoke chiefly of certain usages and customs that he
+had observed in other lands, and of things of indifferent import; but
+nevertheless there was a flavour of holiness in all he said, and my
+grandfather treasured many of his sweet sentences as pearls of great
+price.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Before the occurrence of the things spoken of in the foregoing chapter,
+the great Earl of Glencairn, my grandfather's first and constant patron,
+had been dead some time; but his son and successor, who knew the
+estimation in which he had been held by his father, being then in
+Edinburgh, allowed him, in consideration thereof, the privilege of his
+hall. It suited not, however, with my grandfather's quiet and sanctified
+nature to mingle much with the brawlers that used to hover there;
+nevertheless, out of a respect to the Earl's hospitality, he did
+occasionally go thither, and where, if he heard little to edify the
+Christian heart, he learnt divers things anent the Queen and court that
+made his fears and anxieties wax stronger and stronger.
+
+It seemed to him, as he often was heard to say, that there was a better
+knowledge of Queen Mary's true character and secret partialities among
+those loose varlets than among their masters; and her marriage being
+then in the parlance of the people, and much dread and fear rife with
+the protestants that she would choose a papist for her husband, he was
+surprised to hear many of the lewd knaves in Glencairn's hall speak
+lightly of the respect she would have to the faith or spirituality of
+the man she might prefer.
+
+Among those wuddy worthies he fell in with his ancient adversary
+Winterton, who, instead of harbouring any resentment for the trick he
+played him in the Lord Boyd's castle, was rejoiced to see him again: he
+himself was then in the service of David Rizzio, the fiddler, whom the
+Queen some short time before had taken into her particular service.
+
+This Rizzio was by birth an Italian of very low degree; a man of
+crouched stature, and of an uncomely physiognomy, being yellow-skinned
+and black-haired, with a beak-nose, and little quick eyes of a free and
+familiar glance, but shrewd withal, and possessed of a pleasant way of
+winning facetiously on the ladies, to the which his singular skill in
+all manner of melodious music helped not a little; so that he had great
+sway with them, and was then winning himself fast into the Queen's
+favour, in which ambition, besides the natural instigations of his own
+vanity, he was spirited on by certain powerful personages of the
+papistical faction, who soon saw the great efficacy it would be of to
+their cause, to have one who owed his rise to them constantly about the
+Queen, and in the depths of all her personal correspondence with her
+great friends abroad. But the subtle Italian, though still true to his
+papal breeding, built upon the Queen's partiality more than on the
+favour of those proud nobles, and, about the time of which I am now
+speaking, he carried his head at court as bravely as the boldest baron
+amongst them. Still in this he had as yet done nothing greatly to
+offend. The protestant Lords, however, independent of their aversion to
+him on account his religion, felt, in common with all the nobility, a
+vehement prejudice against an alien, one too of base blood, and they
+openly manifested their displeasure at seeing him so gorgeous and
+presuming even in the public presence of the Queen, but he regarded not
+their anger.
+
+In this fey man's service Winterton then was, and my grandfather never
+doubted that it was for no good he came so often to the Earl of
+Glencairn's, who, though not a man of the same weight in the realm as
+the old Earl his father, was yet held in much esteem, as a sincere
+protestant and true nobleman, by all the friends of the Gospel cause;
+and, in the sequel, what my grandfather jealoused was soon very plainly
+seen. For Rizzio learning, through Winterton's espionage and that of
+other emissaries, how little the people of Scotland would relish a
+foreign prince to be set over them, had a hand in dissuading the Queen
+from accepting any of the matches then proposed for her; and the better
+to make his own power the more sicker, he afterwards laid snares in the
+water to bring about a marriage with that weak young prince, the Lord
+Henry Darnley. But it falls not within the scope of my narrative to
+enter into any more particulars here concerning that Italian, and the
+tragical doom which, with the Queen's imprudence, he brought upon
+himself; for, after spending some weeks in Edinburgh, and in visiting
+their friends at Crail, my grandfather returned with his wife and Agnes
+Kilspinnie to Quharist, where he continued to reside several years, but
+not in tranquillity.
+
+Hardly had they reached their home, when word came of quarrels among the
+nobility; and though the same sprung out of secular debates, they had
+much of the leaven of religious faction in their causes, the which
+greatly exasperated the enmity wherewith they were carried on. But even
+in the good Earl of Murray's raid, there was nothing which called on my
+grandfather to bear a part. Nevertheless, those quarrels disquieted his
+soul, and he heard the sough of discontents rising afar off, like the
+roar of the bars of Ayr when they betoken a coming tempest.
+
+After the departure of the Earl of Murray to France, there was a syncope
+in the land, and men's minds were filled with wonder and with
+apprehensions to which they could give no name; neighbours distrusted
+one another: the papists looked out from their secret places, and were
+saluted with a fear that wore the semblance of reverence. The Queen
+married Darnley, and discreet men marvelled at the rashness with which
+the match was concluded, there being seemingly no cause for such
+uncomely haste, nor for the lavish favours that she heaped upon him. It
+was viewed with awe, as a thing done under the impulses of fraud, or
+fainness, or fatality. Nor was their wedding-cheer cold when her eager
+love changed into aversion. Then the spirit of the times, which had long
+hovered in willingness to be pleased with her intentions, began to alter
+its breathings, and to whisper darkly against her. At last the murder of
+Rizzio, a deed which, though in the main satisfactory to the nation, was
+yet so foul and cruel in the perpetration, that the tidings of it came
+like a thunder-clap over all the kingdom.
+
+The birth of Prince James, which soon after followed, gave no joy; for
+about the same time a low and terrible whispering began to be heard of
+some hideous and universal conspiracy against all the protestants
+throughout Europe. None ventured to say that Queen Mary was joined with
+the conspirators; but many preachers openly prayed that she might be
+preserved from their leagues in a way that showed what they feared;
+besides this suspicion, mournful things were told of her behaviour, and
+the immoralities of her courtiers and their trains rose to such a pitch,
+compared with the chastity and plain manners of her mother's court, that
+the whole land was vexed with angry thoughts, and echoed to the rumours
+with stern menaces.
+
+No one was more disturbed by these things than my pious grandfather; and
+the apprehensions which they caused in him came to such a head at last,
+that his wife, becoming fearful of his health, advised him to take a
+journey to Edinburgh, in order that he might hear and see with his own
+ears and eyes; which he accordingly did, and on his arrival went
+straight to the Earl of Glencairn, and begged permission to take on
+again his livery, chiefly that he might pass unnoticed, and not be
+remarked as having neither calling nor vocation. That nobleman was
+surprised with his request; but, without asking any questions, gave him
+leave, and again invited him to use the freedom of his hall; so he
+continued as one of his retainers till the Earl of Murray's return from
+France. But, before speaking of what then ensued, there are some things
+concerning the murder of the the Queen's protestant husband--the
+blackest of the sins of that age--of which, in so far as my grandfather
+participated, it is meet and proper I should previously speak.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+While the cloud of troubles, whereof I have spoken in the foregoing
+chapter was thickening and darkening over the land, the event of the
+King's dreadful death came to pass; the which, though in its birth most
+foul and monstrous, filling the hearts of all men with consternation and
+horror, was yet a mean in the hands of Providence, as shall hereafter
+appear, whereby the kingdom of THE LORD was established in Scotland.
+
+Concerning that fearful treason, my grandfather never spoke without
+taking off his bonnet, and praying inwardly with such solemnity of
+countenance that none could behold him unmoved. Of all the remarkable
+passages of his long life it was indeed the most remarkable; and he has
+been heard to say that he could not well acquit himself of the actual
+sin of disobedience in not obeying an admonition of the Spirit which was
+vouchsafed to him on that occasion.
+
+For some time there had been a great variance between the King and
+Queen. He had given himself over to loose and low companions; and though
+she kept her state and pride, ill was said of her, if in her walk and
+conversation she was more sensible of her high dignity. All at once,
+however, when he was lying ill at Glasgow of a malady, which many
+scrupled not to say was engendered by a malignant medicine, there was a
+singular demonstration of returning affection on her part, the more
+remarkable and the more heeded of the commonality, on account of its
+suddenness, and the events that ensued; for while he was at the worst
+she minded not his condition, but took her delights and pastimes in
+divers parts of the country. No sooner, however, had his strength
+overcome the disease, than she was seized with this fond sympathy, and
+came flying with her endearments, seemingly to foster his recovery with
+caresses and love. The which excessive affection was afterwards ascribed
+to a guilty hypocrisy; for in the sequel it came to light that, while
+she was practising all those winning blandishments, which few knew the
+art of better, and with which she regained his confidence, she was at
+the same time engaged in unconjugal correspondence with the Earl of
+Bothwell. The King, however, was won by her kindness, and consented to
+be removed from among the friends of his family at Glasgow to Edinburgh,
+in order that he might there enjoy the benefits of her soft cares and
+the salutary attendance of the physicians of the capital. The house of
+the provost of Kirk o' Field, which stood not far from the spot where
+the buildings of the college now stand, was accordingly prepared for his
+reception, on account of the advantages which it afforded for the free
+and open air of a rising ground; but it was also a solitary place--a fit
+haunt for midnight conspirators and the dark purposes of mysterious
+crime.
+
+There, for some time, the Queen lavished upon him all the endearing
+gentleness of a true and loving wife, being seldom absent by day, and
+sleeping near his sick-chamber at night. The land was blithened with
+such assurances of their reconciliation; and the King himself, with the
+frank ardour of flattered youth, was contrite for his faults, and
+promised her the fondest devotion of all his future days. In this sweet
+cordiality, on Sunday, the 9th of February, A.D. 1567, she parted from
+him to be present at a masquing in the palace; for the Reformation had
+not so penetrated into the habits and business of men as to hallow the
+Sabbath in the way it has since done amongst us. But before proceeding
+farther, it is proper to resume the thread of my grandfather's story.
+
+He had passed that evening, as he was wont to tell, in pleasant gospel
+conversation with several acquaintances in the house of one Raphael
+Doquet, a pious lawyer in the Canongate; for even many writers in those
+days were smitten with the love of godliness; and as he was returning to
+his dry lodgings in an entry now called Baron Grant's Close, he
+encountered Winterton, who, after an end had been put to David Rizzio,
+became a retainer in the riotous household of the Earl of Bothwell. This
+happened a short way aboon the Netherbow, and my grandfather stopped to
+speak with him; but there was a haste and confusion in his manner which
+made him rather eschew this civility. My grandfather at the time,
+however, did not much remark it; but scarcely had they parted ten paces
+when a sudden jealousy of some unknown guilt or danger, wherein
+Winterton was concerned, came into his mind like a flash of fire, and he
+felt as it were an invisible power constraining him to dog his steps, in
+so much that he actually did turn back. But on reaching the Bow he was
+obligated to stop, for the ward was changing; and observing that the
+soldiers then posting were of the Queen's French guard, his thoughts
+began to run on the rumour that was bruited of a league among the papist
+princes to cut off all the Reformed with one universal sweep of the
+scythe of persecution, and he felt himself moved and incited to go to
+some of the Lords and leaders of the Congregation to warn them of what
+he feared; but, considering that he had only a vague and unaccountable
+suspicion for his thought, he wavered, and finally returned home. Thus,
+though manifestly and marvellously instructed of the fruition of some
+bloody business in hand that night, he was yet overruled by the wisdom
+which is of this world to suppress and refuse obedience to the
+promptings of the inspiration.
+
+On reaching his chamber, he unbuckled his belt, as his custom was, and
+laid down his sword and began to undress, when again the same alarm
+from on high fell upon him, and the same warning spirit whispered to his
+mind's ear unspeakable intimations of dreadful things. Fear came upon
+him and trembling, which made all his bones to shake, and he lifted his
+sword and again buckled on his belt. But again the prudence of this
+world prevailed, and, heeding not the admonition to warn the Lords of
+the Congregation, he threw himself on his bed, without, however,
+unbuckling his sword, and in that condition fell asleep. But though his
+senses were shut, his mind continued awake, and he had fearful visions
+of bloody hands and glimmering daggers gleaming over him from behind his
+curtains, till in terror he started up, gasping like one that had
+struggled with a stronger than himself.
+
+When he had in some degree composed his thoughts, he went to the window
+and opened it, to see by the stars how far the night had passed. The
+window overlooked the North Loch and the swelling bank beyond, and the
+distant frith and the hills of Fife. The skies were calm and clear, and
+the air was tempered with a bright frost. The stars in their courses
+were reflected in the still waters of the North Loch, as if there had
+been an opening through the earth showing the other concave of the
+spangled firmament. But the dark outline of the swelling bank on the
+northern side was like the awful corpse of some mighty thing prepared
+for interment.
+
+As my grandfather stood in contemplation at the window, he heard the
+occasional churme of discourse from passengers still abroad, and now and
+then the braggart flourish of a trumpet resounded from the royal
+masquing at the palace,--breaking upon the holiness of the night with
+the harsh dissonance of a discord in some solemn harmony.--And as he was
+meditating on many things, and grieving in spirit at the dark fate of
+poor Scotland, and the woes with which the children of salvation were
+environed, he was startled by the apparition of a great blaze in the
+air, which for a moment lighted up all the land with a wild and fiery
+light, and he beheld in the glass of the North Loch, reflected from
+behind the shadow of the city, a tremendous eruption of burning beams
+and rafters burst into the sky, while a horrible crash, as if the
+chariots of destruction were themselves breaking down, shook the town
+like an earthquake.
+
+He was for an instant astounded; but soon roused by the clangour of an
+alarm from the castle; and while a cry rose from all the city, as if the
+last trumpet itself was sounding, he rushed into the street, where the
+inhabitants, as they had flown from their beds, were running in
+consternation like the sheeted dead startled from their graves. Drums
+beat to arms;--the bells rang;--some cried the wild cry of fire, and
+there was wailing and weeping, and many stood dumb with horror, and
+could give no answer to the universal question.--"God of the heavens,
+what is this?" Presently a voice was heard crying, "The King, the King!"
+and all, as if moved by one spirit, replied, "The King, the King!" Then
+for a moment there was a silence stiller than the midnight hour, and
+drum, nor bell, nor voice was heard, but a rushing of the multitude
+towards St Mary's Port, which leads to the Kirk o' Field.
+
+Among others, my grandfather hastened to the spot by Todrick's Wynd; and
+as he was running down towards the postern gate, he came with great
+violence against a man who was struggling up through the torrent of the
+people, without cap or cloak, and seemingly maddened with terrors. Urged
+by some strong instinct, my grandfather grasped him by the throat; for,
+by the glimpse of the lights that were then placing at every window, he
+saw it was Winterton. But a swirl of the crowd tore them asunder, and he
+had only time to cry, "It's ane of Bothwell's men."
+
+The people caught the Earl's name; but instead of seizing the fugitive,
+they repeated, "Bothwell, Bothwell, he's the traitor!" and pressed more
+eagerly on to the ruins of the house, which were still burning. The
+walls were rent, and in many places thrown down; the west gable was
+blown clean away, and the very ground, on the side where the King's
+chamber had been, was torn as with a hundred ploughshares. Certain trees
+that grew hard by were cleft and riven as with a thunderbolt, and stones
+were sticking in their timber like wedges and the shot of cannon.
+
+It was thought, that in such a sudden blast of desolation, nothing in
+the house could have withstood the shock, but that all therein must have
+been shivered to atoms. When, however, the day began to dawn, it was
+seen that many things had escaped unblemished by the fire; and the
+King's body, with that of the servant who watched in his chamber, was
+found in a neighbouring garden, without having suffered any material
+change,--the which caused the greater marvelling; for it thereby
+appeared that they were the only sufferers in that dark treason, making
+the truth plain before the people, that the contrivance and firing
+thereof was concerted and brought to maturity by some in authority with
+the Queen,--and who that was the people answered by crying as the royal
+corpse was carried to the palace, "Bothwell, Lord Bothwell, he is the
+traitor!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+All the next day, and for many days after, consternation reigned in the
+streets of the city, and horror sat shuddering in all her
+dwelling-places. Multitudes stood in amazement from morning to night
+around the palace; for the Earl of Bothwell was within, and still
+honoured with all the homages due to the greatest public trusts. Ever
+and anon a cry was heard, "Bothwell is the murderer!" and the multitude
+shouted, "Justice, justice!" But their cry was not heard.
+
+Night after night the trembling citizens watched with candles at their
+casements, dreading some yet greater alarm; and in the stillness of the
+midnight hour a voice was heard crying, "The Queen and Bothwell are the
+murderers!" and another voice replied, "Vengeance, vengeance!--Blood for
+blood!"
+
+Every morning on the walls of the houses writings were seen, demanding
+the punishment of the regicides--and the Queen's name, and the name of
+Bothwell, and the names of many more, with the Archbishop of St Andrews
+at their head, were emblazoned on all sides as the names of the
+regicides. But Bothwell, with the resolute bravery of guilt in the
+confidence of power, heeded not the cry that thus mounted continually
+against him to Heaven, and the Queen feigned a widow's sorrow.
+
+The whole realm was as when the ark of the covenant of the Lord was
+removed from Israel and captive in the hands of the Philistines. The
+injured sought not the redress of their wrongs; even the guilty were
+afraid of one another, and by the very cowardice of their distrust were
+prevented from banding at a time when they might have rioted at will.
+What aggravated these portents of a kingdom falling asunder, was the
+mockery of law and justice which the court attempted. Those who were
+accused of the King's death ruled the royal councils, and were greatest
+in the Queen's favour. The Earl of Bothwell dictated the very
+proceedings by which he was himself to be brought to trial,--and when
+the day of trial arrived, he came with the pomp and retinue of a
+victorious conqueror--to be acquitted.
+
+But acquitted, as the guilty ever needs must be whom no one dares to
+accuse, nor any witness hazards to appear against, his acquittal served
+but to prove his guilt, and the forms thereof the murderous
+participation of the Queen. Thus, though he was assoilzied in form of
+law, the libel against him was nevertheless found proven by the
+universal verdict of all men. Yet, in despite of the world, and even of
+the conviction recorded within their own bosoms, did the infatuated Mary
+and that dreadless traitor, in little more than three months from the
+era of their crime, rush into an adulterous marriage; but of the
+infamies concerning the same, and of the humiliated state to which poor
+Scotland sank in consequence, I must refer the courteous reader to the
+histories and chronicles of the time--while I return to the narrative of
+my grandfather.
+
+When the Earl of Bothwell, as I have been told by those who heard him
+speak of these deplorable blots on the Scottish name, had been created
+Duke of Orkney, the people daily expected the marriage. But instead of
+the ordinary ceremonials used at the marriages of former kings and
+princes, the Queen and all about her, as if they had been smitten from
+on high with some manifest and strange phrenzy, resolved, as it were in
+derision and blasphemy, notwithstanding her own and the notour popery of
+the Duke, to celebrate their union according to the strictest forms of
+the protestants; and John Knox being at the time in the West Country,
+his colleague, Master Craig, was ordered by the Queen in council to
+publish the bans three several Sabbaths in St Giles' kirk.
+
+On the morning of the first appointed day my grandfather went thither; a
+vast concourse of the people were assembled, and the worthy minister,
+when he rose in the pulpit with the paper in his hand, trembled and was
+pale, and for some time unable to speak; at last he read the names and
+purpose of marriage aloud, and he paused when he had done so, and an
+awful solemnity froze the very spirits of the congregation. He then laid
+down the paper on the pulpit, and lifting his hands and raising his
+eyes, cried with a vehement sadness of voice,--"Lord God of the pure
+heavens, and all ye of the earth that hear me, I protest, as a minister
+of the gospel, my abhorrence and detestation of this hideous and
+adulterous sin; and I call all the nobility and all of the Queen's
+council to remonstrate with her Majesty against a step that must cover
+her with infamy for ever and ruin past all remede." Three days did he
+thus publish the bans, and thrice in that manner did he boldly proclaim
+his protestation; for which he was called before the privy council,
+where the guilty Bothwell was sitting; and being charged with having
+exceeded the bounds of his commission, he replied with an apostolic
+bravery,--
+
+"My commission is from the word of God, good laws, and natural reason,
+to all which this proposed marriage is obnoxious. The Earl of Bothwell,
+there where he sits, knows that he is an adulterer,--the divorce that he
+has procured from his wife has been by collusion,--and he knows likewise
+that he has murdered the king and guiltily possessed himself of the
+Queen's person."
+
+Yet, notwithstanding, Mr Craig was suffered to depart, even unmolested
+by the astonished and overawed Bothwell; but, as I have said, the
+marriage was still celebrated; and it was the last great crime of
+papistical device that the Lord suffered to see done within the bounds
+of Scotland. For the same night letters were sent to the Earl of Murray
+from divers of the nobility, entreating him to return forthwith; and my
+grandfather, at the incitement of the Earl of Argyle, was secretly sent
+by his patron Glencairn to beg the friends of the state and the lawful
+prince, the son whom the Queen had born to her murdered husband, to meet
+without delay at Stirling.
+
+Accordingly, with the flower of their vassals and retainers, besides
+Argyle and Glencairn, came many of the nobles; and having protested
+their detestation of the conduct of the Queen, they entered into a
+Solemn League and Covenant, wherein they rehearsed, as causes for their
+confederating against the misrule with which the kingdom was so humbled,
+that the Scottish people were abhorred and vilipendit amongst all
+Christian nations; declaring that they would never desist till they had
+revenged the foul murder of the King, rescued the Queen from her
+thraldom to the Earl of Bothwell, and dissolved her ignominious
+marriage.
+
+The Queen and her regicide, for he could not be called her husband, were
+panic-struck when they heard of this avenging paction. She issued a bold
+proclamation, calling on her insulted subjects to take arms in her
+defence, and she published manifestoes, all lies. She fled with Bothwell
+from Edinburgh to the castle of Borthwick; but scarcely were they within
+the gates when the sough of the rising storm obliged him to leave her,
+and the same night, in the disguise of man's apparel, the Queen of all
+Scotland was seen flying, friendless and bewildered, to her sentenced
+paramour.
+
+The covenanting nobles in the meantime were mustering their clans and
+their vassals; and the Earls of Morton and Athol having brought the
+instrument of the League to Edinburgh, the magistrates and town-council
+signed the same, and, taking the oaths, issued instanter orders for the
+burghers to prepare themselves with arms and banners, and to man the
+city walls. The whole kingdom rung with the sound of warlike
+preparations, and the ancient valour of the Scottish heart was blithened
+with the hope of erasing the stains that a wicked government had brought
+upon the honour of the land.
+
+Meanwhile the regicide and the Queen drew together what forces his power
+could command and her promises allure, and they advanced from Dunbar to
+Carberry Hill, where they encamped. The army of the Covenanters at the
+same time left Edinburgh to meet them. Mary appeared at the head of her
+troops; but they felt themselves engaged in a bad cause, and refused to
+fight. She exhorted them with all the pith of her eloquence;--she wept,
+she implored, she threatened, and she reproached them with cowardice,
+but still they stood sullen.
+
+To retreat in the face of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill
+on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with
+a voice of despair for Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw
+at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having
+halted his horse and procured leave from his leaders, advanced toward
+her. Bothwell, with a few followers, during the interval, quitted the
+field; and, as soon as Kirkcaldy came up, she surrendered herself to
+him, and was conducted by him to the headquarters of the Covenanters, by
+whom she was received with all the wonted testimonials of respect, and
+was assured, if she forsook Bothwell and governed her kingdom with
+honest councils, they would honour and obey her as their sovereign. But
+the common soldiers overwhelmed her with reproaches, and on the march
+back to Edinburgh poured upon her the most opprobrious names.
+
+"Never was such a sight seen," my grandfather often said, "as the return
+of that abject Princess to her capital. On the banner of the League was
+depicted the corpse of the murdered king, her husband, lying under a
+tree, with the young prince, his son, kneeling before it, and the motto
+was, 'Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord.' The standard-bearer rode with
+it immediately before the horse on which she sat weeping and wild, and
+covered with dust, and as often as she raised her distracted eye the
+apparition of the murder in the flag fluttered in her face. In vain she
+supplicated pity--yells and howls were all the answers she received, and
+volleys of execrations came from the populace, with Burn her, burn her,
+bloody murderess! Let her not live!"
+
+In that condition she was conducted to the provost's house, into which
+she was assisted to alight, more dead than alive, and next morning she
+was conveyed a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, where she was soon after
+compelled to resign the crown to her son, and the regency to the Earl of
+Murray, by whose great wisdom the Reformation was established in truth
+and holiness throughout the kingdom--though for a season it was again
+menaced when Mary effected her escape, and dared the cause of the Lord
+to battle at Langside. But of that great day of victory it becomes not
+me to speak, for it hath received the blazon of many an abler pen; it is
+enough to mention, that my grandfather was there, and after the battle
+that he returned with the army to Glasgow, and was present at the
+thanksgiving. The same night he paid his last respects to the Earl of
+Murray, who permitted him to take away, as a trophy and memorial, the
+gloves which his Lordship had worn that day in the field; and they have
+ever since been sacredly preserved at Quharist, where they may be still
+seen. They are of York buff; the palm of the one for the right hand is
+still blue with the mark of the sword's hilt, and the fore-finger stool
+is stained with the ink of a letter which the Earl wrote on the field to
+Argyle, who had joined the Queen's faction; the which letter, it has
+been thought, caused the swithering of that nobleman in the hour of the
+onset, by which Providence gave the Regent the victory--a conquest which
+established the Gospel in his native land for ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+After the battle of Langside, many of the nobles and great personages of
+the realm grew jealous of the good Regent Murray, and, by their own
+demeanour, caused him to put on towards them a reserve and coldness of
+deportment, which they construed as their feelings and fancies led them,
+much to his disadvantage; for he was too proud to court the good-will
+that he thought was his due. But to all people of a lower degree, like
+those in my grandfather's station, he was ever the same punctual and
+gracious superior, making, by the urbanity of his manner, small
+courtesies recollected and spoken of as great favours, in so much that,
+being well-beloved of the whole commonality, his memory, long after his
+fatal death, was held in great estimation among them, and his fame as
+the sweet odour of many blessings.
+
+Few things, my grandfather often said, gave him a sorer pang than the
+base murder by the Hamiltons of that most eminent worthy; and in all the
+labours and business of his long life, nothing came ever more pleasant
+to his thoughts than the remembrance of the part he had himself in the
+retribution with which their many bloody acts were in the end overtaken
+and punished. Indeed, as far as concerns their guiltiest instigator and
+kinsman, the adulterous Antichrist of St Andrews, never was a just
+vengeance and judgment more visibly manifested, as I shall now, with
+all expedient brevity, rehearse, it being the last exploit in which my
+grandfather bore arms for the commonweal.
+
+Bailie Kilspinnie of Crail having dealings with certain Glasgow
+merchants, who sold plaiding to the Highlanders of Lennox and Cowal,
+finding them dour in payment, owing, as they said, to their customers
+lengthening their credit of their own accord, on account of the times,
+the west having been from the battle of Langside unwontedly tranquil,
+he, in the spring of 1571, came in quest of his monies, and my
+grandfather having notice thereof, took on behind him on horseback, to
+see her father, Agnes Kilspinnie, who had lived in his house from the
+time of his marriage to her aunt, Elspa Ruet. And it happened that
+Captain Crawford of Jordanhill, who was then meditating his famous
+exploit against the castle of Dumbarton, met my grandfather by chance in
+the Trongait, and knowing some little of him, and of the great regard in
+which he was held by many noblemen, for one of his birth, spoke to him
+cordially, and asked him to be of his party, assigning, among other
+things, as a motive, that the great adversary of the Reformation, the
+Archbishop of St Andrews, had, on account of the doom and outlawry
+pronounced upon him, for being accessory both to the murder of King
+Henry, the Queen's protestant husband, and of the good Regent Murray,
+taken refuge in that redoubtable fortress.
+
+Some concern for the state of his wife and young family weighed with my
+grandfather while he was in communion with Jordanhill; but after parting
+from him, and going back to the Saracen's inn in the Gallowgait, where
+Bailie Kilspinnie and his daughter were, he had an inward urging of the
+spirit, moving him to be of the enterprise, on a persuasion, as I have
+heard him tell himself, that without he was there something would arise
+to balk the undertaking. So he was in consequence troubled in thought,
+and held himself aloof from the familiar talk of his friends all the
+remainder of the day, wishing that he might be able to overcome the
+thirst which Captain Crawford had bred within him to join his company.
+
+Bailie Kilspinnie seeing him in this perplexity of soul, spoke to him as
+a friend, and searched to know what had taken possession of him, and my
+grandfather, partly moved by his entreaty and partly by the thought of
+the great palpable Antichrist of Scotland, who had done the bailie's
+fireside such damage and detriment, being in a manner exposed to their
+taking, told him what had been propounded by Jordanhill.
+
+"Say you so," cried the bailie, remembering the offence done to his
+family, "say you so; and that he is in a girn that wants but a manly
+hand to grip him. Body and soul o' me, if the thing's within the power
+of the arm of flesh he shall be taken and brought to the wuddy, if the
+Lord permits justice to be done within the realm of Scotland."
+
+The which bold and valorous breathing of the honest magistrate of Crail
+kindled the smoking yearnings of my grandfather into a bright and
+blazing flame, and he replied,--
+
+"Then, sir, if you be so minded, I cannot perforce abide behind, but
+will go forth with you to the battle, and swither not with the sword
+till we have effected some notable achievement."
+
+They accordingly went forthwith to Captain Crawford and proffered to him
+their service; and he was gladdened that my grandfather had come to so
+warlike a purpose; but he looked sharply at the bailie, and twice smiled
+to my grandfather, as if in doubt of his soldiership, saying, "But,
+Gilhaize, since you recommend him, he must be a good man and true."
+
+So the same night they set out at dusk, with a chosen troop and band of
+not more than two hundred men. A boat, provided with ladders, dropped
+down the river with the tide, to be before them.
+
+By midnight the expedition reached the bottom of Dumbuckhill, where,
+having ascertained that the boat was arrived, Jordanhill directed those
+aboard to keep her close in with the shore, and move with their march.
+
+The evening when they left Glasgow was bright and calm, and the moon, in
+her first quarter, shed her beautiful glory on mountain and tower and
+tree, leading them as with the light of a heavenly torch; and when they
+reached the skirts of the river, it was soon manifest that their
+enterprise was favoured from on high. The moon was by that time set, and
+a thick mist came rolling from the Clyde and the Leven, and made the
+night air dim as well as dark, veiling their movements from all mortal
+eyes.
+
+Jordanhill's guide led them to a part of the rock which was seldom
+guarded, and showed them where to place their ladders. He had been in
+the service of the Lord Fleming, the governor, but on account of
+contumelious usage had quitted it, and had been the contriver of the
+scheme.
+
+Scarcely was the first ladder placed when the impatience of the men
+brought it to the ground; but there was a noise in the ebbing waters of
+the Clyde that drowned the accident of their fall, and prevented it from
+alarming the soldiers on the watch. This failure disconcerted Jordanhill
+for a moment; but the guide fastened the ladder to the roots of an ash
+tree which grew in a cleft of the rock, and to the first shelf of the
+precipice they all ascended in safety.
+
+The first ladder was then drawn up and placed against the upper story,
+as it might be called, of the rock, reaching to the gap where they could
+enter into the fortress, while another ladder was tied in its place
+below. Jordanhill then ascended, leading the way, followed by his men,
+the bailie of Crail being before my grandfather.
+
+They were now at a fearful height from the ground; but the mist was
+thick, and no one saw the dizzy eminence to which he had attained. It
+happened, however, that just as Jordanhill reached the summit, and while
+my grandfather and the bailie were about half-way up the ladder, the
+mist below rolled away, and the stars above shone out, and the bailie,
+casting his eyes downward, was so amazed and terrified at the eagle
+flight he had taken, that he began to quake and tremble, and could not
+mount a step farther.
+
+At that juncture delay was death to success. It was impossible to pass
+him. To tumble him off the ladder and let him be dashed to pieces, as
+some of the men both above and below roughly bade my grandfather do, was
+cruel. All were at a stand.
+
+Governed, however, by a singular inspiration, my grandfather took off
+his own sword-belt and also the bailie's, and fastened him with them to
+the ladder by the oxters and legs, and then turning round the ladder,
+leaving him so fastened pendent in the air on the lower side, the
+assailants ascended over his belly, and courageously mounted to their
+perilous duty.
+
+Jordanhill shouted as they mustered on the summit. The officers and
+soldiers of the garrison rushed out naked, but sword in hand. The
+assailants seized the cannon. Lord Fleming, the governor, leaped the
+wall into the boat that had brought the scaling ladders and was rowed
+away. The garrison, thus deserted, surrendered, and the guilty prelate
+was among the prisoners.
+
+As soon as order was in some degree restored, my grandfather went with
+two other soldiers to where the bailie had been left suspended, and
+having relieved him from his horror, which the breaking daylight
+increased by showing him the fearful height at which he hung, he brought
+him to Jordanhill, who, laughing at his disaster, ordered him to be one
+of the guard appointed to conduct the Archbishop to Stirling.
+
+In that service the worthy magistrate proved more courageous, and
+upbraided the prisoner several times on the road for the ill he had done
+to him. But that traitorous high priest heard his taunts in silence, for
+he was a valiant and proud man; such, indeed, was his gallant bearing in
+the march that the soldiers were won by it to do him homage as a true
+knight: and had he been a warrior as he was but a priest, it was thought
+by many that, though both papist and traitor, they might have been
+worked upon to set him free. To Stirling, however, he was carried; and
+on the fourth day from the time he was taken he was executed on the
+gallows, where, notwithstanding his guilty life, he suffered with the
+bravery of a gentleman dying in a righteous cause, in so much that the
+papists honoured his courage as if it had been the virtue of a holy
+martyr; and Bailie Kilspinnie all his days never ceased to wonder how so
+wicked a man could die so well.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Having thus set forth the main passages in my grandfather's life, I
+should now quit the public highway of history, and turn for a time into
+the pleasant footpath of his domestic vineyard, the plants whereof,
+under his culture, and the pious waterings of Elspa Ruet, my excellent
+progenitrix, were beginning to spread their green tendrils and goodly
+branches, and to hang out their clusters to the gracious sunshine, as it
+were in demonstration to the heavens that the labourer was no sluggard,
+and as an assurance that in due season, under its benign favour, they
+would gratefully repay his care with sweet fruit. But there is yet one
+thing to be told, which, though it may not be regarded as germane to the
+mighty event of the Reformation, grew so plainly out of the signal
+catastrophe related in the foregoing chapter, that it were to neglect
+the instruction mercifully intended were I not to describe all its
+circumstances and particularities as they came to pass.
+
+Accordingly to proceed. In the winter after the storming of Dumbarton
+Castle, Widow Ruet, the mother of my grandmother, hearing nothing for a
+long time of her poor donsie daughter Marion, had, from the hanging of
+Archbishop Hamilton, the anti-Christian paramour of that misguided
+creature, fallen into a melancholy state of moaning and inward grief, in
+so much that Bailie Kilspinnie wrote a letter invoking my grandfather to
+come with his wife to Crail, that they might join together in comforting
+the aged woman; which work of duty and of charity they lost no time in
+undertaking, carrying with them Agnes Kilspinnie to see her kin.
+
+Being minded both in the going and the coming to partake of the feast of
+the heavenly and apostolic eloquence of the fearless Reformer's
+life-giving truths, they went by the way of Edinburgh; and in going
+about while there to show Agnes Kilspinnie the uncos of the town, it
+happened as they were coming down from the Castlehill, in passing the
+Weigh-house, that she observed a beggar woman sitting on a stair
+seemingly in great distress, for her hands were fervently clasped, and
+she was swinging her body backwards and forwards like a bark without a
+rudder on a billowy sea, when the winds of an angry heaven are let loose
+upon't.
+
+What made this forlorn wretch the more remarkable was a seeming remnant
+of better days in something about herself, besides the silken rags of
+garments that had once been costly. For, as she from time to time lifted
+her delicate hands aloft in her despairing ecstasy, the scrap of
+blanket, which was all her mantle, fell back and showed such lily and
+lady-like arms that it was impossible to look upon her without
+compassion, and not also to wonder from what high and palmy estate she
+had fallen into such abject poverty.
+
+My grandfather and his wife, with Agnes, stopped for a moment, and
+conferred together about what alms they would offer to a gentlewoman
+brought so low; when she, observing them, came wildly towards them
+crying, "For the Mother of God, to save a famishing outcast from death
+and perdition."
+
+Her frantic gesture, far more than her papistical exclamation, made
+their souls shudder; and before they had time to reply, she fell on her
+knees, and taking Elspa by the hand, repeated the same vehement prayer,
+adding, "Do, do, even though I be the vilest and guiltiest of
+womankind."
+
+"Marion Ruet!--O, my sister!--O, my dear Marion!" as wildfully and as
+wofully did my grandmother in that instant also cry aloud, falling on
+the beggar-woman's neck, and sobbing as if her heart would have burst;
+for it was indeed the bailie's wife, and the mother of Agnes, that
+supplicated for a morsel.
+
+This sad sight brought many persons around, among others a decent
+elderly carlin that kept a huxtry shop close by, who pitifully invited
+them to come from the public causey into her house; and with some
+difficulty my grandfather removed the two sisters thither. Agnes
+Kilspinnie, poor thing, following like a demented creature, not even
+able to drop a tear at so meeting with her humiliated parent, who, from
+the moment that she was known, could only gaze like the effigy of some
+extraordinary consternation carved in alabaster stone.
+
+When they had been some time in the house of old Ursie Firikins, as the
+kind carlin was called, Elspa Ruet all the while weeping like a constant
+fountain and repeating, "Marion, Marion!" with a fond and sorrowful
+tenderness that would allow her to say no more, my grandfather having
+got a drink of meal and water prepared, gave it to the famished outcast,
+and she gradually recovered from her stupor.
+
+For many minutes, however, she sat still and said nothing, and when she
+did speak it was in a voice of such misery of soul that my grandfather
+never liked to tell what terrible thoughts the remembrance of it ever
+gave him. I shall therefore not venture to repeat what she said, farther
+than to mention that, having sunk down on her knees, she spread her
+hands aloft and exclaimed, "Ay, the time's come now, and the words of
+her prophecy, that never ceased to dirl in my soul, are fulfilled. I
+will go back to Crail--my penitence shall be seen in my shame;--I will
+go openly, that all may take warning--and before all, in the face of
+day, will I confess the wrongs I hae done to my gudeman and bairns."
+
+She then rose and said to her sister, "Elspa, ye hae heard my vow, and
+this very hour I will begin my pilgrimage."
+
+Some further conversation ensued, in which she told them that she had
+run a woful course after the havock at St Andrews; but, though humbled
+to the dust, and almost perishing of hunger, pride had still warsled
+with penitence, and would not let her return to seek shelter from her
+mother. "But at last," said she, "all has now come to pass, and it is
+meet I submit to what is so plainly required of me." Then turning to her
+daughter she looked at her for some time with a watery and inquiring
+eye, and would have spoken, but her heart filled full and she could only
+weep.
+
+By way of consolation my grandfather told her they were then on their
+way to Crail, and that as soon as they had procured for her some fit
+apparel, they would take her with them. At these words she lifted the
+skirt of her ragged gown, and looking at it for a moment, smiled, as if
+in contempt of all things, saying,--
+
+"No, this is the livery of Him that I hae served so weel. It is fit that
+my friends should behold the coat of many colours, and the garment of
+praise wherewith He rewards all those that serve Him as I hae done." And
+no admonition, nor any affectionate petition, could shake her sad
+purpose.
+
+"But," said she, "I ought not to shame you on the road; and yet, Elspa,
+at least till the entrance of the town, let me travel with you; for when
+I hae dreed my penance, we must part, never to meet again. Darkness and
+dule is my portion now in this world. I hae earnt them, and it is just
+that I should enjoy them. They are my ain conquest, bought wi' the price
+of everything but my soul, and wha kens but for this meeting that it
+might hae been bartered away too."
+
+In nothing, however, of all that then passed was there anything which so
+moved the tranquil heart of my grandfather as the looks which, from
+time to time, the desolate woman cast at her daughter. Fain she seemed
+to speak and to catch her in her arms; but ever and anon the sense of
+her own condition came upon her, and she began to weep, crying, "No, no,
+I darena do that--I darena even mysel' to a parent's privilege after
+what I hae done."
+
+The poor lassie sat unable to make any answer; but at last, in a timid
+manner, she took her mother softly by the hand, and the fond and lowly
+penitent for a few moments allowed it to linger in her grip, willing to
+have left it there; but suddenly stung by her conscience she snatched it
+away, and again broke out into piercing lamentations and confessions of
+unworthiness.
+
+Meanwhile the charitable Ursie Firikins had made ready a mess of
+porridge, and the mournful Magdalen being soothed and consoled, was
+persuaded to partake. And afterwards, when they had sat some time, and
+the crowd which had gathered out of doors in the street was dispersed,
+my grandfather went to his lodgings; and having paid his lawin, returned
+to the two sisters and Agnes Kilspinnie, and they all walked to the
+shore of Leith together, where they found a boat going to Kinghorn, into
+which they embarked; and having slept there, they hired a cart to take
+them to Crail next morning, everyone who saw them wondering at the
+dejected and ruinous appearance of the penitent. The particulars,
+however, of their journey and of her reception in her native place, will
+furnish matter for another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+When they came within a mile of the town, where a small public stood
+that wayfaring men were wont to stop and refresh themselves at, my
+grandfather urged the disconsolate Marion, who had come all the way from
+Kinghorn without speaking a single word, to alight from the cart, and
+remain there till the cloud of night, when she might go to her mother's
+unafflicted by the gaze of the pitiless multitude.
+
+To this, at first, she made no answer; but leaping out of the cart, and
+standing still for a moment, she looked wistfully at her sister and
+daughter, and then began to weep, crying, "Gang ye awa, and no mind me;
+ye canna thole, and oughtna to share what I maun bear; and I'll never
+break another vow: so, in the face o' day, and of a' people, I'm
+constrained to enter Crail--first, to confess my guilt at the door of
+the honest man and his bairns that I hae sae disgraced; and syne to beg
+my mother to take in the limmer that was scofft frae door to door, till
+the blessed time when ye were sent to stop me laying desperate hands on
+mysel'."
+
+Elspa remonstrated with her for some time, but she was not to be
+entreated: "My guilt and my shamelessness were public," said she, "and
+it is meet that the world should behold what hae been the wages I hae
+earnt, and the depth of the humiliation to which my vain and proud heart
+has been brought; so, go ye on wi' your gudeman and Agnes, and let me
+come by mysel'."
+
+"No, Marion," replied her sister, "that sha'na be; I'll no let you do
+that. If you will make sic a pilgrimage, I'll bear you company, for I
+can ne'er be ashamed nor mortified in being wi' you, when ye are seeking
+again the path of righteousness that ye were sae beguil't to quit."
+
+"Say nae I was beguil't; say naething to gar me think less o' my fault
+than I should: there was nae beguiler but my ain vain and sinful
+nature."
+
+Her daughter, who had all this time stood silent with the tear in her
+e'e, then said, "I'll gang wi' you, mother, too."
+
+"Mother!--O Agnes Kilspinnie, dinna sae wrang yoursel', and your honest
+father, as to ca' the like o' me mother. But did ye say ye would come
+wi' me?" and she dropped vehemently on her knees, and, spreading her
+arms to the skies, cried out with a loud and wild voice,--
+
+"God, God! is thy goodness so great, that thou canst already vouchsafe
+to me a mercy like this?"
+
+Seeing her so bent on going into the town in her miserable estate, and
+his wife and her daughter so mindit to go with her, my grandfather said
+it would be as well for him to run forward and prepare her mother for
+her coming; so he left them, and hastened into the town, thinking they
+would come in the cart; but when he was gone, Marion, still in the hope
+she might get her sister and daughter dissuaded from accompanying her,
+told them that she was resolved to go on her bare feet, which, however,
+made them in pity still adhere the more closely to their determination;
+and, having paid the Kinghorn man for his cart, the three set forward
+together, Elspa on the right hand and Agnes on the left hand of the
+lowly penitent.
+
+In the meantime my grandfather hastened to the dwelling of Widow Ruet,
+his gude-mother, to tell her who was coming, and to prepare her aged
+mind for the sore shock. For though she was a sectarian of the Roman
+seed, she was nevertheless a most devout character, and abided more in
+the errors of her religion, because she thought herself too old to learn
+a new faith, than from that obstinacy of spirit which in those days so
+abounded in the breasts of the papisticals.
+
+The news was at first as glad tidings to the humane old woman; but every
+now and then she began to start, and to listen--and a tear fell from her
+eye. When she heard the voice of anyone talking in the street, or the
+sound of a foot passing, she hurried to the window and looked hastily
+out. The struggle within her was great, and it grew every minute
+stronger and stronger; and after walking very wofully divers times
+across the floor, she went and closed the shutters of her window, and
+sitting down gave full vent to her grief. In that state she had not been
+long, when the sough of a din gathering at a distance was heard.
+
+"Mother of Christ!" she cried, starting up, clapping her hands; "Mother
+of Jesus, thou hast seen the fruit of thy womb exposed to ignominy. By
+thine own agonies in that hour, I implore thy support. O blessed Mary,
+thy sorrow was light compared to my burden, for thy bairn was holy, and
+meek, and kind, and without sin. But thou hast known what it was to sit
+by thy baby sleeping in its innocence; thou hast known what it was to
+love it for the very troubles it then gave thee. By the remembrance of
+that sweet watching and care, O pity me, and help me to receive my
+erring bairn!"
+
+My grandfather could not stand her lament and ejaculations, and hearing
+the sound drawing nearer and nearer, he went out of the house to see if
+his presence might be any protection; but the sight he saw was even more
+sorrowful than the aged mother's grief.
+
+Instead of the cart in which he expected to see the women, he beheld
+them coming along, side by side, together attended by a great
+multitude; doors and windows flew open as they came along, and old and
+young looked out. Many cried, "She has been well serv't for her shame."
+Some laughed; and the young turned aside their heads to hide their
+tears. Among others that ran from the causey-side to look in the face of
+Marion--still beautiful, though faded, but shining with something
+brighter than beauty--there was a little boy that went up close to her,
+and took her by the hand, without speaking, and led her along. He was
+her own son; but still she moved not her solemn heavenward eye, though a
+universal sobbing burst from ail the multitude; and my grandfather, at
+the piteous pageantry, was no longer able to remain master of his
+feelings. Seeing, however, that the mournful actors therein were going
+on towards Bailie Kilspinnie's, and not intending to stop, as he
+expected they would, at Widow Ruet's door, he ran forward to warn his
+old friend; but in this he was too late; some one had been already
+there; and he found the poor man, with his three other children,
+standing at the door, seemingly utterly at a loss to know what his duty
+should be; nor was my grandfather in any condition of mind to help him
+with advice.
+
+At that juncture the multitude came rushing on before the women, and
+halted in front of the bailie's house; for, seeing him and his bairns,
+they were taught, by some sense of gentle sympathy, to divide and retire
+to a distance, leaving an open and silent space for the penitent to go
+forward.
+
+When Agnes Kilspinnie and her brother saw their father and brother and
+sisters at the door, they quitted their mother and joined them, as if
+instructed by an instinct, while she slowly approached.
+
+Elspa Ruet, who had hitherto maintained a serene and resigned composure
+of countenance, was so moved at this sad spectacle, that my grandfather,
+seeing her distress, stepped out and caught her in his arms, and
+supported her from falling, she was so faint with anguish of heart.
+
+In the same moment, with a look that struck awe and consternation into
+every one around, Marion stepped on towards her husband and children,
+and gazed at them, and was dropping on her knees when the bailie caught
+her in his arms as if he would have carried her into the house. But he
+faltered in his purpose; and, casting his eyes on the five weans whom
+she had so deserted, he unloosed his embrace, and, gathering them before
+him, went in and shut the door.
+
+The multitude uttered a fearful sough; Elspa Ruet, roused by it, rushed
+from my grandfather towards her sister, and stooping, tried to raise her
+up. Poor Marion, still kneeling, looked around to the people, who stood
+all as still as mourners at an interment, and her dark ringlets falling
+loose, made her pale face appear of an unearthly fairness. She seemed as
+if she would have said something to her sister, who had clasped her by
+the hand, but litherly swinging backwards, she laid her head down on her
+husband's threshold and gave a heavy sigh, and died.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+The burial of Marion Ruet was decently attended by Bailie Kilspinnie and
+all his family; and though he did not carry the head himself, he yet
+ordered their eldest son to do so, because, whatever her faults had
+been, she was still the youth's mother. And my grandfather, with his
+wife, having spent some time after with their friends at Crail, returned
+homeward by themselves, passing over to Edinburgh, that they might taste
+once more of the elixir of salvation as dispensed by John Knox, who had
+been for some time in a complaining way, and it was by many thought that
+the end of his preaching was drawing nigh.
+
+It happened that the dreadful tidings of the murder of the protestants
+in France, by the command of "the accursed king," reached Edinburgh in
+the night before my grandfather and wife returned thither; and he used
+to speak of the consternation that they found reigning in the city when
+they arrived there, as a thing very awful to think of. Every shop was
+shut, and every window closed; for it was the usage in those days, when
+death was in a house, to close all the windows, so that the appearance
+of the town was as if, for the obduracy of their idolatrous sovereign,
+the destroying angel had slain all the first-born, and that a dead body
+was then lying in every family.
+
+There was also a terrifying solemnity in the streets; for, though they
+were as if all the people had come forth in panic and sad wonderment,
+many were clothed in black, and there was a funereal stillness--a dismal
+sense of calamity that hushed the voices of men, and friends meeting one
+another, lifted their hands, and shuddering, passed by without speaking.
+My grandfather saw but one, between Leith Wynd and the door of the house
+in the Lawnmarket, where he proposed to lodge, that wore a smile, and it
+was not of pleasure, but of avarice counting its gains.
+
+The man was one Hans Berghen, an armourer that had feathered his nest in
+the raids of the war with the Queen Regent. He was a Norman by birth,
+and had learnt the tempering of steel in Germany. In his youth he had
+been in the Imperator's service, and had likewise worked in the arsenal
+of Venetia. Some said he was perfected in his trade by the infidel at
+Constantinopolis; but, however this might be, no man of that time was
+more famous among roisters and moss-troopers, for the edge and metal of
+his weapons, than that same blasphemous incomer, who thought of nothing
+but the greed of gain, whether by dule to protestant or papist; so that
+the sight of his hard-favoured visage, blithened with satisfaction, was
+to my grandfather, who knew him well by repute, as an omen of portentous
+aspect.
+
+For two days the city continued in that dismal state, and on the third,
+which was Sabbath, the churches were so filled that my grandmother,
+being then in a tender condition, did not venture to enter the High
+Kirk, where the Reformer was waited for by many thirsty and languishing
+souls from an early hour in the morning, who desired to hear what he
+would say concerning the dark deeds that had been done in France. She
+therefore returned to the Lawnmarket; but my grandfather worked his way
+into the heart of the crowd, where he had not long been when a murmur
+announced that Master Knox was coming, and soon after he entered the
+kirk.
+
+He had now the appearance of great age and weakness, and he walked with
+slow and tottering steps, wearing a virl of fur round his neck, and a
+staff in one hand; godlie Richie Ballanden, his man, holding him up by
+the oxter. And when he came to the foot of the pulpit, Richie, by the
+help of another servant that followed with the Book, lifted him up the
+steps into it, where he was seemingly so exhausted that he was
+obligated to rest for the space of several minutes. No man who had never
+seen him before could have thought that one so frail would have had
+ability to have given out even the psalm; but when he began the spirit
+descended upon him, and he was so kindled that at last his voice became
+as awful as the thunders of wrath, and his arm was strengthened as with
+the strength of a champion's. The kirk dirled to the foundations; the
+hearts of his hearers shook, till the earth of their sins was shaken
+clean from them; and he appeared in the wirlwind of inspiration, as if
+his spirit was mounting, like the prophet Elijah, in a fiery chariot
+immediately to the gates of heaven.
+
+His discourse was of the children of Bethlehem slain by Herod, and he
+spoke of the dreadful sound of a bell and a trumpet heard suddenly in
+the midnight hour, when all were fast bound and lying defenceless in the
+fetters of sleep. He described the dreadful knocking at the doors--the
+bursting in of men with drawn swords--how babies were harled by the arms
+from their mothers' beds and bosoms, and dashed to death upon the marble
+floors. He told of parents that stood in the porches of their houses and
+made themselves the doors that the slayers were obliged to hew in pieces
+before they could enter in. He pictured the women flying along the
+street, in the nakedness of the bedchamber, with their infants in their
+arms, and how the ruffians of the accursed king, knowing their prey by
+their cries, ran after them, caught the mother by the hair and the bairn
+by the throat, and, in one act, flung the innocent to the stones and
+trampled out its life. Then he paused, and said, in a soft and thankful
+voice, that in the horrors of Bethlehem there was still much mercy; for
+the idolatrous dread of Herod prompted him to slay but young children,
+whose blameless lives were to their weeping parents an assurance of
+their acceptance into heaven.
+
+"What then," he cried, "are we to think of that night, and of that king,
+and of that people, among whom, by whom, and with whom, the commissioned
+murderer twisted his grip in the fugitive old man's grey hairs, to draw
+back his head that the knife might the surer reach his heart? With what
+eyes, being already blinded with weeping, shall we turn to that city
+where the withered hands of the grandmother were deemed as weapons of
+war by the strong and black-a-vised slaughterer, whose sword was owre
+vehemently used for a' the feckless remnant of life it had to cut! But
+deaths like these were brief and blessed compared to other
+things--which, Heaven be praised, I have not the power to describe, and
+which, among this protestant congregation, I trust there is not one able
+to imagine, or who, trying to conceive, descries but in the dark and
+misty vision the pains of mangled mothers; babes, untimely and
+unquickened, cast on the dung-hills and into the troughs of swine; of
+black-iron hooks fastened into the mouths, and driven through the cheeks
+of brave men, whose arms are tied with cords behind, as they are dragged
+into the rivers to drown, by those who durst not in fair battle endure
+the lightning of their eyes. O, Herod!--Herod of Judea--thy name is
+hereafter bright, for in thy bloody business thou wast thyself nowhere
+to be seen. In the vouts and abysses of thy unstained palace, thou hidst
+thyself from the eye of history, and perhaps humanely sat covering thine
+ears with thy hands to shut out the sound of the wail and woe around
+thee. But this Herod--let me not call him by so humane a name. No: let
+all the trumpets of justice sound his own to everlasting infamy--Charles
+the Ninth of France! And let his ambassador that is here aye yet, yet to
+this time audaciously in this Christian land, let him tell his master
+that sentence has been pronounced against him in Scotland; that the
+Divine vengeance will never depart from him or his house until
+repentance has ensued, and atonement been made in their own race; that
+his name will remain a blot--a blot of blood, a stain never to be
+effaced--a thing to be pronounced with a curse by all posterity; and
+that none proceeding from his loins shall ever enjoy his kingdom in
+peace."
+
+The preacher, on saying these prophetic words, paused, and, with his
+eyes fixed upwards, he stood some time silent, and then, clasping his
+hands together, exclaimed with fear and trembling upon him, "Lord, Lord,
+thy will be done?"
+
+Many thought that he had then received some great apocalypse; for it was
+observed of all men that he was never after like the man he had once
+been, but highly and holily elevated above earthly cares and
+considerations, saving those only of his ministry, and which he
+hastened to close. He was as one that no longer had trust, portion, or
+interest in this temporal world, which in less than two months after he
+bade farewell, and was translated to a better. Yes, to a better; for
+assuredly, if there is aught in this life that may be regarded as the
+symbols of infeftment to the inheritance of Heaven, the labours and
+ministration of John Knox were testimonies that he had verily received
+the yird and stane of an heritage on High.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+Shortly after my grandfather had returned with his wife to their quiet
+dwelling at Quharist on the Garnock side, he began, in the course of the
+winter following, to suffer an occasional pang in that part of his body
+which was damaged by the fall he got in rugging down the Virgin Mary out
+of her niche in the idolatrous abbeykirk of Kilwinning, and the anguish
+of his suffering grew to such an head by Candlemas that he was obligated
+to send for his old acquaintance, Dominick Callender, who had, after his
+marriage with the regenerate nun, settled as a doctor of physic in the
+godly town of Irvine. But for many a day all the skill and medicamenting
+of Doctor Callender did him little good, till Nature had, of her own
+accord, worked out the root of the evil in the shape of a sklinter of
+bone. Still, though the wound then closed, it never was a sound part,
+and he continued in consequence a lamiter for life. Yet were his days
+greatly prolonged beyond the common lot of man; for he lived till he was
+ninety-one years, seven months, and four days old, and his end at last
+was but a pleasant translation from the bodily to the spiritual life.
+
+For some days before the close he was calm and cheerful, rehearsing to
+the neighbours that came to speer for him, many things like those of
+which I have spoken herein. Towards the evening a serene drowsiness fell
+upon him, like the snow that falleth in silence, and froze all his
+temporal faculties in so gentle a manner, that it could not be said he
+knew what it was to die; being, as it were, carried in the downy arms of
+sleep to the portal door of Death, where all the pains and terrors that
+guard the same were hushed, and stood mute around, as he was softly
+received in.
+
+No doubt there was something of a providential design in the singular
+prolongation of such a pious and a blameless life; for through it the
+possessor became a blessed mean of sowing, in the hearts of his children
+and neighbours, the seeds of those sacred principles, which afterwards
+made them stand firm in their religious integrity when they were so
+grievously tried. For myself I was too young, being scant of eight years
+when he departed, to know the worth of those precious things which he
+had treasured in the garnel of his spirit for seed-corn unto the Lord;
+and therefore, though I often heard him speak of the riddling wherewith
+that mighty husbandman of the Reformation, John Knox, riddled the truths
+of the gospel from the errors of papistry, I am bound to say that his
+own exceeding venerable appearance, and the visions of past events,
+which the eloquence of his traditions called up to my young fancy,
+worked deeper and more thoroughly into my nature than the reasons and
+motives which guided and governed many of his other disciples. But,
+before proceeding with my own story, it is meet that I should still tell
+the courteous reader some few things wherein my father bore a part--a
+man of very austere character, and of a most godly, though, as some
+said, rather of a stubbornly affection for the forms of worship which
+had been established by John Knox and the pious worthies of his times;
+he was withal a single-minded Christian, albeit more ready for a raid
+than subtle in argument. He had, like all who knew the old people his
+parents, a by-common reverence for them; and spoke of the patriarchs
+with whom of old the Lord was wont to hold communion, as more favoured
+of Him than David or Solomon, or any other princes or kings.
+
+When he was very young, not passing, as I have heard him often tell,
+more than six or seven years of age, he was taken, along with his
+brethren, by my grandfather, to see the signing at Irvine of the
+Covenant, with which, in the lowering time of the Spanish armada, King
+James, the son of Mary, together with all the Reformed, bound themselves
+in solemn compact to uphold the protestant religion. Afterwards, when he
+saw the country rise in arms, and heard of the ward and watch, and the
+beacons ready on the hills, his imagination was kindled with some
+dreadful conceit of the armada, and he thought it could be nothing less
+than some awful and horrible creature sent from the shores of perdition
+to devour the whole land. The image he had thus framed in his fears
+haunted him continually; and night after night he could not sleep for
+thinking of its talons of brass, and wings of thunder, and nostrils
+flaming fire, and the iron teeth with which it was to grind and gnash
+the bodies and bones of all protestants, in so much that his parents
+were concerned for the health of his mind, and wist not what to do to
+appease the terrors of his visions.
+
+At last, however, the great Judith of the protestant cause, Queen
+Elizabeth of England, being enabled to drive a nail into the head of
+that Holofernes of the idolaters, and many of the host of ships having
+been plunged, by the right arm of the tempest, into the depths of the
+seas, and scattered by the breath of the storm, like froth over the
+ocean, it happened that, one morning about the end of July, a cry arose
+that a huge galley of the armada was driven on the rocks at Pencorse;
+and all the shire of Ayr hastened to the spot to behold and witness her
+shipwreck and overthrow. Among others my grandfather, with his three
+eldest sons, went, leaving my father at home; but his horrors grew to
+such a passion of fear that his mother, the calm and pious Elspa Ruet,
+resolved to take him thither likewise, and to give him the evidence of
+his eyes, that the dreadful armada was but a navy of vessels like the
+ship which was cast upon the shore. By this prudent thought of her, when
+he arrived at the spot his apprehensions were soothed; but his mind had
+ever after a strange habitude of forming wild and wonderful images of
+every danger, whereof the scope and nature was not very clearly
+discerned, and which continued with him till the end of his days.
+
+Soon after the death of my grandfather, he had occasion to go into
+Edinburgh anent some matter of legacy that had fallen to us through the
+decease of an uncle of my mother, a bonnet-maker in the Canongate; and,
+on his arrival there, he found men's minds in a sore fever concerning
+the rash councils wherewith King Charles the First, then reigning, was
+mindit to interfere with the pure worship of God, and to enact a part in
+the kirk of Scotland little short of the papistical domination of the
+Roman Antichrist. To all men this was startling tidings; but to my
+father it was an enormity that fired his blood and spirit with the
+fierceness of a furnace. And it happened that he lodged with a friend of
+ours, one Janet Geddes, a most pious woman, who had suffered great
+molestation in her worldly substance, from certain endeavours for the
+restorations of the horns of the mitre, and the prelatic buskings with
+which that meddling and fantastical bodie, King James the Sixth, would
+fain have buskit and disguised the sober simplicity of gospel
+ordinances.
+
+No two persons could be more heartily in unison upon any point of
+controversy than was my worthy father and Janet Geddes, concerning the
+enormities that would of a necessity ensue from the papistical
+pretensions and unrighteous usurpation of King Charles; and they sat
+crooning and lamenting together all the Saturday afternoon and night
+about the woes of idolatry that were darkening again over Scotland.
+
+No doubt there was both reason and piety in their fears; but in the
+method of their sorrow, from what I have known of my father's earnest
+and simple character, I redde there might be some lack of the decorum of
+wisdom. But be this as it may, they heated the zeal of one another to a
+pitch of great fervour, and next morning, the Sabbath, they went
+together to the high Kirk of St Giles to see what the power of an
+infatuated government would dare to do.
+
+The kirk was filled to its uttermost bunkers; my father, however, got
+for Janet Geddes, she being an aged woman, a stool near the skirts of
+the pulpit; but nothing happened to cause any disturbance till the godly
+Mr Patrick Henderson had made an end of the morning prayer, when he
+said, with tears in his eyes, with reference to the liturgy, which was
+then to be promulgated, "Adieu, good people, for I think this is the
+last time of my saying prayers in this kirk;" and the congregation being
+much moved thereat, many wept.
+
+No sooner had Mr Henderson retired, than Master Ramsay, that horn of the
+Beast, which was called the Dean of Edinburgh, appeared in the pulpit in
+the pomp of his abominations, and began to read the liturgy. At the
+first words of which Janet Geddes was so transported with indignation
+that, starting from her stool, she made it fly whirring at his head, as
+she cried, "Villain, dost thou say the mass at my lug?" Then such an
+uproar began as had not been witnessed since the destruction of the
+idols; the women screaming, and clapping their hands in terrification as
+if the legions of the Evil One had been let loose upon them; and the men
+crying aloud, "Antichrist! Antichrist! down wi' the Pope!" and all
+exhortation to quiet them was drowned in the din.
+
+Such was the beginning of those troubles in the church and state so
+wantonly provoked by the weak and wicked policy of the first King
+Charles, and which in the end brought himself to an ignominious death;
+and such the cause of that Solemn League and Covenant, to which, in my
+green years, my father, soon after his return home, took me to be a
+party, and to which I have been enabled to adhere, with unerring
+constancy, till the glorious purpose of it has all been fulfilled and
+accomplished.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+When my father returned home, my mother and all the family were grieved
+to see his sad and altered looks. We gathered around him, and she
+thought he had failed to get the legacy, and comforted him by saying
+they had hitherto fenn't without it, and so might they still do.
+
+To her tender condolements he however made no answer; but, taking a
+leathern bag, with the money in it, out of his bosom, he flung it on the
+table, saying, "What care I for this world's trash, when the ark of the
+Lord is taken from Israel?" which to hear daunted the hearts of all
+present. And then he told us, after some time, what was doing on the
+part of the King to bring in the worship of the Beast again, rehearsing,
+with many circumstances, the consternation and sorrow and rage and
+lamentations that he had witnessed in Edinburgh.
+
+I, who was the ninth of his ten children, and then not passing nine
+years old, was thrilled with an unspeakable fear; and all the dreadful
+things, which I had heard my grandfather tell of the tribulations of his
+time, came upon my spirit like visions of the visible scene, and I began
+to weep with an exceeding sorrow, in so much that my father was amazed,
+and caressed me, and thanked Heaven that one so young in his house felt
+as a protestant child should feel in an epoch of such calamity.
+
+It was then late in the afternoon, towards the gloaming, and having
+partaken of some refreshment, my father took the big Bible from the
+press-head, and, after a prayer uttered in great heaviness of spirit, he
+read a portion of the Revelations, concerning the vials and the woes,
+expounding the same like a preacher; and we were all filled with
+anxieties and terrors; some of the younger members trembled with the
+thought that the last day was surely at hand.
+
+Next morning a sough and rumour of that solemn venting of Christian
+indignation which had been manifested at Edinburgh, having reached our
+country-side, and the neighbours hearing of my father's return, many of
+them came at night to our house to hear the news; and it was a meeting
+that none present thereat could ever after forget:--well do I mind
+everything as if it had happened but yestreen. I was sitting on a laigh
+stool at the fireside, between the chumley-lug and the gown-tail of old
+Nanse Snoddie, my mother's aunty, a godly woman, that in her eild we
+took care of; and as young and old came in, the salutation was in
+silence, as of guests coming to a burial.
+
+The first was Ebenezer Muir, an aged man, whose grandson stood many a
+blast in the persecution of the latter days, both with the Blackcuffs
+and the bloody dragoons of the remorseless Graham of Claver. He was bent
+with the burden of time, and leaning on his staff, and his long white
+hair hung down from aneath his broad blue bonnet. He was one whom my
+grandfather held in great respect for the sincerity of his principles
+and the discretion of his judgment, and among all his neighbours, and
+nowhere more than in our house, was he considered a most patriarchal
+character.
+
+"Come awa, Ebenezer," said my father, "I'm blithe and I'm sorrowful to
+see you. This night we may be spar't to speak in peace of the things
+that pertain unto salvation; but the day and the hour is not far off,
+when the flock of Christ shall be scattered and driven from the pastures
+of their Divine Master."
+
+To these words of affliction Ebenezer Muir made no response, but went
+straight to the fireside, facing Nanse Snoddie, and sat down without
+speaking; and my father, then observing John Fullarton of Dykedivots
+coming in, stretched out his hand, and took hold of his, and drew him to
+sit down by his side.
+
+They had been in a manner brothers from their youth upward. An uncle of
+John Fullarton's, by whom he was brought up, had been owner, and he
+himself had heired, and was then possessor of, the mailing of Dykedivot,
+beside ours. He was the father of four brave sons, the youngest of whom,
+a stripling of some thirteen or fourteen years, was at his back: the
+other three came in afterwards. He was, moreover, a man of a stout and
+courageous nature, though of a much-enduring temper.
+
+"I hope," said he to my father--"I hope, Sawners, a' this straemash and
+hobbleshow that fell out last Sabbath in Embro' has been seen wi' the
+glamoured een o' fear, and that the King and government canna be sae far
+left to themsels as to meddle wi' the ordinances of the Lord."
+
+"I doot, I doot, it's owre true, John," replied my father in a very
+mournful manner; and while they were thus speaking, Nahum Chapelrig came
+ben. He was a young man, and his father being precentor and schoolmaster
+of the parish, he had more lair than commonly falls to the lot of
+country folk; over and aboon this, he was of a spirity disposition, and
+both eydent and eager in whatsoever he undertook, so that for his years
+he was greatly looked up to amang all his acquaintance, notwithstanding
+a small spicin of conceit that he was in with himself.
+
+On seeing him coming in, worthy Ebenezer Muir made a sign for him to
+draw near and sit by him; and when he went forward, and drew in a stool,
+the old man took hold of him by the hand, and said, "Ye're weel come,
+Nahum;" and my father added, "Ay, Nahum Chapelrig, it's fast coming to
+pass, as ye hae been aye saying it would; the King has na restit wi'
+putting the prelates upon us."
+
+"What's te prelates, Robin Fullarton?" said auld Nanse Snoddie, turning
+round to John's son, who was standing behind his father.
+
+"They're the red dragons o' unrighteousness," replied the sincere laddie
+with great vehemence.
+
+"Gude guide us!" cried Nanse with the voice of terror; "and has the
+King daur't to send sic accursed things to devour God's people?"
+
+But my mother, who was sitting behind me, touched her on the shoulder,
+bidding her be quiet; for the poor woman, being then doited, when left
+to the freedom of her own will, was apt to expatiate without ceasing on
+whatsoever she happened to discourse anent; and Nahum Chapelrig said to
+my father,--
+
+"'Deed, Sawners Gilhaize, we could look for nae better; prelacy is but
+the prelude o' papistry; but the papistry o' this prelude is a perilous
+papistry indeed; for its roots of rankness are in the midden-head of
+Arminianism, which, in a sense, is a greater Antichrist than Antichrist
+himself, even where he sits on his throne of thraldom in the Roman
+vaticano. But, nevertheless, I trust and hope, that though the virgin
+bride of protestantism be for a season thrown on her back, she shall not
+be overcome, but will so strive and warsle aneath the foul grips of that
+rampant Arminian, the English high-priest Laud, that he shall himself be
+cast into the mire, or choket wi' the stoure of his own bakiefu's of
+abominations, wherewith he would overwhelm and bury the Evangil. Yea,
+even though the shield of his mighty men is made red, and his valiant
+men are in scarlet, he shall recount his worthies, but they shall
+stumble in their walk."
+
+While Nahum was thus holding forth, the house filled even to the
+trance-door with the neighbours, old and young; and several from time to
+time spoke bitterly against the deadly sin and aggression which the King
+was committing in the rape that the reading of the liturgy was upon the
+consciences of his people. At last Ebenezer Muir, taking off his bonnet,
+and rising, laid it down on his seat behind him, and then resting with
+both his hands on his staff, looked up, and every one was hushed. Truly
+it was an affecting sight to behold that very aged, time-bent and
+venerable man so standing in the midst of all his dismayed and pious
+neighbours,--his grey hairs flowing from his haffets,--and the light of
+our lowly hearth shining upon his bald head and reverent countenance.
+
+"Friens," said he, "I hae lived lang in the world; and in this house I
+hae often partaken the sweet repast of the conversations of that
+sanctified character, Michael Gilhaize, whom we a' revered as a parent,
+not more for his ain worth than for the great things to which he was a
+witness in the trials and troubles of the Reformation; and it seems to
+me, frae a' the experience I hae gatherit, that when ance kings and
+governments hae taken a step, let it be ne'er sae rash, there's a
+something in the nature of rule and power that winna let them confess a
+fau't, though they may afterwards be constrained to renounce the evil of
+their ways. It was therefore wi' a sore heart that I heard this day the
+doleful tidings frae Embro', and moreover, that I hae listened to the
+outbreathings this night of the heaviness wherewith the news hae
+oppressed you a'. Sure am I, that frae the provocation given to the
+people of Scotland by the King's miscounselled majesty, nothing but
+tears and woes can ensue; for by the manner in which they hae already
+rebutted the aggression, he will in return be stirred to aggrieve them
+still farther. I'm now an auld man, and may be removed before the woes
+come to pass; but it requires not the e'e of prophecy to spae bloodshed
+and suffering, and many afflictions in your fortunes. Nevertheless,
+friens, be of good cheer, for the Lord will prosper his own cause.
+Neither king, nor priest, nor any human authority has the right to
+interfere between you and your God; and allegiance ends where
+persecution begins. Never, therefore, in the trials awaiting you, forget
+that the right to resist in matters of conscience is the
+foundation-stone of religious liberty; O see, therefore, that you guard
+it weel!"
+
+The voice and manner of the aged speaker melted every heart. Many of the
+women sobbed aloud, and the children were moved, as I was myself, and as
+I have often heard them in their manhood tell, as if the spirit of faith
+and fortitude had entered into the very bones and marrow of their
+bodies; nor ever afterwards have I heard psalm sung with such melodious
+energy of holiness as that pious congregation of simple country folk
+sung the hundred and fortieth psalm before departing for their lowly
+dwellings on that solemn evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+It was on the Wednesday that my father came home from Edinburgh. On
+Friday the farmer lads and their fathers continued coming over to our
+house to hear the news, and all their discourse was concerning the
+manifest foretaste of papistry which was in the praying of the prayers,
+that an obdurate prince and an alien Arminian prelate were attempting to
+thrust into their mouths, and every one spoke of renewing the Solemn
+League and Covenant, which, in the times of the Reformation and the
+dangers of the Spanish Armada, had achieved such great things for THE
+TRUTH AND THE WORD.
+
+On Saturday, Mr Sundrum, our minister, called for my father about twelve
+o'clock. He had heard the news, and also that my father had come back. I
+was doing something on the green, I forget now what it was, when I saw
+him coming towards the door, and I ran into the house to tell my father,
+who immediately came out to meet him.
+
+Little passed in my hearing between them, for, after a short inquiry
+concerning how my father had fared in the journey, the minister took
+hold of him by the arm, and they walked together into the fields, where,
+when they were at some distance from the house, Mr Sundrum stopped, and
+began to discourse in a very earnest and lively manner, frequently
+touching the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right, as he
+spoke to my father, and sometimes lifting both his hands as one in
+amaze, ejaculating to the heavens.
+
+While they were thus reasoning together, worthy Ebenezer Muir came
+towards the house, but, observing where they were, he turned off and
+joined them, and they continued all three in vehement deliberation, in
+so much that I was drawn by the thirst of curiosity to slip so near
+towards them that I could hear what passed; and my young heart was
+pierced at the severe terms in which the minister was condemning the
+ringleaders of the riot, as he called the adversaries of popedom in
+Edinburgh, and in a manner rebuking my honest father as a sower of
+sedition.
+
+My father, however, said stiffly, for he was not a man to controvert
+with a minister, that in all temporal things he was a true and leil
+subject, and in what pertained to the King as king, he would stand as
+stoutly up for as any man in the three kingdoms; but against a
+usurpation of the Lord's rights, his hand, his heart, and his father's
+sword, that had been used in the Reformation, were all alike ready.
+
+Old Ebenezer Muir tried to pacify him, and reasoned in great gentleness
+with both, expressing his concern that a presbyterian minister could
+think that the attempt to bring in prelacy, and the reading of
+court-contrived prayers, was not a meddling with things sacred and
+rights natural, which neither prince nor potentate had authority to do.
+But Mr Sundrum was one of those that longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt,
+and the fat things of a lordly hierarchy; and the pacific remonstrances
+of the pious old man made him wax more and more wroth at what he
+hatefully pronounced their rebellious inclinations; at which bitter
+words both my father and Ebenezer Muir turned from him, and went
+together to the house with sadness in their faces, leaving him to return
+the way he had come alone--a thing which filled me with consternation,
+he having ever before been treated and reverenced as a pastor ought
+always to be.
+
+What comment my father and the old man made on his conduct when they
+were by themselves I know not; but on the Sabbath morning the kirk was
+filled to overflowing, and my father took me with him by the hand, and
+we sat together on the same form with Ebenezer Muir, whom we found in
+the church before us.
+
+When Mr Sundrum mounted into the pulpit, and read the psalm and said the
+prayer, there was nothing particular; but when he prepared to preach,
+there was a rustle of expectation among all present, for the text he
+chose was from Romans, chapter xiii. and verses 1 and 2; from which he
+made an endeavour to demonstrate, as I heard afterwards, for I was then
+too young to discern the matter of it myself, the duty and advantages of
+passive obedience--and, growing warm with his ungospel rhetoric, he
+began to rail and to daud the pulpit in condemnation of the spirit which
+had kithed in Edinburgh.
+
+Ebenezer Muir and my father tholed with him for some time; but at last
+he so far forgot his place and office, that they both rose and moved
+towards the door. Many others did the same, and presently the whole
+congregation, with the exception of a very few, also began to move, so
+that the kirk skayled; and from that day, so long as Mr Sundrum
+continued in the parish, he was as a leper and an excommunicant.
+
+Meanwhile the alarm was spreading far and wide, and a blessed thing it
+was for the shire of Ayr, though it caused its soil to be soakened with
+the blood of martyrs, that few of the ministers were like the
+time-serving Mr Sundrum, but trusty and valiant defenders of the green
+pastures whereon they had delighted, like kind shepherds, to lead their
+confiding flocks, and to cherish the young lambs thereof with the tender
+embraces of a holy ministry. Among the rest, that godly and great saint,
+Mr Swinton of Garnock, our neighbour parish, stood courageously forward
+in the gap of the broken fence of the vineyard, announcing, after a most
+weighty discourse, on the same day on which Mr Sundrum preached the
+erroneous doctrine of passive obedience, that next Sabbath he would
+administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, not knowing how long it
+might be in the power of his people to partake of it. Every body around
+accordingly prepared to be present on that occasion, and there was a
+wonderful congregation. All the adjacent parishes in succession did the
+same thing Sabbath after Sabbath, and never was there seen, in the
+memory of living man, such a zealous devotion and strictness of life as
+then reigned throughout the whole West Country.
+
+At last the news came, that it was resolved among the great and faithful
+at Edinburgh to renew the Solemn League and Covenant; and the ministers
+of our neighbourhood having conferred together concerning the same, it
+was agreed among them, that the people should be invited to come forward
+on a day set apart for the purpose, and that as the kirk of Irvine was
+the biggest in the vicinage, the signatures both for the country and
+that town should be received there. Mr Dickson, the minister, than whom
+no man of his day was more brave in the Lord's cause, accordingly made
+the needful preparation, and appointed the time.
+
+In the meanwhile the young men began to gird themselves for war. The
+swords that had rested for many a day were drawn from their idle places;
+and the women worked together, that their brothers and their sons might
+be ready for the field; but at their work, instead of the ancient
+lilts, they sung psalms and godly ballads. However, as I mean not to
+enter upon the particulars of that awakening epoch, but only to show
+forth the pure and the holy earnestness with which the minds of men were
+then actuated, I shall here refer the courteous reader to the annals and
+chronicles of the time,--albeit the truth in them has suffered from the
+alloy of a base servility.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+The sixteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord 1638, was appointed
+for the renewal at Irvine of the Solemn League and Covenant. On the
+night before, my five elder brothers, who were learning trades at
+Glasgow and Kilmarnock, came home that they might go up with their
+father to the house of God, in order to set down their names together;
+me and my four sisters, the rest of his ten children, were still biding
+with our mother and him at the mailing.
+
+From my grandfather's time there had been a by-common respect among the
+neighbours for our family on his account; and that morning my brother
+Jacob, who happened to be the first that went, at break of day, to the
+door, was surprised to see many of the cotters and neighbouring farmer
+lads already assembled on the lone, waiting to walk with us to the town,
+as a token of their reverence for the principles and the memory of that
+departed worthy; and they were all belted and armed with swords like men
+ready for battle.
+
+Seeing such a concourse of the neighbours, instead of making exercise in
+the house, my father, as the morning was bright and lown, bade me carry
+the Bible and a stool to the dykeside, that our friends might have room
+to join us in worship,--which I did accordingly, placing the stool under
+the ash-tree, at the corner of the stack-yard, and by all those who were
+present on that occasion the spot was ever afterwards regarded as a
+hallowed place. Truly there was a scene and a sight there not likely to
+be soon forgotten; for the awful cause that had brought together that
+meeting was a thing which no man who had a part therein could ever in
+all his days forget.
+
+My father chose the seventy-sixth psalm, and when it was sung, he opened
+the Scriptures in Second Kings, and read aloud, with a strong voice, the
+twenty-third chapter, and every one likened Josiah to the old King, and
+Jehoahaz to his son Charles, by whose disregard of the Covenant the
+spirit of the land was then in such tribulation; and at the conclusion,
+instead of kneeling to pray, as he was wont, my father stood up, and, as
+if all temporal things were then of no account, he only supplicated that
+the work they had in hand for that day might be approved and sanctified.
+
+The worship being over, the family returned into the house, and having
+partaken of a repast of bread and milk, my father put on his father's
+sword, and my brothers, who had brought weapons of their own home with
+them, also belted themselves for the road. I was owre young to be yet
+trysted for war, so my father led me out by the hand, and walking
+forward, followed by my brothers, the neighbours, two and two, fell into
+the rear, and the women, in their plaids, came mournful and in tears at
+some short distance behind.
+
+As we were thus proceeding towards the main road, we heard the sound of
+a drum and fife, and saw over the hedge of the lane that leads to the
+clachan, a white banner waving aloft with the words, "SOLEMN LEAGUE AND
+COVENANT" painted thereon; at the sight of which my father was much
+disturbed, saying,--"This is some silly device of Nahum Chapelrig, that,
+if we allow to proceed, may bring scoff and scorn upon the cause as we
+enter the town;" and with that, dropping my hand, he ran forward and
+stopped their vain bravery; for it was, as he had supposed, the work of
+Nahum, who was marching, like a man of war, at the head of his band.
+However, on my father's remonstrance, he consented to send away his
+sounding instruments and idle banner, and to walk composedly along with
+us.
+
+As we reached the town-end port, we fell in with a vast number of other
+persons, from different parts of the country, going to sign the
+Covenant, and, on a cart, worthy Ebenezer Muir and three other aged men
+like himself, who, being all of our parish, it was agreed that they
+should alight and walk to the kirk at the head of those who had come
+with my father. While this was putting in order, other men and lads
+belonging to the parish came and joined us, so that, to the number of
+more than a hundred, we went up the town together.
+
+When we arrived at the Tolbooth, we were obligated, with others, to halt
+for some time, by reason of the great crowd at the Kirkgatefoot waiting
+to see if the magistrates, who were then sitting in council, would come
+forth and go to the kirk; and the different crafts and burgesses, with
+their deacons, were standing at the Cross in order to follow them, if
+they determined, in their public capacity, to sign the Covenant,
+according to the pious example which had been set to all in authority by
+the magistrates and town-council of Edinburgh three days before. We had
+not, however, occasion to be long detained; for it was resolved, with a
+unanimous heart, that the provost should sign in the name of the town,
+and that the bailies and councillors should, in their own names, sign
+each for himself; so they came out, with the town-officers bearing their
+battle-axes before them, and the crafts, according to their privilege,
+followed them to the kirk.
+
+The men of our parish went next; but on reaching the kirk-yard yett, it
+was manifest that, large as the ancient fabric was, it would not be able
+to receive a moite of the persons assembled. Godly Mr David Dickson, the
+minister, had, however, provided for this; and on one of the old tombs,
+on the south side of the kirk, he had ordered a table and chair to be
+placed, where that effectual preacher, Mr Livingstone, delivered a great
+sermon,--around him the multitude from the country parishes were
+congregated; but my father being well acquainted with Deacon Auld of the
+wrights, was invited by him to come into his seat in the kirk, where he
+carried me in with him, and we heard Mr Dickson himself.
+
+Of the strain and substance of his discourse I remember nothing, save
+only the earnestness of his manner; but well do I remember the awful
+sough and silence that was in the kirk when, at the conclusion of the
+sermon, he prepared to read the words of the Covenant.
+
+"Now," said he, when he had come to the end, and was rolling it up, "as
+no man knoweth how long, after this day, he may be allowed to partake of
+the sacrament of the Supper, the elders will bring forward the elements;
+and it is hoped that sisters in Christ will not come to communion till
+the brethren are served, who, as they take their seats at the Lord's
+table, are invited to sign their names to this solemn charter of the
+religious rights and liberties of God's people in Scotland."
+
+He then came down from the pulpit with the parchment in his hand, and
+going to the head of the sacramental table, he opened it again, and laid
+it down over the elements of the bread and wine which the elders had
+just placed there; and a minister, whose name I do not well recollect,
+sitting at his right hand, holding an inkstand, presented him with a
+pen, which, when he had taken, he prayed in silence for the space of a
+minute, and then, bending forward, he signed his name; having done so,
+he raised himself erect and said, with a loud voice, holding up his
+right hand, "Before God and these witnesses, in truth and holiness, I
+have sworn to keep this Covenant." At that moment a solemn sound rose
+from all the congregation, and every one stood up to see the men, as
+they sat at the table, put down their names.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+From the day on which the Covenant was signed, though I was owre young
+to remember the change myself, I have heard it often said that a great
+alteration took place in the morals and manners of the Covenanters. The
+Sabbath was observed by them with far more than the solemnity of times
+past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them,
+which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated
+Christians. The company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was
+eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were
+suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because
+of the danger with which the Truth and the Word were threatened by the
+Arminian Antichrist of the King's government.
+
+But the more immediate effect of the renewal of the Solemn League and
+Covenant was the preparation for defence and resistance, which the
+deceitful policy of that false monarch, King Charles the First, taught
+every one to know would be required. The men began to practise firing
+at butts and targets, and to provide themselves with arms and munitions
+of war; while, in order to maintain a life void of offence in all
+temporal concerns, they were by ordinare obedient and submissive to
+those in authority over them, whether holding jurisdiction from the
+King, or in virtue of baronies and feudalities.
+
+In this there was great wisdom; for it left the sin of the provocation
+still on the heads of the King and his evil counsellors, in so much that
+even, when the General Assembly, holden at Glasgow, vindicated the
+independence and freedom of Christ's kingdom, by continuing to sit in
+despite of the dissolution pronounced by King Charles' commissioner, the
+Marquis Hamilton, and likewise by decreeing the abolition of prelacy as
+an abomination, there was no political blame wherewith the people, in
+their capacity of subjects to their earthly prince, could be wyted or
+brought by law to punishment.
+
+In the meantime, the King, who was as fey as he was false, mustered his
+forces, and his rampant high-priest, Laud, was, with all the voices of
+his prelatic emissaries, inflaming the honest people of England to wage
+war against our religious freedom. The papistical Queen of Charles was
+no less busy with the priesthood of her crafty sect, and aids and
+powers, both of men and money, were raised wherever they could be had,
+in order to reinstall the discarded episcopacy of Scotland.
+
+The Covenanters, however, were none daunted, for they had a great ally
+in the Lord of Hosts; and, with Him for their captain, they neither
+sought nor wished for any alien assistance, though they sent letters to
+their brethren in foreign parts, exhorting them to unite in the
+Covenant, and to join them for the battle. General Lesley, in Gustavus
+Adolphus' army, was invited by his kinsman, the Lord Rothes, to come
+home, that, if need arose, he might take the temporal command of the
+Covenanters.
+
+The King having at last, according to an ancient practice of the English
+monarchs, when war in old times was proclaimed against the Scots,
+summoned his nobles to attend him with their powers at York, the
+Covenanters girded their loins, and the whole country rung with the din
+of the gathering of an host for the field.
+
+One Captain Bannerman, who had been with Lesley in the armies of
+Gustavus, was sent from Edinburgh to train the men in our part; and our
+house being central for the musters of the three adjacent parishes, he
+staid a night in the week with us at Quharist for the space of better
+than two months, and his military discourse greatly instructed our
+neighbours in the arts and stratagems of war.
+
+He was an elderly man, of a sedate character, and had gone abroad with
+an uncle from Montrose when he was quite a youth. In his day he had seen
+many strange cities, and places of wonderful strength to withstand the
+force of sieges. But, though bred a soldier, and his home in the camp,
+he had been himself but seldom in the field of battle. In appearance he
+was tall and lofty, and very erect and formal; a man of few words, but
+they were well chosen; and he was patient and pains-taking; of a
+contented aspect, somewhat hard-favoured, and seldom given to smile. To
+little children he was, however, bland and courteous; taking a pleasure
+in setting those that were of my age in battle array, for he had no
+pastime, being altogether an instructive soldier; or, as William, my
+third brother, used to say, who was a free out-spoken lad, Captain
+Bannerman was a real dominie o' war.
+
+Besides him, in our country-side, there was another officer, by name
+Hepburn, who had also been bred with the great Gustavus, sent to train
+the Covenanters in Irvine; but he was of a more mettlesome humour, and
+lacked the needful douceness that became those who were banding
+themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not
+just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the
+case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the
+Golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at
+them as if he had been himself one of the King's cavaliers, and they no
+better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the
+Covenant. In sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature,
+and about seven months after he left the town twa misfortunate creatures
+gave him the wyte of their bairns.
+
+Yet, for all the regardlessness of his ways and moral conduct, he was
+much beloved by the men he had the training of; and, on the night before
+he left the town, lies were told of a most respectit and pious officer
+of the town's power, if he did not find the causey owre wide when he
+was going home, after partaking of Captain Hepburn's pay-way supper. But
+how that may have been is little of my business at present to
+investigate; for I have only spoken of Hepburn, to notify what happened
+in consequence of a brag he had with Bannerman, anent the skill of their
+respective disciples, the which grew to such a controversy between them,
+that nothing less would satisfy Hepburn than to try the skill of the
+Irvine men against ours, and the two neighbouring parishes of Garnock
+and Stoneyholm. Accordingly a day was fixt for that purpose, and the
+Craiglands-croft was the place appointed for this probation of
+soldiership.
+
+On the morning of the appointed day the country folk assembled far and
+near, and Nahum Chapelrig, at the head of the lads of his clachan, was
+the first on the field. The sight to my young eyes was as the greatest
+show of pageantry that could be imagined; for Nahum had, from the time
+of the covenanting, been gathering arms and armour from all quarters,
+and had thereby not only obtained a glittering breastplate for himself,
+but three other coats of mail for the like number of his fellows; and
+when they were coming over the croft, with their fife and drum, and the
+banner of the Covenant waving aloft in the air, every one ran to behold
+such splendour and pomp of war; many of the women, that were witnesses
+among the multitude, wept at such an apparition of battles dazzling our
+peaceful fields.
+
+My father, with my five brothers, headed the Covenanters of our parish.
+There was no garnish among that band. They came along with austere looks
+and douce steps, and their belts were of tanned leather. The hilts of
+many of their swords were rusty, for they had been the weapons of their
+forefathers in the raids of the Reformation. As my father led them to
+their station on the right flank of Nahum Chapelrig's array, the crowd
+of onlookers fell back, and stood in silence as they passed by.
+
+Scarcely had they halted, when there was a rushing among the onlookers,
+and presently the townsmen, with Hepburn on horseback, were seen coming
+over the brow of the Gowan-brae. They were scant the strength of the
+country folk by more than a score; but there was a band of sailor boys
+with them that made the number greater; so that, when they were all
+drawn up together forenent the countrymen, they were more than man for
+man.
+
+It is not to be suppressed nor denied, that, in the first show of the
+day, Hepburn got far more credit and honour than old sedate Bannerman;
+for his lads were lighter in the heel, glegger in the eye, and brisker
+in the manoeuvres of war: moreover, they were all far more similar in
+their garb and appearance, which gave them a seeming compactness that
+the countrymen had nothing like. But when the sham contest began, it was
+not long till Bannerman's disciples showed the proofs of their master's
+better skill to such a mark, that Hepburn grew hot, and so kindled his
+men by reproaches, that there was like to have been fighting in true
+earnest; for the blood of the country folk was also rising. Their eyes
+grew fierce, and they muttered through their teeth.
+
+Old Ebenezer Muir, who was among the multitude, observing that their
+blood was heating, stepped forward, and lifting up his hand, cried,
+"Sirs, stop;" and both sides instanter made a pause. "This maunna be,"
+said he. "It may be sport to those who are by trade soldiers to try the
+mettle o' their men, but ye're a covenanted people, obligated by a
+grievous tyranny to quit your spades and your looms only for a season;
+therefore be counselled, and rush not to battle till need be, which may
+the Lord yet prevent."
+
+Hepburn uttered an angry ban, and would have turned the old man away by
+the shoulder; but the combatants saw they were in the peril of a
+quarrel, and many of them cried aloud, "He's in the right, and we're
+playing the fool for the diversion o' our adversaries." So the townsmen
+and the country folk shook hands; but instead of renewing the contest,
+Captain Bannerman proposed that they should all go through their
+discipline together, it being manifest that there were little odds in
+their skill, and none in their courage. The which prudent admonition
+pacified all parties, and the remainder of the day was spent in
+cordiality and brotherly love. Towards the conclusion of the exercises,
+worthy Mr Swinton came on the field; and when the business of the day
+was over, he stepped forward, and the trained men being formed around
+him, the onlookers standing on the outside, he exhorted them in prayer,
+and implored a blessing on their covenanted union, which had the effect
+of restoring all their hearts to a religious frame and a solemnity
+befitting the spirituality of their cause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+One night, about a month after the ploy whereof I have spoken in the
+foregoing chapter, just as my father had finished the worship, and the
+family were composing themselves round the fireside for supper, we were
+startled by the sound of a galloping horse coming to the door; and
+before any one had time to open it, there was a dreadful knocking with
+the heft of the rider's whip. It was Nahum Chapelrig, who being that day
+at Kilmarnock, had heard, as he was leaving the town, the cry get up
+there that the Aggressor was coming from York with all the English
+power, and he had flown far and wide on his way home publishing the
+dismal tidings.
+
+My father, in a sober manner, bade him alight and partake of our supper,
+questioning him sedately anent what he had heard; but Nahum was raised,
+and could give no satisfaction in his answers; he, however, leapt from
+his horse, and drawing the bridle through the ring at the door-cheek,
+came ben to the fire where we had all so shortly before been
+harmoniously sitting. His eyes were wide and wild; his hair, with the
+heat he was in, was as if it had been pomated; his cheeks were white,
+his lips red, and he panted with haste and panic.
+
+"They're coming," he cried, "in thousands o' thousands; never sic a
+force has crossed the Border since the day o' Flodden Field. We'll a'
+either be put to the sword, man, woman, and child, or sent in slavery to
+the plantations."
+
+"No," replied my father, "things are no just come to that pass; we have
+our swords yet, and hearts and hands to use them."
+
+The consternation, however, of Nahum Chapelrig that night was far ayont
+all counsel; so, after trying to soothe and reason him into a more
+temperate frame, my father was obligated to tell him, that since the
+battle was coming so near our gates, it behoved the Covenanters to be
+in readiness for the field, advising Nahum to go home, and be over with
+him betimes in the morning.
+
+While they were thus speaking, James Newbigging also came to the door
+with a rumour of the same substance, which his wife had brought from
+Eglinton Castle, where she had been with certain cocks and hens, a
+servitude of the Eglintons on their mailing; so that there was no longer
+any dubiety about the news, though matters were not in such a desperate
+condition as Nahum Chapelrig had terrified himself with the thought of.
+Nevertheless, the tidings were very dreadful; and it was a judgment-like
+thing to hear that an anointed king was so far left to himself as to be
+coming with wrath, and banners, and trampling war-horses, to destroy his
+subjects for the sincerity of their religious allegiance to that
+Almighty Monarch, who has but permitted the princes of the earth to be
+set up as idols by the hands of men.
+
+James Newbigging, as well as Nahum, having come ben to the fireside, my
+father called for the Books again, and gave out the eight first verses
+of the forty-fourth psalm, which we all sung with hearts in holy unison
+and zealous voices.
+
+When James Newbigging and Nahum Chapelrig were gone away home, my father
+sat for some time exhorting us, who were his youngest children, to be
+kind to one another, to cherish our mother, and no to let auld doited
+aunty want, if it was the Lord's will that he should never come back
+from the battle. The which to hear caused much sorrow and lamentation,
+especially from my mother, who, however, said nothing, but took hold of
+his hand and watered it with her tears. After this he walked out into
+the fields, where he remained some time alone; and during his absence,
+me and the three who were next to me, were sent to our beds; but, young
+as we then were, we were old enough to know the danger that hung over
+us, and we lay long awake, wondering and woful with fear.
+
+About two hours after midnight the house was again startled by another
+knocking, and on my father inquiring who was at the door, he was
+answered by my brother Jacob, who had come with Michael and Robin from
+Glasgow to Kilmarnock, on hearing the news, and had thence brought
+William and Alexander with them to go with their father to the war. For
+they had returned to their respective trades after the day of the
+covenanting, and had only been out at Hepburn's raid, as the ploy with
+the Irvine men was called in jocularity, in order that the neighbours,
+who venerated their grandfather, might see them together as Covenanters.
+
+The arrival of her sons, and the purpose they had come upon, awakened
+afresh the grief of our mother; but my father entreated us all to be
+quiet, and to compose ourselves to rest, that we might be the abler on
+the morn to prepare for what might then ensue. Yet, though there was no
+sound in the house, save only our mother's moaning, few closed their
+eyes, and long before the sun every one was up and stirring, and my
+father and my five brothers were armed and belted for the march.
+
+Scarcely were they ready, when different neighbours in the like trim
+came to go with them; presently also Nahum Chapelrig, with his banner,
+and fife, and drum, at the head of some ten or twelve lads of his
+clachan, came over; and on this occasion no obstacle was made to that
+bravery which was thought so uncomely on the day of the covenanting.
+
+While the armed men were thus gathering before our door, with the intent
+of setting forward to Glasgow, as the men of the West had been some time
+before trysted to do, by orders from General Lesley, on the first alarm,
+that godly man and minister of righteousness, the Reverend Mr Swinton,
+made his appearance with his staff in his hand, and a satchel on his
+back, in which he carried the Bible.
+
+"I am come, my friens," said he, "to go with you. Where the ensigns of
+Christ's Covenant are displayed, it is meet that the very lowest of his
+vassals should be there;" and having exhorted the weeping women around
+to be of good cheer, he prayed for them and for their little children,
+whom the Aggressor was, perhaps, soon to make fatherless. Nahum
+Chapelrig then exalted his banner, and the drum and fife beginning to
+play, the venerable man stepped forward, and heading the array with his
+staff in his hand, they departed amidst the shouts of the boys, and the
+loud sorrow of many a wife and mother.
+
+I followed them, with my companions, till they reached the high road,
+where, at the turn that led them to Glasgow, a great concourse of other
+women and children belonging to the neighbouring parishes were
+assembled, having there parted from their friends. They were all
+mourning and weeping, and mingling their lamentations with bitter
+predictions against the King and his evil counsellors; but seeing Mr
+Swinton, they became more composed, and he having made a sign to the
+drum and fife to cease, he stopped, and earnestly entreated them to
+return home and employ themselves in the concerns of their families,
+which, the heads being for a season removed, stood the more in need of
+all their kindness and care.
+
+This halt in the march of their friends brought the onlookers, who were
+assembled round our house, running to see what was the cause; and, among
+others, it gave time to the aged Ebenezer Muir to come up, whom Mr
+Swinton no sooner saw than he called on him by name, and bade him
+comfort the women, and invite them away from the high road, where their
+presence could only increase the natural grief that every covenanted
+Christian, in passing to join the army, could not but suffer, on seeing
+so many left defenceless by the unprovoked anger of the Aggressor. He
+then bade the drum again beat, and, the march being resumed, the band of
+our parish soon went out of sight.
+
+While our men continued in view Ebenezer Muir said nothing; but as soon
+as they had disappeared behind the brow of the Gowan-brae, he spoke to
+the multitude in a gentle and paternal manner, and bade them come with
+him into the neighbouring field, and join him in prayer; after which he
+hoped they would see the wisdom of returning to their homes. They
+accordingly followed him, and he having given out the twenty-third
+psalm, all present joined him, till the lonely fields and silent woods
+echoed to the melody of their pious song.
+
+As we were thus standing around the old man in worship and unison of
+spirit, the Irvine men came along the road; and seeing us, they hushed
+their drums as they passed by, and bowed down their banners in reverence
+and solemnity. Such was the outset of the worthies of the renewed
+Covenant, in their war with the first Charles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+After my father and brothers, with our neighbours that went with them,
+had returned from the bloodless raid of Dunse Law, as the first
+expedition was called, a solemn thanksgiving was held in all the
+country-side; but the minds of men were none pacified by the treaty
+concluded with the King at Berwick. For it was manifest to the world,
+that coming in his ire, and with all the might of his power, to punish
+the Covenanters as rebels, he would never have consented to treat with
+them on anything like equal terms, had he not been daunted by their
+strength and numbers; so that the spirit awakened by his Ahab-like
+domination continued as alive and as distrustful of his word and
+pactions as ever.
+
+After the rumours of his plain juggling about the verbals of the
+stipulated conditions, and his arbitrary prorogation of the parliament
+at Edinburgh, a thing which the best and bravest of the Scottish
+monarchs had never before dared to do without the consent of the States
+then assembled, the thud and murmur of warlike preparation was renewed
+both on anvil and in hall. And when it was known that the King, fey and
+distempered with his own weak conceits and the instigations of cruel
+counsellors, had, as soon as he heard that the Covenanters were
+disbanded, renewed his purposes of punishment and oppression, a gurl of
+rage, like the first brush of the tempest on the waves, passed over the
+whole extent of Scotland, and those that had been in arms fiercely
+girded themselves again for battle.
+
+As the King's powers came again towards the borders, the Covenanters,
+for the second time, mustered under Lesley at Dunse; but far different
+was this new departure of our men from the solemnity of their first
+expedition. Their spirits were now harsh and angry, and their drums
+sounded hoarsely on the breeze. Godly Mr Swinton, as he headed them
+again, struck the ground with his staff, and, instead of praying, said,
+"It is the Lord's pleasure, and he will make the Aggressor fin' the
+weight of the arm of flesh. Honest folk are no ever to be thus obligated
+to leave their fields and families by the provocations of a prerogative
+that has so little regard for the people. In the name and strength of
+God, let us march."
+
+With six-and-twenty thousand horse and foot Lesley crossed the Tweed,
+and in the first onset the King's army was scattered like chaff before
+the wind. When the news of the victory arrived among us, every one was
+filled with awe and holy wonder; for it happened on the very day which
+was held as a universal fast throughout the land; on that day, likewise,
+even in the time of worship, the castle of Dumbarton was won, and the
+covenanted Earl of Haddington repelled a wasteful irruption from the
+garrison of Berwick.
+
+Such disasters smote the King with consternation; for the immediate
+fruit of the victory was the conquest of Newcastle, Tynemouth, Shields
+and Durham.
+
+Baffled and mortified, humbled but not penitent, the rash and vindictive
+monarch, in a whirlwind of mutiny and desertion, was obligated to
+retreat to York, where he was constrained, by the few sound and
+sober-minded that yet hovered around him, to try the effect of another
+negotiation with his insulted and indignant subjects. But as all the
+things which thence ensued are mingled with the acts of perfidy and
+aggression by which, under the disastrous influence of the fortunes of
+his doomed and guilty race, he drew down the vengeance of his English
+subjects, it would lead me far from this household memorial to enter
+more at large on circumstances so notour, though they have been
+strangely palliated by the supple spirit of latter times, especially by
+the sordid courtliness of the crafty Clarendon. I shall therefore skip
+the main passages of public affairs, and hasten forward to the time when
+I became myself enlisted on the side of our national liberties, briefly,
+however, noticing, as I proceed, that after the peace which was
+concluded at Ripon my father and my five brothers came home. None of
+them received any hurt in battle; but in the course of the winter the
+old man was visited with a great income of pains and aches, in so much
+that, for the remainder of his days, he was little able to endure
+fatigue or hardship of any kind; my second brother, Robin, was therefore
+called from his trade in Glasgow to look after the mailing, for I was
+still owre young to be of any effectual service; Alexander continued a
+bonnet-maker at Kilmarnock; but Michael, William and Jacob, joined and
+fought with the forces that won the mournful triumph of Marston Moor,
+where fifty thousand subjects of the same King and laws contended with
+one another, and where the Lord, by showing himself on the side of the
+people, gave a dreadful admonition to the government to recant and
+conciliate while there was yet time.
+
+Meanwhile the worthy Mr Swinton, having observed in me a curiosity
+towards books of history and piety, had taken great pains to instruct me
+in the rights and truths of religion, and to make it manifest alike to
+the ears and eyes of my understanding, that no human authority could, or
+ought to, dictate in matters of faith, because it could not discern the
+secrets of the breast, neither know what was acceptable to Heaven in
+conduct or in worship. He likewise expounded to me in what manner the
+Covenant was not a temporal but a spiritual league, trenching in no
+respect upon the natural and contributed authority of the kingly office.
+But, owing to the infirm state of my father's health, neither my brother
+Robin nor I could be spared from the farm, in any of the different raids
+that germinated out of the King's controversy with the English
+parliament; so that in the whigamore expedition, as it was profanely
+nicknamed, from our shire, with the covenanted Earls of Cassilis and
+Eglinton, we had no personality, though our hearts went with those that
+were therein.
+
+When, however, the hideous tidings came of the condemnation and
+execution of the King, there was a stop in the current of men's minds,
+and as the waters of Jordan, when the ark was carried in, rushed back to
+their fountain-head, every true Scot on that occasion felt in his heart
+the ancient affections of his nature returning with a compassionate
+horror. Yet even in this they were true to the Covenant; for it was not
+to be hidden that the English parliament, in doing what it did in that
+tragical event, was guided by a speculative spirit of political
+innovation and change, different and distinct, both in principle and
+object, from the cause which made our Scottish Covenanters have recourse
+to arms. In truth, the act of bringing kings to public condign
+punishment was no such new thing in the chronicles of Scotland, as that
+brave historian, George Buchanan, plainly shows, to have filled us with
+such amazement and affright, had the offences of King Charles been
+proven as clearly personal, as the crimes for which the ancient tyrants
+of his pedigree suffered the death;--but his offences were shared with
+his counsellors, whose duty it was to have bridled his arbitrary
+pretensions. He was in consequence mourned as a victim, and his son, the
+second Charles, at once proclaimed and acknowledged King of Scotland.
+How he deported himself in that capacity, and what gratitude he and his
+brother showed the land for its faith and loyalty in the wreck and
+desperation of their royal fortunes, with a firm and a fearless pen I
+now purpose to show. But as the tale of their persecutions is ravelled
+with the sorrows and the sufferings of my friends and neighbours, and
+the darker tissue of my own woes, it is needful, before proceeding
+therein, that I should entreat the indulgence of the courteous reader to
+allow a few short passages of my private life now to be here recorded.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+
+Some time before the news of King Charles' execution reached us in the
+West, the day had been set for my marriage with Sarah Lochrig; but the
+fear and consternation which the tidings bred in all minds, many
+dreading that the event would be followed by a total breaking up of the
+union and frame of society, made us consent to defer our happiness till
+we saw what was ordained to come to pass.
+
+When, however, it was seen and felt that the dreadful beheading of an
+anointed monarch as a malefactor, had scarcely more effect upon the
+tides of the time than the death of a sparrow,--and that men were called
+as usual to their daily tasks and toils,--and that all things moved
+onward in their accustomed courses,--and that laws and jurisdictions,
+and all the wonted pacts and processes of community between man and man,
+suffered neither molestation nor hindrance, godly Mr Swinton bestowed
+his blessing on our marriage, and our friends their joyous countenance
+at the wedding feast.
+
+My lot was then full of felicity, and I had no wish to wander beyond the
+green valley where we established our peaceful dwelling. It was in a
+lown holm of the Garnock, on the lands of Quharist, a portion of which
+my father gave me in tack; and Sarah's father likewise bestowed on us
+seven rigs, and a cow's grass of his own mailing, for her tocher, as
+the beginning of a plenishment to our young fortunes. Still, like all
+the neighbours, I was deeply concerned about what was going on in the
+far-off world of conflicts and negotiations; and this was not out of an
+idle thirst of curiosity, but from an interest mingled with sorrows and
+affections; for, after the campaign in England, my three brothers,
+Michael, William and Alexander, never domiciled themselves at any civil
+calling. Having caught the roving spirit of camps, they remained in the
+skirts of the array which the covenanted Lords at Edinburgh continued to
+maintain; and here, poor lads! I may digress a little, to record the
+brief memorials of their several unhappy fates.
+
+When King Charles the Second, after accepting and being sworn to abide
+by the Covenant, was brought home, and the crown of his ancient
+progenitors placed upon his head at Scoone, by the hands of the Marquis
+of Argyle, in the presence of the great and the godly Covenanters, my
+brothers went in the army that he took with him into England. Michael
+was slain at the battle of Worcester, by the side of Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, who carried that day the royal banner. Alexander was wounded
+in the same fight, and left upon the field, where he was found next
+morning by the charitable inhabitants of the city, and carried to the
+house of a loyal gentlewoman, one Mrs Deerhurst, that treated him with
+much tenderness; but after languishing in agony, as she herself wrote to
+my father, he departed this life on the third day.
+
+Of William I have sometimes wished that I had never heard more; for
+after the adversity of that day, it would seem he forgot the Covenant
+and his father's house. Ritchie Minigaff, an old servant of the Lord
+Eglinton's, when the Earl his master was Cromwell's prisoner in the
+Tower of London, saw him there among the guard, and some years after the
+Restoration he met him again among the King's yeomen at Westminster,
+about the time of the beginning of the persecution. But Willy then
+begged Ritchie, with the tear in his eye, no to tell his father; nor was
+ever the old man's heart pierced with the anguish which the thought of
+such backsliding would have caused, though he often wondered to us at
+home, with the anxiety of a parent's wonder, what could have become of
+blithe light-hearted Willy. No doubt he died in the servitude of the
+faithless tyrant; but the storm that fell among us, soon after Ritchie
+had told me of his unfortunate condition, left us neither time nor
+opportunity to inquire about any distant friend. But to return to my own
+story.
+
+From my marriage till the persecution began, I took no part in the
+agitations of the times. It is true, after the discovery of Charles
+Stuart's perfidious policy, so like his father's, in corresponding with
+the Marquis of Montrose for the subjection of Scotland by the tyranny of
+the sword, at the very time he was covenanting with the commissioners
+sent from the Lords at Edinburgh with the offer of the throne of his
+ancestors, that with my father and my brother Robin, together with many
+of our neighbours, I did sign the Remonstrance against making a prince
+of such a treacherous and unprincipled nature king. But in that we only
+delivered reasons and opinions on a matter of temporal expediency; for
+it was an instrument that neither contained nor implied obligation to
+arm; indeed our deportment bore testimony to this explanation of the
+spirit in which it was conceived and understood. For when the prince had
+received the crown and accepted the Covenant, we submitted ourselves as
+good subjects. Fearing God, we were content to honour in all rights and
+prerogatives, not contrary to Scripture, him whom, by His grace in the
+mysteries of His wisdom, He had, for our manifold sins as a nation and a
+people, been pleased to ordain and set over us for king. And verily no
+better test of our sincerity could be, than the distrust with which our
+whole country-side was respected by Oliver Cromwell, when he thought it
+necessary to build that stronghold at Ayr, by which his Englishers were
+enabled to hold the men of Carrick, Kyle and Cunningham in awe,--a race
+that, from the days of Sir William Wallace and King Robert the Bruce,
+have ever been found honest in principle, brave in affection, and
+dauntless and doure in battle. But it is not necessary to say more on
+this head; for full of griefs and grudges as were the hearts of all true
+Scots, with the thought of their country in southern thraldom, while
+Cromwell's Englishers held the upper hand amongst us, the season of
+their dominion was to me and my house as a lown and pleasant spring. All
+around me was bud, and blossom, and juvenility, and gladness, and hope.
+My lot was as the lot of the blessed man. I ate of the labour of my
+hands, I was happy, and it was well with me; my wife, as the fruitful
+vine that spreads its clusters on the wall, made my lowly dwelling more
+beautiful to the eye of the heart than the golden palaces of crowned
+kings, and our pretty bairns were like olive plants round about my
+table;--but they are all gone. The flood and the flame have passed over
+them;--yet be still, my heart; a little while endure in silence; for I
+have not taken up the avenging pen of history, and dipped it in the
+blood of martyrs, to record only my own particular woes and wrongs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+
+It has been seen, by what I have told concerning the part my grandfather
+had in the great work of the Reformation, that the heads of the house of
+Argyle were among the foremost and the firmest friends of the
+resuscitated Evangil. The aged Earl of that time was in the very front
+of the controversy as one of the Lords of the Congregation; and though
+his son, the Lord of Lorn, hovered for a season, like other young men of
+his degree, in the purlieus and precincts of the Lady Regent's court,
+yet when her papistical counsels broke the paction with the protestants
+at Perth, I have rehearsed how he, being then possessed of the
+inheritance of his father's dignities, did, with the bravery becoming
+his blood and station, remonstrate with her Highness against such
+impolitic craft and perfidy, and, along with the Lord James Stuart,
+utterly eschew her presence and method of government.
+
+After the return of Queen Mary from France, and while she manifested a
+respect for the rights of her covenanted people, that worthy Earl was
+among her best friends; and even after the dismal doings that led to her
+captivity in Lochleven Castle, and thence to the battle of Langside, he
+still acted the part of a true nobleman to a sovereign so fickle and so
+faithless. Whether he rued on the field that he had done so, or was
+smitten with an infirmity that prevented him from fighting against his
+old friend and covenanted brother, the good Regent Murray, belongs not
+to this history to inquire; but certain it is, that in him the
+protestant principles of his honourable house suffered no dilapidation;
+and in the person of his grandson, the first marquis of the name, they
+were stoutly asserted and maintained.
+
+When the first Charles, and Laud, that ravenous Arminian Antichrist,
+attempted to subvert and abrogate the presbyterian gospel worship, not
+only did the Marquis stand forth in the van of the Covenanters to stay
+the religious oppression then meditated against his native land, but
+laboured with all becoming earnestness to avert the pestilence of civil
+war. In that doubtless Argyle offended the false counsellors about the
+King; but when the English parliament, with a lawless arrogance, struck
+off the head of the miscounselled and bigoted monarch, faithful to his
+covenants and the loyalty of his race, the Marquis was amongst the
+foremost of the Scottish nobles to proclaim the Prince of Wales king.
+With his own hands he placed on Charles the Second's head the ancient
+diadem of Scotland. Surely it might therefore have been then supposed
+that all previous offence against the royal family was forgotten and
+forgiven; yea, when it is considered that General Monk himself, the
+boldest in the cause of Cromwell's usurpation, was rewarded with a
+dukedom in England for doing no more for the King there than Argyle had
+done for him before in greater peril here, it could not have entered
+into the imagination of Christian men, that Argyle, for only submitting
+like a private subject to the same usurped authority when it had become
+supreme, would, after the Restoration, be brought to the block. But it
+was so; and though the machinations of political enemies converted that
+submission into treasons to excuse their own crime, yet there was not an
+honest man in all the realm that did not see in the doom of Argyle a
+dismal omen of the cloud and storm which so soon after burst upon our
+religious liberties.
+
+Passing, however, by all those afflictions which took the colour of
+political animosities, I hasten to speak of the proceedings which, from
+the hour of the Restoration, were hatched for the revival of the
+prelatic oppression. The tyranny of the Stuarts is indeed of so fell a
+nature that, having once tasted of blood in any cause, it will return
+again and again, however so often baffled, till it has either devoured
+its prey, or been itself mastered; and so it showed in this instance.
+For, regardless of those troubles which the attempt of the first Charles
+to exercise an authority in spiritual things beyond the rights of all
+earthly sovereignty caused to the realm and to himself, the second no
+sooner felt the sceptre in his grip than he returned to the same
+enormities; and he found a fit instrument in James Sharp, who, in
+contempt of the wrath of God, sold himself to Antichrist for the prelacy
+of St Andrews.
+
+But it was not among the ambitious and mercenary members of the clergy
+that the evidences of a backsliding generation were alone to be seen;
+many of the people, nobles and magistrates were infected with the sin of
+the same reprobation; and in verity, it might have been said of the
+realm that the restoration of King Charles the Second was hailed as an
+advent ordained to make men forget all vows, sobriety and solemnities.
+It is, however, something to be said in commendation of the constancy of
+mind and principle of our West Country folk that the immorality of that
+drunken loyalty was less outrageous and offensive to God and man among
+them, and that although we did submit and were commanded to commemorate
+the anniversary of the King's restoration, it was nevertheless done with
+humiliation and anxiety of spirit. But a vain thing it would be of me to
+attempt to tell the heartburning with which we heard of the manner that
+the Covenant, and of all things which had been hallowed and honourable
+to religious Scotland, were treated in the town of Lithgow on that
+occasion, although all of my grandfather's stock knew that from of old
+it was a seat and sink of sycophancy, alien to holiness, and prone to
+lick the dust aneath the feet of whomsoever ministered to the corruption
+abiding there.
+
+Had the general inebriation of the kingdom been confined only to such
+mockers as the papistical progeny of the unregenerate town of Lithgow,
+we might perhaps have only grieved at the wantonness of the world; but
+they were soon followed by more palpable enormities. Middleton, the
+King's commissioner, coming on a progress to Glasgow, held a council of
+state there, at which was present the apostate Fairfoul, who had been
+shortly before nominated Archbishop of that city; and at his wicked
+incitement, Middleton, in a fit of actual intoxication from strong
+drink, let loose the bloodhounds of persecution by that memorable act
+of council which bears the date of the 1st of October, 1662,--an
+anniversary that ought ever to be held as a solemn fast in Scotland, if
+such things might be, for by it all the ministers that had received
+Gospel ordination from and after the year forty-nine, and who still
+refused to bend the knee to Baal, were banished, with their families,
+from their kirks and manses.
+
+But to understand in what way that wicked act, and the blood-causing
+proclamation which ensued, came to take effect, it is needful, before
+proceeding to the recital, to bid the courteous reader remember the
+preaching of the doctrine of passive obedience by our time-serving
+pastor, Mr Sundrum, and how the kirk was deserted on that occasion;
+because, after his death, which happened in the forty-nine, godly Mr
+Swinton became our chosen pastor, and being placed and inducted
+according to the apostolic ordination of Presbytery, fell, of course,
+like many of his Gospel brethren, under the ban of the aforesaid
+proclamation, of which some imperfect sough and rumour reached us on the
+Friday after it was framed.
+
+At first the particulars were not known, for it was described as the
+muttering of unclean spirits against the purity of the Truth; but the
+tidings startled us like the growl of some unknown and dreadful thing,
+and I dreamt that night of my grandfather, with his white hair and the
+comely venerableness of his great age, appearing pale and sorrowful in a
+field before me, and pointing with a hand of streaming light to
+horsemen, and chariots, and armies with banners, warring together on the
+distant hills.
+
+Saturday was then the market-day at Irvine; and though I had but little
+business there, I yet went in with my brother Robin, chiefly to hear the
+talk of the town. In this I but partook of the common sympathy of the
+whole country-side; for, on entering the town-end port, we found the
+concourse of people there assembled little short of the crowd at Marymas
+Fair, and all eager to learn what the council held at Glasgow had done;
+but no one could tell. Only it was known that the Earl of Eglinton, who
+had been present at the council, was returned home to the castle, and
+that he had sent for the provost that morning on very urgent business.
+
+While we were thus all speaking and marvelling one with another, a cry
+got up that a band of soldiers was coming into the town from Ayr, the
+report of which, for the space of several minutes, struck every one with
+awe and apprehension. And scarcely had the sough of this passed over us,
+when it was told that the provost had privately returned from Eglinton
+Castle by the Gallows-knowes to the backsides, and that he had sent for
+the minister and the bailies, with others of the council, to meet him in
+the clerk's chamber.
+
+No one wist what the meaning of such movements and mysteries could be;
+but all boded danger to the fold and flock, none doubting that the
+wolves of episcopalian covetousness were hungering and thirsting for the
+blood of the covenanted lambs. Nor were we long left to our guesses;
+for, soon after the magistrates and the minister had met, a copy of the
+proclamation of the council held at Glasgow was put upon the Tolbooth
+door, by which it was manifested to every eye that the fences of the
+vineyard were indeed broken down, and that the boar was let in and
+wrathfully trampling down and laying waste.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+
+The proclamation was as a stunning blow on the forehead of the
+Covenanters, and for the next two Sabbaths Mr Swinton was plainly in
+prayer a weighed down and sorrowful-hearted man, but he said nothing in
+his discourses that particularly affected the marrow of that sore and
+solemn business. On the Friday night, however, before the last Lord's
+day of that black October, he sent for my brother, who was one of his
+elders, and told him that he had received a mandatory for conformity to
+the proclamation, and to acknowledge the prelatic reprobation that the
+King's government had introduced into the church; but that it was his
+intention, strengthened of the Lord, to adhere to his vows and
+covenants, even to the uttermost, and not to quit his flock, happen what
+would.
+
+"The beild of the kirk and the manse," said he, "being temporalities,
+are aneath the power and regulation of the earthly monarch; but in the
+things that pertain to the allegiance I owe to the King of Kings, I will
+act, with His heartening, the part of a true and loyal vassal."
+
+This determination being known throughout the parish, and the first of
+November being the last day allowed for conforming, on the Sabbath
+preceding we had a throng kirk and a solemneezed congregation. According
+to their wonted custom, the men, before the hour of worship, assembled
+in the kirk-yard, and there was much murmuring and marvelling among us,
+that nobody in all the land would stand forth to renew the Covenant, as
+was done in the year thirty-eight; and we looked around and beheld the
+green graves of many friends that had died since the great day of the
+covenanting, and we were ashamed of ourselves and of our time, and
+mourned for the loss of the brave spirits which, in the darkness of His
+mysterious wisdom, the Lord had taken away.
+
+The weather, for the season, was bright and dry; and the withered leaf
+still hung here and there on the tree, so that old and young, the infirm
+and the tender, could come abroad; and many that had been bed-rid were
+supported along by their relations to hear the word of Truth, for the
+last time, preached in the house of God.
+
+Mr Swinton came, followed by his wife and family. He was, by this time,
+a man well stricken in years, but Mrs Swinton was of a younger
+generation; and they had seven children,--Martha, the eldest, a fine
+lassie, was not passing fourteen years of age. As they came slowly up
+the kirk-stile, we all remarked that the godly man never lifted his eyes
+from the ground, but came along perusing, as it were, the very earth for
+consolation.
+
+The private door which, at that epoch, led to the minister's seat and
+the pulpit, was near to where the bell-rope hung on the outer wall, and
+as the family went towards it, one of the elders stepped from the plate
+at the main door to open it. But after Mrs Swinton and the children were
+gone in, the minister, who always stopped till they had done so, instead
+of then following, paused and looked up with a compassionate aspect, and
+laying his hand on the shoulder of old Willy Shackle, who was ringing
+the bell, he said,--
+
+"Stop, my auld frien,--they that in this parish need a bell this day to
+call them to the service of their Maker winna come on the summons o'
+yours."
+
+He then walked in; and the old man, greatly affected, mounted the stool,
+and tied up the rope to the ring in the wall in his usual manner, that
+it might be out of the reach of the school weans. "But," said he, as he
+came down, "I needna fash; for after this day little care I wha rings
+the bell; since it's to be consecrat to the wantonings o' prelacy, I wis
+the tongue were out o' its mouth and its head cracket, rather than that
+I should live to see't in the service of Baal and the hoor o' Babylon."
+
+After all the congregation had taken their seats, Mr Swinton rose and
+moved towards the front of the pulpit, and the silence in the church was
+as the silence at the martyrdom of some holy martyr. He then opened THE
+BOOK, and having given out the ninety-fourth psalm, we sang it with
+weeping souls; and during the prayer that followed there was much
+sobbing and lamentations, and an universal sorrow. His discourse was
+from the fifth chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, verse first, and
+first clause of the verse; and with the tongue of a prophet, and the
+voice of an apostle, he foretold, as things already written in the
+chronicles of the kingdom, many of those sufferings which afterwards
+came to pass. It was a sermon that settled into the bottom of the hearts
+of all that heard it, and prepared us for the woes of the vial that was
+then pouring out.
+
+At the close of the discourse, when the precentor rose to read the
+remembering prayer, old Ebenezer Muir, then upwards of fourscore and
+thirteen, who had been brought into the church on a barrow by two of his
+grandsons, and was, for reason of his deafness, in the bench with the
+elders, gave him a paper, which, after rehearsing the names of those in
+distress and sickness, he read, and it was "The persecuted kirk of
+SCOTLAND."
+
+"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem! let my right hand forget her cunning,"
+cried Mr Swinton at the words, with an inspiration that made every heart
+dirl; and surely never was such a prayer heard as that with which he
+followed up the divine words.
+
+Then we sang the hundred and fortieth psalm, at the conclusion of which
+the minister came again to the front of the pulpit, and with a calm
+voice, attuned to by ordinare solemnity, he pronounced the blessing;
+then, suddenly turning himself, he looked down to his family and said,
+"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son
+of man hath not where to lay his head." And he covered his face with
+his hands, and sat down and wept.
+
+Never shall I forget the sound which rose at that sight; it was not a
+cry of woe, neither was it the howl of despair, nor the sob of sorrow,
+nor the gurl of wrath, nor the moan of anguish, but a deep and dreadful
+rustling of hearts and spirits, as if the angel of desolation, in
+passing by, had shaken all his wings.
+
+The kirk then began to skail; and when the minister and his family came
+out into the kirk-yard, all the heads of families present, moved by some
+sacred instinct from on high, followed them with one accord to the
+manse, like friends at a burial, where we told them, that whatever the
+Lord was pleased to allow to ourselves, a portion would be set apart for
+His servant. I was the spokesman on that occasion, and verily do I think
+that, as I said the words, a glorious light shone around me, and that I
+felt a fanning of the inward life, as if the young cherubims were
+present among us, and fluttering their wings with an exceeding great joy
+at the piety of our kind intents.
+
+So passed that memorable Sabbath in our parish; and here I may relate,
+that we had the satisfaction and comfort to know, in a little time
+thereafter, that the same Christian faithfulness with which Mr Swinton
+adhered to his gospel-trusts and character, was maintained on that day
+by more than three hundred other ministers, to the perpetual renown of
+our national worth and covenanted cause. And therefore, though it was an
+era of much sorrow and of many tears, it was thus, through the
+mysterious ways of Providence, converted into a ground of confidence in
+our religion, in so much that it may be truly said, out of the ruins and
+the overthrow of the first presbyterian church the Lord built up among
+us a stronghold and sanctuary for his truth and law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+
+Nothing particular happened till the second week of November, when a
+citation came from Irvine, commanding the attendance of Mr Swinton, on a
+suffragan of Fairfoul's, under the penalties of the proclamation. In the
+meantime we had been preparing for the event; and my father having been
+some time no more, and my brother with his family in a house of their
+own, it was settled between him and me, that I should take our mother
+into mine, in order that the beild of Quharist might be given up to the
+minister and his houseless little ones; which all our neighbours much
+commended; and there was no slackness on their part in making a
+provision to supply the want of his impounded stipend.
+
+As all had foreseen, Mr Swinton, for not appearing to the citation, was
+pronounced a non-conformist; and the same night, after dusk, a party of
+the soldiers, that were marched from Ayr into Irvine on the day of the
+proclamation, came to drive him out of the manse.
+
+There was surely in this a needless and exasperating severity, for the
+light of day might have served as well; but the men were not to blame,
+and the officer who came with them, having himself been tried in the
+battles of the Covenant, and being of a humane spirit, was as meek and
+compassionate in his tyrannical duty as could reasonably be hoped for.
+He allowed Mrs Swinton to take away her clothes, and the babies, that
+were asleep in their beds, time to be awakened and dressed, nor did he
+object to their old ploughman, Robin Harrow, taking sundry articles of
+provision for their next morning's repast; so that, compared with the
+lewd riots and rampageous insolence of the troopers in other places, we
+had great reason to be thankful for the tenderness with which our
+minister and his small family of seven children were treated on that
+memorable night.
+
+It was about eight o'clock when Martha, the eldest daughter, came flying
+to me like a demented creature, crying the persecutors were come, with
+naked swords and dreadful faces; and she wept and wrung her hands,
+thinking they were then murdering her parents and brothers and sisters.
+I did, however, all that was in my power to pacify her, saying our lots
+were not yet laid in blood, and, leaving her to the consolatory
+counsellings of my wife, I put on my bonnet and hastened over to the
+manse.
+
+The night was troubled and gusty. The moon was in her first quarter, and
+wading dim and low through the clouds on the Arran hills. Afar off, the
+bars of Ayr, in their roaring, boded a storm, and the stars were
+rushing through a swift and showery south-west carry. The wind, as it
+hissed over the stubble, sounded like the whisperings of desolation; and
+I was thrice startled in my walk by passing shapes and shadows, whereof
+I could not discern the form.
+
+At a short distance from the manse door I met the godly sufferer and his
+destitute family, with his second youngest child in his arms. Mrs
+Swinton had their baby at her bosom, and the other four poor, terrified,
+helpless creatures were hirpling at their sides, holding them by the
+skirts, and often looking round in terror, dreading the persecutors, by
+whom they were in that dismal and inclement night so cast upon the mercy
+of the elements. But He that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb was
+their protector.
+
+"You see, Ringan Gilhaize," said the minister, "how it fares with them
+in this world whose principles are at variance with the pretensions of
+man. But we are mercifully dealt by--a rougher manner and a harder
+heart, in the agent of persecution that has driven us from house and
+home, I had laid my account for; therefore, even in this dispensation, I
+can see the gentle hand of a gracious Master, and I bow the head of
+thankfulness."
+
+While we were thus speaking and walking towards Quharist, several of the
+neighbours, who had likewise heard the alarm of what had thus come to
+pass, joined us on the way; and I felt within myself that it was a proud
+thing to be able to give refuge and asylum to an aged gospel minister
+and his family in such a time and on such a night.
+
+We had not been long in the house when a great concourse of his friends
+and people gathered around, and among others Nahum Chapelrig, who had
+been some time his father's successor in the school. But all present
+were molested and angry with him, for he came in battle array, with the
+sword and gun that he had carried in the raids of the civil war, and was
+bragging of valorous things then needful to be done.
+
+"Nahum Chapelrig," said the Worthy to him with severity, "this is no
+conduct for the occasion. It would hae been a black day for Scotland had
+her children covenanted themselves for temporal things. No, Nahum; if
+the prelatic reprobation now attempted on the kirk gang nae farther
+than outing her ministers from their kirks and manses, it maun be
+tholet; so look to it, that ye give not the adversary cause to reproach
+us with longing for the flesh-pots of Egypt when we are free to taste of
+the heavenly manna. I redde ye, therefore, Nahum Chapelrig, before these
+witnesses, to unbuckle that belt of war, and lay down thae weapons of
+offence. The time of the shield and banner may come owre soon upon us.
+Let us not provoke the smiter, lest he draw his sword against us, and
+have law and reason on his side. Therefore, I say unto thee, Peter, put
+up thy sword."
+
+The zealous dominie, being thus timeously rebuked, unharnessed himself,
+and the minister having returned thanks for the softness with which the
+oppression was let down upon him, and for the pious affection of his
+people, we returned home to our respective dwellings.
+
+But though by this Christian submission the power of cruelty was at that
+time rendered innocent towards all those who did as Mr Swinton had done,
+we were, nevertheless, not allowed to remain long unvisited by another
+swirl of the rising storm. Before the year was out, Fairfoul, the
+Glasgow Antichrist, sent upon us one of the getts that prelacy was then
+so fast adopting for her sons and heirs. A lang, thin, bare lad he was,
+that had gotten some spoonful or two of pagan philosophy at college, but
+never a solid meal of learning, nor, were we to judge by his greedy
+gaping, even a satisfactory meal of victuals. His name was Andrew
+Dornock; and, poor fellow, being eschewed among us on account of his
+spiritual leprosy, he drew up with divers loose characters, that were
+nae overly nice of their company.
+
+This made us dislike him more and more, in so much that, like others of
+his nature and calling, he made sore and secret complaints of his
+parishioners to his mitred master; representing, for aught I ken to the
+contrary, that, instead of believing the Gospel according to Charles
+Stuart, we preferred that of certain four persons, called Matthew, Mark,
+Luke and John, of whom, it may be doubted, if he, poor man, knew more
+than the names. But be that as it may, to a surety he did grievously
+yell and cry, because we preferred listening to the Gospel melody of Mr
+Swinton under a tree to his feckless havers in the kirk; as if it was
+nae a more glorious thing to worship God in the freedom and presence of
+universal Nature, beneath the canopy of all the heavens, than to bow the
+head in the fetters of episcopal bondage below the stoury rafters of an
+auld bigging, such as our kirk was, a perfect howf of cloks and spiders.
+Indeed, for that matter, it was said that the only sensible thing Andrew
+Dornock ever uttered from the pulpit was, when he first rose to speak
+therein, and which was caused by a spider, that just at the moment
+lowered itself down into his mouth: "O Lord," cried the curate, "we're
+puzhened wi' speeders!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+
+It might have been thought, considering the poor hand which the prelatic
+curates made of it in their endeavours to preach, that they would have
+set themselves down content with the stipend, and allowed the flocks to
+follow their own shepherds in peace; but their hearts were filled with
+the bitterness of envy at the sight of the multitudes that went forth to
+gather the manna in the fields, and their malice was exasperated to a
+wonderful pitch of wickedness by the derision and contempt with which
+they found themselves regarded. No one among them all, however, felt
+this envy and malice more stirring within him, than did the
+arch-apostate James Sharp; for the faithfulness of so many ministers was
+a terror and a reproach to his conscience and apostacy, and made him
+labour with an exceeding zeal and animosity to extirpate so many
+evidences of his own religious guilt. Accordingly, by his malignant
+counsellings, edicts and decrees came out against our tabernacle in the
+wilderness, and under the opprobrious name of conventicles, our holy
+meetings were made prohibited offences, and our ministers subjected to
+pains and penalties, as sowers of sedition.
+
+It is a marvellous thing to think of the madness with which the minds of
+those in authority at that time were kindled; first, to create causes of
+wrong to the consciences of the people, and afterwards to enact laws for
+the natural fruit of that frantic policy. The wanton imposition of the
+prelatic oppression begat our field preachings, and the attempts to
+disperse us by the sword brought on resistance. But it belongs not to me
+and my story to treat of the folly of a race and government, upon whom a
+curse was so manifestly pronounced; I shall therefore return from this
+generality to those particulars wherein I was myself a witness or a
+sufferer.
+
+During the greater part of the year after the banishment of Mr Swinton
+from the manse and kirk, we met with little molestation; but from time
+to time rumours came over us like the first breathings of the cold
+blasts in autumn, that forerun the storms of winter. All thoughts of
+innocent pastimes and pleasures passed away, like the yellow leaves that
+fall from the melancholy trees; and there was a heaviness in the tread,
+and a solemnity in the looks of every one, that showed how widely the
+shadows of coming woes were darkening the minds of men.
+
+But though the Court of Commission, which the apostate James Sharp
+procured to be established for the cognisance of those who refused to
+acknowledge the prelatic usurpation, was, in its proceedings, guided by
+as little truth or principle as the Spanish inquisition, the violence
+and tyranny of its awards fell less on those of my degree than on the
+gentry; and it was not till the drunkard Turner was appointed general of
+the West Country that our personal sufferings began.
+
+The curates furnished him with lists of recusants; and power having been
+given unto him to torment men for many days, he was as remorseless as
+James Sharp's own Court in the fines which he levied, and in eating the
+people up, by sending his men to live upon them at free quarters, till
+the fines were paid.
+
+In our neighbourhood we were for some time gently dealt with; for the
+colonel who, at Ayr, had the command under Turner, was of a humane
+spirit, and for a season, though the rumour of the oppressions in
+Dumfries-shire and Galloway, where the drunkard himself reigned and
+ruled, dismayed and troubled us beyond utterance, we were still
+permitted to taste of the Gospel pastures with our own faithful
+shepherd.
+
+But this was a blessing too great in those days to be of a continuance
+to any flock. The mild and considerate gentleman, who had softened the
+rigour of the prelatic rage, was removed from his command, and in his
+place came certain cruel officers, who, like the serpents that were sent
+among the children of Israel in the desert, defiled our dwellings, and
+afflicted many of us even unto death. The change was the more bitterly
+felt, because it was sudden, and came upon us in an unexpected manner,
+of which I will here set down some of the circumstantials.
+
+According to the usage among us, from the time when Mr Swinton was
+thrust from the ministry, the parish had assembled, on the third Lord's
+Day of May, in the year 1665, under the big sycamore-tree at Zachariah
+Smylie's gable, and which has ever since been reverenced by the name of
+the Poopit Tree. A cart served him for the place of lecture and
+exhortation; and Zachariah Smylie's daughter, Rebecca Armour, a godly
+widow, who resided with him, had, as her custom was in fine weather,
+ordered and arranged all the stools and chairs in the house, with the
+milk and washing-boynes upside down, around the cart as seats for the
+aged. When the day was wet or bleak, the worship was held in the barn;
+but on this occasion the morning was lown and the lift clear, and the
+natural quietude of the Sabbath reigned over all the fields. We had sung
+a portion of the psalm, and the harmonious sound of voices and spirits
+in unison was spreading into the tranquil air, as the pleasant fragrancy
+of flowers diffuses itself around, and the tune, to which we sung the
+divine inspiration, was the sweet and solemn melody of the Martyrs.
+
+Scarcely, however, had we proceeded through the second verse, when Mr
+Swinton, who was sitting on a stool in the cart, with his back to the
+house, started up and said, "Christians, dinna be disheartened, but I
+think I see yonder the glimmerin' of spears coming atween the hedges."
+
+At these words we all rose alarmed, and, on looking round, saw some
+eight or ten soldiers, in the path leading from the high road, coming
+towards us. The children and several of the women moved to run away, but
+Mr Swinton rebuked their timerarious fear, and said,--
+
+"O! ye of little faith, wherefore are ye thus dismayed? Let us put our
+trust in Him, who is mightier than all the armies of all the kings of
+all the earth. We are here doing homage to Him, and He will protect His
+true vassals and faithful people. In His name, therefore, Christians, I
+charge you to continue His praises in the psalm; for in His strength I
+will, to the end of my intent, this day fulfil the word and the
+admonition; yea, even in the very flouting of the adversary's banner."
+
+The vehemence of Elijah was in his voice; we resumed our former
+postures; and he himself leading on the psalm, we began to sing anew in
+a louder strain, for we were fortified and encouraged by his holy
+intrepidity. No one moved as it were an eyelid; the very children were
+steadfast; and all looked towards the man of God as he sat in his humble
+seat, serene, and more awful than ever was Solomon on the royal throne
+of the golden lions, arrayed in all his glory.
+
+The rough soldiers were struck for a time with amazement at the
+religious bravery with which the worshipping was continued, and they
+halted as they drew near, and whispered together, and some of them spoke
+as if the fear of the Lord had fallen upon them. During the whole time
+that we continued singing, they stood as if they durst not venture to
+disturb us; but when the psalm was finished, their sergeant, a lewd
+roister, swore at them, and called on them to do their duty.
+
+The men then advanced, but with one accord we threw ourselves in between
+them and the cart, and cried to Mr Swinton to make his escape; he,
+however, rose calmly from his seat and said,--
+
+"Soldiers, shed no blood; let us finish our prayer,--the worst of men
+after condemnation are suffered to pray,--ye will, therefore, not surely
+refuse harmless Christians the boon that is aloo't to malefactors? At
+the conclusion I will go peaceably with you, for we are not rebels; we
+yield all bodily obedience to the powers that be, but the upright mind
+will not bend to any earthly ordinance. Our bodies are subject to the
+King's authority, and to you as his servants, if ye demand them, we are
+ready to deliver them up."
+
+But the sergeant told him harshly to make haste and come down from the
+cart. Two of the men then went into the house, and brought out the churn
+and bread and cheese, and with much ribaldry began to eat and drink, and
+to speak profane jests to the young women. But my brother interposed,
+and advised all the women and children to return to their homes. In the
+meantime, Zachariah Smylie had gone to the stable and saddled his horse,
+and Rebecca Armour had made a small providing of provisions for Mr
+Swinton to take with him to the Tolbooth of Irvine; for thither the
+soldiers were intending to carry him that night, in order that he might
+be sent to Glasgow next day with other sufferers. When, however, the
+horse was brought out, and the godly man was preparing to mount the
+sergeant took him by the sleeve, and pulled him back, saying, "The horse
+is for me."
+
+Verily at this insult I thought my heart would have leapt out; and every
+one present gurled and growled; but the soldiers laughed at seeing the
+sergeant on horseback. Mr Swinton, however, calmly advised us to make no
+obstacle: "Good," said he, "will come of this, and though for a season
+we are ordained to tribulation, and to toil through the slough of
+despond, yet a firm footing and a fair and green path lies in a peaceful
+land beyond."
+
+The soldiers then took him away, the blasphemous sergeant riding, like a
+Merry Andrew, on Zachariah Smylie's horse before them, and almost the
+whole congregation following with mournful and heavy hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+
+The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton in
+following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a
+tumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, on
+the second day after he was sent from Irvine to Glasgow, a gang of
+Turner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. None
+suffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house and
+mine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we had
+committed the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring our
+minister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their home
+in a wild and wintry night.
+
+We were both together, with old Zachariah Smylie, fined each in a heavy
+sum.
+
+Thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and our
+neighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, our
+friends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us the
+means, for we had not a sufficiency of our own. But this, instead of
+mitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over us
+to persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in that
+neighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that he
+not only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with which
+it was paid to double his severity. Sixteen domineering camp reprobates
+were quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine.
+
+What an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth I
+need not attempt to describe. For some days they rampaged as if we had
+been barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for their
+ravenous wastrie;--but I was resolved to keep a uniform and steady
+abstinence from all cause of offence. So seeing they were passing from
+insolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her two
+servant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn.
+
+This silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; and
+in the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless and
+peaceful demeanour that I could discern more than one of them beginning
+to be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment.
+But their officer, Lieutenant Swaby, an Englisher by birth, and a sinner
+by education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. He happened to
+cast his eye on Martha Swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then but
+in her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that she
+was in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertain
+fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,
+however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her
+fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only
+made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust
+herself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and woman
+was rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace and
+human charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made
+him fain to be removed from among us.
+
+For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of
+their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was
+discerned that they were as much under the common fears and
+superstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in so
+much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and
+warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,
+they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,
+however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless
+partook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it was
+thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.
+
+But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not
+daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old
+Mysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he
+entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and
+from less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend a
+cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the
+bonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.
+
+Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the
+proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's
+daughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and
+said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst
+with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of
+furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of
+her acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon the
+profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,
+merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.
+
+Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,
+when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led in
+the times of the civil war to the raid of Dunse-hill. He was sib to
+herself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though not
+without a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree;
+besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home a
+heart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasons
+and occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called Swaby by any
+other name than the cavalier.
+
+Between Mysie and Robin, with some of his companions, a paction was made
+that she should keep her tryst with Swaby, and settle on a time and
+place for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find Martha
+Swinton; Robin covenanting that between him and his friends the
+cavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. Accordingly, at
+the time appointed, when she met Swaby on the road where they had
+foregathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house on
+Hallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no to
+bring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief.
+
+After parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin the
+other, Robin Finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with a
+seeming respectfulness, said,--
+
+"Ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; I hope ye hae gi'en her nae
+offence?"
+
+The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed the
+gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirpling
+homeward--"The devil! is she one of that sort?"
+
+"I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robin
+with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her
+liking."
+
+Swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was then
+nearly out of sight. Robin at the same time moved onward.
+
+"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with you
+about the old--"
+
+"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I would
+na for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o'
+her cantrips."
+
+"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low and
+apprehensive voice.
+
+"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin very
+seriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world
+were I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a pious
+wife, sir,--deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to be
+hang'd if she was a witch,--an' it could be proven upon her."
+
+But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the
+contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil take
+her, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."
+
+"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal.
+Surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsome
+young lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever,
+that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;--and what I hae heard tell
+of was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain,
+that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye were
+sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that
+ye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your
+judgment,--the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye
+could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her
+to the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae
+farther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye
+respek yoursel."
+
+In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the
+clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore
+state o' dread and wonderment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+
+It seems that shortly after Robin Finnie had departed from the gallant
+cavalier, a lad, called Sandy Macgill, who was colleagued with him in
+the plot, came towards the captain with looks cast to the earth, and so
+full of thought, that he seemingly noticed nothing. Going forward in
+this locked-up state of the outward sense, he came close upon Swaby,
+when, affecting to be startled out of his meditations, he stopped
+suddenly short, and looked in the lieutenant's broad face, with all the
+alarm he could put into his own features, till he saw he was frightened
+out of his judgment, when he said,--
+
+"Gude be about us, sir, ye hae gotten scaith; the blighting blink o' an
+ill e'e has lighted upon you.--O, sir; O, sir! tak tent o' yoursel!"
+
+Sandy had prepared a deal more to say, but finding himself overcome with
+an inward inclination to risibility at the sight of Swaby's
+terrification, he was obligated to flee as fast as he could from the
+spot; the which wild-like action of his no doubt dismayed the cavalier
+fully as meikle as all he had said.
+
+But it's the nature of man to desire to do whatever he is forbidden.
+Notwithstanding all their mystical admonitions, Swaby still persevered
+in his evil intents, and accordingly he was seen lurking, without his
+sword, about the heel of the evening, on Hallowe'en, near the skirts of
+the clachan where Mysie Gilmour lived. And, as it had been conspired
+among her friends, Mungo Affleck, her gude-brother, a man weel stricken
+in years, but of a youthy mind, and a perfect pen-gun at a crack, came
+across the cavalier in his path, and Swaby having before some slight
+acquaintance with his garb and canny observes, hovered for a little in
+discourse with Mungo.
+
+"I counsel you, sir," said the pawkie auld carl as they were separating,
+"no to gang far afield this night, for this is a night that there is na
+the like o' in a' the year round. It's Hallowe'en, sir, so be counselled
+by me, and seek your hame betimes; for mony a ane has met with things on
+Hallowe'en that they never after forgot."
+
+Considering the exploit on which the cavalier was then bowne, it's no to
+be thought that this was very heartening music; but for all that, he
+said blithely, as Mungo told me himself, "Nae, not so fast, governor,
+tell us what you mean by Hallowe'en!"
+
+"Hallowe'en!" cried Mungo Affleck, with a sound o' serious sincerity.
+"Do ye no ken Hallowe'en? but I need na say that. Ye'll excuse me,
+captain, what can you Englishers, that are brought up in the darkness o'
+human ordinances in Gospel things, and who live in the thraldom of
+episcopalian ignorance, ken o' Hallowe'en, or o' any other solemn day
+set apart for an occasion?--O, sir, Hallowe'en among us is a dreadful
+night! Witches and warlocks, and a' lang-nebbit things, hae a power and
+a dominion unspeakable on Hallowe'en. The de'il at other times gi'es,
+it's said, his agents a mutchkin o' mischief, but on this night it's
+thought they hae a chappin; and one thing most demonstrable is;--but,
+sir, the sun's down--the blessed light o' day is ayont the hill, and
+it's no safe to be subjek to the whisking o' the mildew frae the tails
+o' the benweed ponies that are saddled for yon awfu' carnavaulings,
+where Cluty plays on the pipes! so I wis you, sir, gude night and weel
+hame.--O, sir, an ye could be persuaded!--Tak an auld man's advice, and
+rather read a chapter of THE BOOK, an it should even be the unedyfying
+tenth of Nehemiah, than be seen at the gloaming in this gait, about the
+dyke-sides, like a wolf yearning for some tender lamb of a defenceless
+fold."
+
+Mungo having thus delivered himself, went away, leaving Swaby as it were
+in a swither; for, on looking back, the old man saw him standing half
+turned round as if he was minded to go home. The power of the sin was,
+however, strong upon him, and shortly after the dusk had closed in, when
+the angels had lighted their candles at their windows in the sky, to
+watch over the world in the hours of sleep, Swaby, with stealthy steps,
+came to Mysie Gilmour's door, and softly tirling at the pin was
+admitted; for all within was ready for his reception.
+
+Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill having carried thither Zachariah Smylie's
+black ram, a condumacious and outstropolous beast, which they had laid
+in Mysie's bed, and keepit frae baaing with a gude fothering of
+kail-blades and a cloute soaken in milk.
+
+Mysie, on opening the door, said to the gallant cavalier,--
+
+"Just step in, ye'll fin' a' ready," and she blew out her crusie which
+she had in her hand, and letting the captain grope in by himself,
+hirpled as fast as she could to one of the neighbours; for, although she
+had covenanted with him to come without his sword, she was terrified
+with the fear of some dreadful upshot.
+
+As soon as he was in, Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill went and hearkened
+at the window, where they heard the gay gallant stumbling in the floor,
+churming sweet and amorous words as he went groping his way towards the
+bed where the auld toop was breathing thickly, mumbling and crunching
+the kail-blades in a state of as great sensual delight and satisfaction
+as any beast could well be. But no sooner had the cavalier placed his
+hand on the horned head of the creature than he uttered a yell of
+despair; in the same moment the toop, in little less fright, jumpit out
+of the bed against him and knocked him down over a stool with a lounder.
+Verily Providence might be said, with reverence, to have had a hand in
+the mirth of his punishment; for the ram recovering its senses before
+the cavalier, and being in dread of danger, returned to the charge, and
+began to butt him as if it would have been his death. The cries that
+ensued are not to be told; all the neighbours came running to the door,
+to see what was the matter, some with lighted sticks in their hands, and
+some with burning coals in the tongs. Robin Finnie and Sandy Macgill
+were like to die of laughing; but fearing the wrathful ram might dunt
+out the bowels or the brains, if he had any, of the poor young cavalier,
+they opened the door, and so delivered him from its horns. He was,
+however, by this time, almost in a state of distraction, believing the
+beast was the real Evil One; so that he no sooner felt himself free and
+saw the lights, than he flew to his quarters as if he had been pursued
+by a legion.
+
+Some of his own soldiers that were lying in the clachan, and who had
+come out with the rest of the folk, saw through the stratagem, and,
+forgetting all reverence for their afflicted commander, laughed louder
+and longer than any body. In short, the story was o'er the whole parish
+next day, and the very weans, wherever the cavalier appeared, used to
+cry ba at him, by which his very life was made a shame and a burden to
+him, insomuch that he applied for leave to give up his commission, and
+returned home to his kindred in the south of England, and we never heard
+tell of him after.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+
+But although in the exploit of Mysie Gilmour, and Robin Finnie with his
+confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of
+lessening the dread and fear in which our simple country folk held his
+Majesty's ungracious fine-levers, the cavalier captains and soldiers,
+still there was a gradual ingrowth of the weight of the oppression,
+wherewith we were laden more as bondsmen and slaves than as subjects;
+and, in the meantime, the spirit of that patriarch, my apostolic
+grandfather, was gathering to heart and energy within the silent
+recesses of my afflicted bosom.
+
+I heard the murmuring, deep and sad, of my neighbours, at the insult and
+the contumely which they were obligated to endure from the irresponsible
+licentiousness of military domination,--but I said nothing; I was
+driven, with my pious wife and our simple babies, from my own hearth by
+the lewd conversation of the commissioned freebooters, and obligated to
+make our home in an outhouse, that we might not be molested in our
+prayers by their wicked ribaldry,--but I said nothing; I saw my honest
+neighbours plundered--their sons insulted--and their daughters put to
+shame,--but I said nothing; I was a witness when our godly minister,
+after having been driven with his wife and family out to the mercy of
+the winter's wind, was seized in the very time while he was worshipping
+the Maker of us all, and taken like a malefactor to prison,--but I said
+nothing; and I was told the story of the machinations against his
+innocent virgin daughter, when she was left defenceless among us,--and
+still I said nothing. Like the icy winter, tyranny had so encrusted my
+soul that my taciturnity seemed as hard, impenetrable, cold and cruel as
+the frozen river's surface, but the stream of my feelings ran stronger
+and fiercer beneath; and the time soon came when, in proportion to the
+still apathy that made my brother and my friends to wonder how I so
+quietly bore the events of so much, my inward struggles burst through
+all outward passive forms, and, like the hurling and the drifting ice,
+found no effectual obstacle to its irresistible and natural destination.
+
+Mrs Swinton, the worthy lady of that saint, our pastor, on hearing what
+had been plotted against the chaste innocence of her fair and blooming
+child, came to me, and with tears, in a sense the tears of a widow, very
+earnestly entreated of me that I would take the gentle Martha to her
+cousin, the Laird of Garlins, in Dumfries-shire, she having heard that
+some intromissions, arising out of pacts and covenants between my wife's
+cousin and the Laird of Barscob, obligated me to go thither. This was on
+the Monday after the battering that the cavalier got from Zachariah
+Smylie's black ram; and I, reasonably thinking that there was judgment
+in the request, and that I might serve, by my compliance, the helpless
+residue, and the objects of a persecuted Christian's affections, I
+consented to take the damsel with me as far as Garlins, in Galloway; the
+which I did.
+
+When I had left Martha Swinton with her friends, who, being persons of
+pedigree and opulence, were better able to guard her, I went to the end
+of my own journey; and here, from what ensued, it is needful I should
+relate that, in this undertaking, I left my own house under the care of
+my brother, and that I was armed with my grandfather's sword.
+
+It happened that, on Tuesday the 13th November 1666, as I was returning
+homeward from Barscob, I fell in with three godly countrymen, about a
+mile south of the village of Dalry, in Galloway, and we entered into a
+holy and most salutary conversation anent the sufferings and the
+fortitude of God's people in that time of trouble. Discoursing with
+great sobriety on that melancholious theme, we met a gang of Turner's
+blackcuffs, driving before them, like beasts to the slaughter, several
+miserable persons to thrash out the corn, that it might be sold, of one
+of my companions, who, being himself a persecuted man, and unable to pay
+the fine forfeited by his piety, had some days before been forced to
+flee his house.
+
+On seeing the soldiers and their prey coming towards us, the poor man
+would have run away; but we exhorted him not to be afraid, for he might
+pass unnoticed, and so he did; for, although those whom the military
+rabiators were driving to thrash his corn knew him well, they were
+enabled to bear up, and were so endowed with the strength of martyrdom,
+that each of them, only by a look, signified that they were in the
+spirit of fellowship with him.
+
+After they had gone by, his heart, however, was so afflicted that so
+many worthy persons should be so harmed for his sake, that he turned
+back, and, in despite of all our entreaties, went to them, while we went
+forward to Dalry, where we entered a small public, and, having ordered
+some refreshment, for we were all weary, we sat meditating on what could
+be the upshot of such tyranny.
+
+While we were so sitting, a cry got up that our companion was seized by
+the soldiers, and that they were tormenting him on a red-hot gridiron
+for not having paid his fine.
+
+My blood boiled at the news. I rose, and those who were with me
+followed, and we ran to the house--his own house--where the poor man
+was. I beseeched two of the soldiers who were at the door to desist from
+their cruelty; but while I was speaking, other two that were within came
+raging out, like curs from a kennel, and flew at me; and one of them
+dared to strike me with his nieve in the mouth. My grandfather's sword
+flew out at the blow, and the insulter lay wounded and bleeding at my
+feet. My companions in the same moment rushed on the other soldiers,
+dashed their teeth down their throats, and, twisting their firelocks
+from their hands, set the prisoner free.
+
+In this there was rashness, but there was also redemption and glory. We
+could not stop at what we had done;--we called on those who had been
+brought to thrash the corn to join with us, and they joined;--we
+hastened to the next farm;--the spirit of indignation was there before
+us, and master and man, and father and son, there likewise found that
+the hilts of their fathers' covenanted swords fitted their avenging
+grasps. We had now fired the dry stubble of the land--the flame
+spread--we advanced, and grew stronger and stronger. The hills, as it
+were, clapped their hands, and the valleys shouted of freedom. From all
+sides men and horse came exulting towards us; the gentleman and the hind
+knew no distinction. The cry was, "Down with tyranny--we are and we will
+make free!" The fields rejoiced with the multitude of our feet as we
+advanced towards Dumfries, where Turner lay. His blackcuffs flung down
+their arms and implored our mercy. We entered Dumfries, and the
+Oppressor was our prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+
+Hitherto the rising at Dalry had been as a passion and a spreading fire.
+The strength of the soldiers was consumed before us, and their arms
+became our weapons; but when we had gained possession of Dumfries, and
+had set a ward over the house where we had seized Turner, I saw that we
+had waded owre far into the river to think of returning, and that to go
+on was safer than to come back. It was indeed manifest that we had been
+triumphant rather by our haste than by the achievements of victorious
+battle; and it could be hidden from no man's thought that the power and
+the vengeance both of the government and the prelacy would soon be set
+in array against us. I therefore bethought myself, in that peril of our
+lives and cause, of two things which seemed most needful; first, Not to
+falter in our enterprise until we had proved the utmost of the Lord's
+pleasure in our behalf; and second, To use the means under Him which, in
+all human undertakings, are required to bring whatsoever is ordained to
+pass.
+
+Whether in these things I did well or wisely, I leave to the
+adjudication of the courteous reader; but I can lay my hand upon my
+heart, and say aloud, yea, even to the holy skies, "I thought not of
+myself nor of mine, but only of the religious rights of my
+sorely-oppressed countrymen."
+
+From the moment in which I received the blow of the soldier, up till the
+hour when Turner was taken, I had been the head and leader of the
+people. My sword was never out of my grip, and I marched as it were in a
+path of light, so wonderful was the immediate instinct with which I was
+directed to the accomplishment of that adventure, the success of which
+overwhelmed the fierce and cruel Antichrists at Edinburgh with
+unspeakable consternation and panic. But I lacked that knowledge of the
+art of war by which men are banded into companies and ruled, however
+manifold their diversities, to one end and effect, so that our numbers,
+having by this time increased to a great multitude, I felt myself
+utterly unable to govern them. We were as a sea of billows, that move
+onward all in one way, obedient to the impulse and deep fetchings of the
+tempestuous breath of the awakened winds of heaven, but which often
+break into foam, and waste their force in a roar of ineffectual rage.
+
+Seeing this, and dreading the consequences thereof, I conferred with
+some of those whom I had observed the most discreet and considerate in
+the course of the raid, and we came to a resolve to constitute and
+appoint Captain Learmont our chief commander, he having earned an
+experience of the art and stratagems of war under the renowned Lesley.
+Had we abided by that determination, some have thought our expedition
+might have come to a happier issue; but no human helps and means could
+change what was evidently ordained otherwise. It happened, however, that
+Colonel Wallace, another officer of some repute, also joined us, and his
+name made him bright and resplendent to our enthusiasm. While we were
+deliberating whom to choose for our leader, Colonel Wallace was in the
+same breath, for his name's sake, proposed, and was united in the
+command with Learmont. This was a deadly error, and ought in all time
+coming to be a warning and an admonition to people and nations in their
+straits and difficulties, never to be guided, in the weighty shocks and
+controversies of disordered fortunes, by any prejudice or affection so
+unsubstantial as the echo of an honoured name. For this Wallace, though
+a man of questionless bravery, and a gentleman of good account among all
+who knew him, had not received any gift from Nature of that spirit of
+masterdom without which there can be no command; so that he was no
+sooner appointed to lead us on, with Learmont as his second, than his
+mind fell into a strange confusion, and he heightened disorder into
+anarchy by ordering over much. We could not, however, undo the evil,
+without violating the discipline that we were all conscious our forces
+so grievously lacked; but, from the very moment that I saw in what
+manner he took upon him the command, I augured of nothing but disaster.
+
+Learmont was a collected and an urbane character, and did much to temper
+and turn aside the thriftless ordinances of his superior. He, seeing how
+much our prosperity was dependent on the speed with which we could reach
+Edinburgh, hastened forward everything with such alacrity that we were
+ready on the morrow by mid-day to set out from Dumfries. But the element
+of discord was now in our cause, and I was reproached by many for having
+abdicated my natural right to the command. It was in vain that I tried
+to redeem the fault by taking part with Learmont, under the
+determination, when the black hour of defeat or dismay should come upon
+us, to take my stand with him, and, regardless of Wallace, to consider
+him as the chief and champion of our covenanted liberties. But why do I
+dwell on these intents? Let me hasten to describe the upshot of our
+enterprise.
+
+As soon as we had formed, in the manner herein related, something like a
+head and council for ourselves, we considered, before leaving Dumfries,
+what ought to be done with General Turner, and ordered him to be brought
+before us; for those who had suffered from his fell orders and
+licentious soldiery were clamorous for his blood. But when the man was
+brought in, he was so manifestly mastered by his wine, as his vice often
+made him, that we thought it would be as it were to ask a man mad, or
+possessed, to account for his actions, as at that time to put the
+frantic drunkard on his defence; so we heeded not his obstreperous
+menaces, but ordered him to be put into bed, and his papers to be
+searched for and laid before us.
+
+In this moderation there was wisdom; for, by dealing so gently by one
+who had proved himself so ruthless an agent of the prelatic aggressions,
+we bespoke the good opinion even of many among our adversaries; and in
+the end it likewise proved a measure of justice as well as of mercy.
+For, on examining his papers, it appeared, that pitiless as his
+domineering had been, it was far short of the universal cruelty of his
+instructions from the apostate James Sharp, and those in the council
+with him, who had delivered themselves over as instruments to the
+arbitrary prerogatives and tyrannous pretensions of the court. We
+therefore resolved to proceed no farther against him, but to keep him as
+an hostage in our hands. Many, however, among the commonalty complained
+of our lenity; for they had endured in their persons, their gear and
+their families, great severities; and they grudged that he was not
+obligated to taste the bitterness of the cup of which he had forced them
+to drink so deeply.
+
+In the meantime all the country became alive with the news of our
+exploit. The Covenanters of the shire of Ayr, headed by several of their
+ejected ministers, whom they had cherished in the solitary dens and
+hidings in the moors and hills, to which they had been forced to flee
+from the proclamation against the field-preachings, advanced to meet us
+on our march. Verily it was a sight that made the heart of man dinle at
+once with gladness and sorrow to behold, as the day dawned on our
+course, in crossing the wide and lonely wilderness of Cumnock-moor,
+those religious brethren coming towards us, moving in silence over the
+heath, like the shadows of the slowly-sailing clouds of the summer sky.
+
+As we were toiling through the deep heather on the eastern skirts of the
+Mearns-moor, a mist hovered all the morning over the pad of Neilston,
+covering like a snowy fleece the sides of the hills down almost to the
+course of our route, in such a manner that we could see nothing on the
+left beyond it. We were then within less than fourteen miles of Glasgow,
+where General Dalziel lay with the King's forces, keeping in thraldom
+the godly of that pious city and its neighbourhood. Captain Learmont,
+well aware, from the eager character of the man, that he would be fain
+to intercept us, and fearful of being drawn into jeopardy by the mist,
+persuaded Wallace to halt us some time.
+
+As November was far advanced, it was thought by the country folk that
+the mist would clear away about noon. We accordingly made a pause, and
+sat down on the ground; for many were weary, having over-fatigued
+themselves in their zeal to come up with the main body, and we all stood
+in need of rest.
+
+Scarcely, however, had we cast ourselves in a desultory manner on the
+heather, when some one heard the thud of a distant drum in the mist, and
+gave the alarm; at which we all again suddenly started to our feet, and
+listening, were not long left in doubt of the sound. Orders were
+accordingly given to place ourselves in array for battle; and while we
+were obeying the command in the best manner our little skill allowed,
+the beating of the drum came louder and nearer, intermingled with the
+shrill war-note of the spirity fife.
+
+Every one naturally thought of the King's forces; and the Reverend Mr.
+Semple, seeing that we were in some measure prepared to meet them,
+stepped out in front with all his worthy brethren in the camp, and
+having solemneezed us for worship, gave out a psalm.
+
+By the time we had sung the first three verses the drum and fife sounded
+so near, that I could discern they played the tune of "John, come kiss
+me now," which left me in no doubt that the soldiers in the mist were my
+own friends and neighbours; for it was the same tune which was played
+when the men of our parish went to the raid of Dunse-hill, and which, in
+memorial of that era, had been preserved as a sacred melody amongst us.
+
+Being thus convinced, I stepped out from my place to the ministers, and
+said, "They are friends that are coming." The worship was in consequence
+for a short space suspended, and I presently after saw my brother at the
+head of our neighbours coming out of the cloud; whereupon I went forward
+to meet him, and we shook hands sorrowfully.
+
+"This is an unco thing, Ringan," were his first words; "but it's the
+Lord's will, and HE is able to work out a great salvation."
+
+I made no answer; but inquiring for my family, of whom it was a
+cheering consolation to hear as blithe an account as could reasonably be
+hoped for, I walked with him to our captains, and made him known to them
+as my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+
+Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerk
+was without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it was
+agreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were with
+us, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and,
+to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal and
+intents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared our
+adherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities;
+that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions so
+grievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we asked
+and sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty of
+worship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rights
+and privileges.
+
+The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as a
+day of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked the
+Lord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was a
+sacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on the
+occasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, we
+had been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards those
+whose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way as
+blameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbath
+morning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.
+
+But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestation
+of our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate James
+Sharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to be
+then in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew the
+deserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woes
+he had made us suffer. The sough, therefore, of our approach was to the
+consternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of an
+avenging God, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of the
+engines of wrath and doom. Some said that he sat in the midst of the
+counsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying to
+and fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing his
+teeth. But though all power of forethought and policy was taken from
+him, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were more
+governed, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. They
+commanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrors
+of the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were never
+committed, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection of
+their lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress,
+in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in their
+desire to come with the aid of their helps and means.
+
+The tidings of the preparations for the security of Edinburgh, with the
+unhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, between
+the captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting the
+raid, had, even before we left Lanerk, bred much sedition among us, and
+an ominous dubiety of success. Nevertheless, our numbers continued to
+increase, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle,
+that, had the Lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was no
+reason to think the human means insufficient for the end. But in the
+mysteries of the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the great
+purposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer.
+Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town,
+the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a rising
+wind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the heartening
+of His countenance went no farther with us at that time.
+
+Nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for the
+year was old in November, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, and
+Nature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs,
+forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mourned
+over the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all her
+pleasant places.
+
+As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leafless
+boughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm,
+trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zeal
+of many,--and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail still
+more and more exasperated our discontent. I observed that the men began
+to turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and to
+mutter and murmur to one another. But still we all advanced, gradually,
+however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of the
+river's stream breaking asunder in a thaw.
+
+In the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the clouds
+were gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but the
+rain was lavished without measure. The roads became sloughs,--our feet
+were drawn heavily out of the clay,--the burns and brooks raged from
+bank to brae,--and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, that
+towards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of our
+broken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night,
+scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning left
+Lanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind came
+up. But still Captain Learmont thought, that as soon as the men had
+taken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outright
+to Edinburgh. Wallace, however, objected, and that night was spent
+between them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, our
+hardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-council
+against the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as I have
+said, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted to
+receive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but only
+bitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair.
+
+Seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned of
+the Lord, I retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on a
+rock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass.
+It was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around was
+dismayed and dishevelled. The storm had abated, and the rain was over,
+but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environed
+with perils. A cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over our
+camp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of the castle
+shone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold,
+were fresh in strength and ready for battle.
+
+I thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of the
+children of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and I
+marvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which I had been
+snatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in a
+scene of such inevitable woe. Sometimes, in the passion of that grief, I
+was tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of my
+affections. But as often as the thought came over my heart, with its
+soft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men who
+had borne in the march all that I had borne, and many of them in the
+cause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, I bowed my
+head and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if the
+arm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the Gospel, and
+delivering poor Scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of an
+anti-Christian usurpation in the kingly power.
+
+While I was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubting
+that before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail that
+smote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have been
+by the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, a
+light broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holy
+experiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, I beheld
+as it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, and
+disclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to rise
+from the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply of
+arbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of God, and laid waste
+His vineyard.
+
+I saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit still
+more grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture of
+the honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shown
+themselves so unworthy; and I had a foretaste in that hour of the
+fulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that were
+in store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. So that,
+although I rose from the rock whereon I was sitting, in the clear
+conviction that our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind,
+I yet had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end a
+link in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery with
+which Providence works good out of evil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+
+In the course of the night, shortly after the third watch had been set,
+some of those who had tarried by the way came to the camp with the
+tidings that Dalziel and all the royal forces in Glasgow were coming
+upon us. This, though foreseen, caused a great panic, and a council of
+war, consisting, as usual, of ministers and officers, was held, to
+determine what should be done; but it was likewise, as usual, only a
+fruitless controversy. I, however, on this occasion, feeling myself
+sustained in spirit by the assurances I had received in my meditations
+on the rock, ventured to speak my mind freely; which was to the effect
+that, taking our dejected condition, the desertion of our friends, and
+our disappointments from the city, into consideration, we could do no
+better thing than evade the swords of our adversaries by disbanding
+ourselves, that each might be free to seek safety for himself.
+
+Many were inclined to this counsel; and I doubt not it would have been
+followed; but, while conferring together, an officer came from the
+privy-council to propose a cessation of arms till our demands could be
+considered. It was manifest that this was a wily stratagem to keep us in
+the snare till Dalziel had time to come up, and I did all in my power to
+make the council see it in the same light; but there was a blindness of
+mind among us, and the greater number thought it augured a speedy
+redress of the wrongs for which we had come to seek reparation. Nor did
+their obstinacy in this relax till next morning, when, instead of
+anything like their improbable hopes, came a proclamation ordering us to
+disperse, and containing neither promise of indemnity nor of pardon. But
+then it was too late. Dalziel was in sight. His army was coming like a
+stream along the foot of the Pentland-hills,--we saw his banners and the
+glittering of his arms, and the sound of his musicants came swelling on
+the breeze.
+
+It was plain that his purpose was to drive us in towards the town; but
+had we dispersed we might even then have frustrated his intent. There
+happened, however, besides Learmont and Wallace, to be several officers
+among us who had stubborn notions of military honour; and they would not
+permit so unsoldier-like a flight. There were also divers heated and
+fanatical spirits, whom, because our undertaking had been for religious
+ends, nothing could persuade that Providence would not interfere in some
+signal manner for their deliverance, yea, even to the overthrow of the
+enemy; and Mr Whamle, a minister, one of these, getting upon the top of
+the rock where I had sat the night before, began to preach of the mighty
+things that the Lord did for the children of Israel in the valley of
+Ajalon, where He not only threw down great stones from the heavens, but
+enabled Joshua to command the sun and moon to stand still,--which to any
+composed mind was melancholious to hear.
+
+In sequence to these divisions and contrarieties which enchanted us to
+the spot, Dalziel, considering that we were minded to give him battle,
+brought on his force; and it is but due to the renown of the valour of
+those present to record that, notwithstanding a fearful odds, our men,
+having the vantage ground, so stoutly maintained their station that we
+repulsed him thrice.
+
+But the victory, as I have said, was not ordained for us. In the
+afternoon Dalziel was reinforced by several score of mounted gentlemen
+from the adjacent counties, and with their horse, about sunset, our
+phalanx was shattered, our ranks broken,--and then we began to quit the
+field. The number of our slain, and of those who fell into the hands of
+the enemy, did not in the whole exceed two hundred men. The dead might
+have been greater, but for the compassion of the gentlemen, who had
+respect to the cause which had provoked us to arms, and who, instead of
+doing as Dalziel's men did, without remorse or pity, cried to the
+fugitives to flee, and spared many in consideration of the common
+wrongs.
+
+When I saw that our host was dashed into pieces, and the fragments
+scattered over the fields, I fled with the flying, and gained, with
+about some thirty other fugitives, the brow of a steep part of the
+Pentland-hills, where the mounted gentlemen, even had they been
+inclined, could not easily follow us. There, while we halted to rest a
+little, we heard a shout now and then rise startling from the field of
+battle below; but night coming on, all was soon silent, and we sat, in
+the holiness of our mountain-refuge, in silent rumination till the moon,
+rolling slowly from behind Arthur's Seat, looked from her window in the
+clouds, as if to admonish us to flee farther from the scene of danger.
+
+The Reverend Mr Witherspoon being among us, was the first to feel the
+gracious admonition, and, rising from the ground, he said,--
+
+"Friends, we must not tarry here, the hunters are forth, and we are the
+prey they pursue. They will track us long, and the hounds are not of a
+nature to lose scent, especially when they have tasted, as they have
+done this day, the rich blood of the faithful and the true. Therefore
+let us depart; but where, O where shall we find a home to receive
+us?--Where a place of rest for our weary limbs, or a safe stone for a
+pillow to our aching heads? But why do I doubt? Blameless as we are,
+even before man, of all offence, save that of seeking leave to worship
+God according to our conscience, it cannot be that we shall be left
+without succour. No, my friends! though our bed be the damp grass and
+our coverlet the cloudy sky, our food the haws of the hedge, and our
+drink the drumly burn, we have made for our hearts the down-beds of
+religious faith, and have found a banquet for our spirits in the
+ambrosial truths of the Gospel--luxuries that neither a James Sharp nor
+a Charles Stuart can ever enjoy, nor all the rents and revenues, fines
+and forfeitures, which princes may exact and prelates yearn to partake
+of, can buy."
+
+He then offered up a thanksgiving that we had been spared from the sword
+in the battle; after which we shook hands in silence together, and each
+pursued his own way.
+
+Mr Witherspoon lingered by my side as we descended the hill, and I
+discerned that he was inclined to be my companion; so we continued
+together, stretching towards the north-west, in order to fall into the
+Lithgow road, being mindet to pass along the skirts of Stirlingshire,
+thence into Lennox, in the hope of reaching Argyle's country by the way
+of the ferry of Balloch. But we had owre soon a cruel cause to change
+the course of our flight.
+
+In coming down towards the Amond-water, we saw a man running before us
+in the glimpse of the moonshine, and it was natural to conclude, from
+his gestures and the solitude of the place, that no one could be so
+far-a-field at such a time, but some poor fellow-fugitive from
+Rullion-green where the battle was fought; so we called to him to stop,
+and to fear no ill, for we were friends. Still, however he fled on, and
+heeded not our entreaty, which made us both marvel and resolve to
+overtake him. We thought it was not safe to follow long an unknown
+person who was so evidently afraid, and flying, as we supposed, to his
+home. Accordingly we hastened our speed, and I, being the nimblest
+reached him at a place where he was stopped by a cleft in the rocks on
+the river's woody brink.
+
+"Why do you fly so fast from us?" said I; "we're frae the Pentland-hills
+too."
+
+At these words he looked wildly round, and his face was as ghastly as a
+ghost's in the moonlight; but, distorted as he was by his fears, I
+discovered in him my neighbour, Nahum Chapelrig, and I spoke to him by
+name.
+
+"O, Ringan Gilhaize!" said he, and he took hold of me with his right
+hand, while he raised his left and shook it in a fearful and frantic
+manner, "I am a dead man, my hours are numbered, and the sand-glass of
+my days is amaist a' run out. I had been saved from the sword, spared
+from the spear, and, flying from the field, I went to a farm-house
+yonder; I sought admission and shelter for a forlorn Christian man; but
+the edicts of the persecutors are more obeyed here than the laws of God.
+The farmer opened his casement, and speering if I had been at the raid
+of the Covenanters, which, for the sake of truth and the glory of God, I
+couldna deny, he shot me dead on the spot; for his bullet gaed in my
+breast, and is fast in my--"
+
+He could say no more; for in that juncture he gave as it were a gurgle
+in the throat, and swirling round, fell down a bleeding corpse on the
+ground where he stood, before Mr Witherspoon had time to come up.
+
+We both looked at poor guiltless Nahum as he lay on the grass, and,
+after some sorrowful communion, we lifted the body, and carrying it down
+aneath the bank of the river, laid stones and turfs upon it by the
+moonlight, that the unclean birds might not be able to molest his
+martyred remains. We then consulted together; and having communed
+concerning the manner of Nahum's death, we resolved not to trust
+ourselves in the power of strangers in those parts of the country, where
+the submission to the prelatic enormity had been followed with such
+woful evidence of depravity of heart. So, instead of continuing our
+journey to the northward, we changed our course, and, for the remainder
+of the night, sought our way due west, by the skirts of the moors and
+other untrodden ways.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+
+At break of day we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary,
+hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the
+birds in them were beginning to chirp,--we sat down and wist not what to
+do.
+
+Mr Witherspoon prayed inwardly for support and resignation of heart in
+the trials he was ordained to undergo; but doure thoughts began to
+gather in my bosom. I yearned for my family,--I mourned to know what had
+become of my brother in the battle,--and I grudged and marvelled
+wherefore it was that the royal and the great had so little respect for
+the religious honesty of harmless country folk.
+
+It was now the nine-and-twentieth day of November, but the weather for
+the season was open and mild, and the morning rose around us in the
+glory of her light and beauty. As the gay and goodly sun looked over the
+eastern hills, we cast our eyes on all sides, and beheld the scattered
+villages and the rising smoke of the farms, but saw not a dwelling we
+could venture to approach, nor a roof that our fears, and the woful end
+of poor Nahum Chapelrig, did not teach us to think covered a foe.
+
+While we were sitting communing on these things, we discovered, at a
+little distance on the left, an aged woman hirpling aslant the route we
+intended to take. She had a porringer in the one hand, and a small kit
+tied in a cloute in the other, by which we discerned that she was
+probably some laborous man's wife conveying his breakfast to him in the
+field.
+
+We both rose, and going towards her, Mr Witherspoon said, "For the love
+of God have compassion on two famishing Christians."
+
+The old woman stopped, and, looking round, gazed at us for a space of
+time, with a countenance of compassionate reverence.
+
+"Hech, sirs!" she then said; "and has it come to this, that a minister
+of the Gospel is obligated to beg an almous frae Janet Armstrong?" And
+she set down the porringer on the ground, and began to untie the cloute
+in which she carried the kit, saying, "Little did I think that sic an
+homage was in store for me, or that the merciful Heavens would e'er
+requite my sufferings, in this world, wi' the honour of placing it in my
+power to help a persecuted servant of the living God. Mr Witherspoon, I
+ken you weel; meikle sweet counselling I hae gotten frae you when ye
+preached for our minister at Camrachle in the time of the great
+covenanting. I was then as a lanerly widow, for my gudeman was at the
+raid of Dunse-hill, and my heart was often sorrowful and sinking wi' a
+sinful misdooting of Providence, for I had twa wee bairns and but a toom
+garnel."
+
+She then opened the kit, which contained a providing of victual that she
+was carrying, as we had thought, to her husband, a quarrier in a
+neighbouring quarry; and bidding us partake, she said,--
+
+"This will be a blithe morning to John Armstrong, to think that out of
+our basket and store we hae had, for ance in our day, the blessing of
+gi'eing a pick to ane o' God's greatest corbies; and he'll no fin' his
+day's dark ae hue the dreigher for wanting his breakfast on account of
+sic a cause."
+
+So we sat down, and began to partake of the repast with a greedy
+appetite, and the worthy woman continued to talk.
+
+"Aye," said she, "the country-side has been in a consternation ever
+since Dalziel left Glasgow;--we a' jealoused that the Lanerk Covenanters
+would na be able to withstand his power and the King's forces; for it
+was said ye had na a right captain of war among you a'.--But, Mr
+Witherspoon, ye could ne'er be ane of the ministers that were said to
+meddle with the battering-rams o' battle.--No; weel I wat that yours is
+a holier wisdom--ye would be for peace;--blessed are the peacemakers."
+
+Seeing the honest woman thus inclined to prattle of things too high for
+her to understand, Mr Witherspoon's hunger being somewhat abated, he
+calmly interposed, and turned the discourse into kind inquiries
+concerning the state of her poor soul and her straitened worldly
+circumstances; and he was well content to find that she had a pleasant
+vista of the truths of salvation, and a confidence in the unceasing care
+of Providence.
+
+"The same gracious hand that feeds the ravens," said she, "will ne'er
+let twa auld folk want, that it has been at the trouble to provide for
+so long. It's true we had a better prospek in our younger days; but our
+auld son was slain at the battle of Worcester, when he gaed in to help
+to put the English crown on the head of that false Charlie Stuart, who
+has broken his oath and the Covenant; and my twa winsome lassies diet in
+their teens, before they were come to years o' discretion. But 'few and
+evil are the days of man that is born of a woman,' as I hae heard you
+preach, Mr Witherspoon, which is a blessed truth and consolation to
+those who have not in this world any continued city."
+
+We then inquired what was the religious frame of the people in that part
+of the country, in order that we might know how to comport ourselves;
+but she gave us little heartening.
+
+"The strength and wealth o' the gentry," said she "is just sooket awa
+wi' ae fine after anither, and it's no in the power of nature that they
+can meikle langer stand out against the prelacy."
+
+"I hope," replied Mr Witherspoon, "that there's no symptom of a laxity
+of principle among them?"
+
+"I doot, I doot, Mr Witherspoon," said Janet Armstrong, "we canna hae a
+great dependence either on principle or doctrine when folk are driven
+demented wi' oppression. Many that were ance godly among us can thole no
+more, and they begin to fash and turn awa' at the sight of their
+persecuted friends."
+
+Mr Witherspoon sighed with a heavy heart on hearing this, and mournfully
+shook his head. We then thanked Janet for her hospitable kindness, and
+rising, were moving to go away.
+
+"I hope, Mr Witherspoon," said she, "that we're no to part in sic a
+knotless manner. Bide here till I gang for John Armstrong and the other
+twa men that howk wi' him in the quarry. They're bearing plants o' the
+vineyard--tarry, I pray you, and water them wi' the water of the Word."
+
+And so saying, she hastened down the track she was going, and we
+continued on the spot to wait her return.
+
+"Ringan," said Mr Witherspoon to me, "I fear there's owre meikle truth
+in what she says concerning the state of religion, not only here, but
+among all the commonality of the land. The poor beast that's overladen
+may be stubborn, and refuse for a time to draw; but the whip will at
+last prevail, until, worn out and weary, it meekly lies down to die. In
+like manner, the stoutness of the covenanted heart will be overcome."
+
+Just as he was uttering these words, a whiz in a whin-bush near to where
+we were standing, and the sound of a gun, startled us, and on looking
+round we saw five men, and one of the black-cuffs with his firelock
+still at his shoulder, looking towards us from behind a dyke that ran
+along the bottom of the brae. There was no time for consultation. We
+fled, cowering behind the whin-bushes till we got round a turn in the
+hill, which, protecting us from any immediate shot, enabled us to run in
+freedom till we reached a hazel-wood, which having entered, we halted to
+take breath.
+
+"We must not trust ourselves long here, Mr Witherspoon," said I. "Let us
+go forward, for assuredly the blood-hounds will follow us in."
+
+Accordingly we went on. But it is not to be told what we suffered in
+passing through that wood; for the boughs and branches scourged us in
+the face, and the ground beneath our feet was marshy and deep, and
+grievously overspread with brambles that tore away our very flesh.
+
+After enduring several hours of unspeakable suffering beneath those wild
+and unfrequented trees, we came to a little glen, down which a burn ran,
+and having stopped to consult, we resolved to go up rather than down the
+stream, in order that we might not be seen by the pursuers whom we
+supposed would naturally keep the hill. But by this time our strength
+was in a manner utterly gone with fatigue, in so much that Mr
+Witherspoon said it would be as well to fall into the hands of the enemy
+as to die in the wood. I however encouraged him to be of good cheer;
+and it so happened, in that very moment of despair, that I observed a
+little cavern nook aneath a rock that overhung the burn, and thither I
+proposed we should wade and rest ourselves in the cave, trusting that
+Providence would be pleased to guide our persecutors into some other
+path. So we passed the water, and laid ourselves down under the shelter
+of the rock, where we soon after fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+
+We were graciously protected for the space of four hours, which we lay
+asleep under the rock. Mr Witherspoon was the first who awoke, and he
+sat watching beside me for some time, in great anxiety of spirit, as he
+afterwards told me; for the day was far spent, and the weather, as is
+often the custom in our climate, in the wane of the year, when the
+morning rises bright, had become coarse and drumly, threatening a rough
+night.
+
+At last I awoke, and according to what we had previously counselled
+together, we went up the course of the burn, and so got out of that
+afflicting wood, and came to an open and wide moorland, over which we
+held our journeying westward, guided by the sun, that with a sickly eye
+was then cowering through the mist to his chamber ayont the hill.
+
+But though all around us was a pathless scene of brown heather, here and
+there patched with the deceitful green of some perilous well-e'e; though
+the skies were sullen, and the bleak wind gusty, and every now and then
+a straggling flake of snow, strewed in our way from the invisible hand
+of the cloud, was a token of a coming drift, still a joyous
+encouragement was shed into our bosoms, and we saw in the wildness of
+the waste, and the omens of the storm, the blessed means with which
+Providence, in that forlorn epoch, was manifestly deterring the pursuer
+and the persecutor from tracking our defenceless flight. So we journeyed
+onward, discoursing of many dear and tender cares, often looking round,
+and listening when startled by the wind whispering to the heath and the
+waving fern, till the shadows of evening began to fall, and the dangers
+of the night season to darken around us.
+
+When the snow hung on the heather like its own bells, we wished, but we
+feared to seek a place of shelter. Fain would we have gone back to the
+home for the fugitive, which we had found under the rock, but we knew
+not how to turn ourselves; for the lights of the moon and stars were
+deeply concealed in the dark folds of the wintry mantle with which the
+heavens were wrapt up. Our hearts then grew weary, and more than once I
+felt as if I was very willing to die.
+
+Still we struggled on; and when it had been dark about an hour, we came
+to the skirts of a field, where the strips of the stubble through the
+snow showed us that some house or clachan could not be far off. We then
+consulted together, and resolved rather to make our place of rest in the
+lea of a stack, or an outhouse, than to apply to the dwelling; for the
+thought of the untimely end of harmless Nahum Chapelrig lay like clay on
+our hearts, and we could not but sorrow that, among the other woes of
+the vial of the prelatic dispensation, the hearts of the people of
+Scotland should be so turned against one another.
+
+Accordingly going down the rigs, with as little interchange of discourse
+as could well be, we descried, by the schimmer of the snow, and a
+ghastly streak of moonlight that passed over the fields, a farm
+steading, with several trees and stacks around it, and thither we softly
+directed our steps. Greatly, however, were we surprised and touched with
+distress, when, as we drew near, we saw that there was no light in the
+house, nor the sign of fire within, nor inhabitant about the place.
+
+On reaching the door we found it open, and on entering in, everything
+seemed as if it had been suddenly abandoned; but by the help of a
+pistol, which I had taken in the raid from one of Turner's disarmed
+troopers, and putting our trust in the protection we had so far enjoyed,
+I struck a light and kindled the fire, over which there was still
+hanging, on the swee, a kail-pot, wherein the family at the time of
+their flight had been preparing their dinner; and we judged by this
+token, and by the visible desertion, that we were in the house of some
+of God's people who had been suddenly scattered. Accordingly we scrupled
+not to help ourselves from the aumrie, knowing how readily they would
+pardon the freedom of need in a Gospel minister, and a covenanted
+brother dejected with want and much suffering.
+
+Having finished our supper, instead of sitting by the fire, as we at
+first proposed to do, we thought it would be safer to take the blankets
+from the beds and make our lair in the barn; so we accordingly retired
+thither, and lay down among some unthreshed corn that was lying ready on
+the floor for the flail.
+
+But we were not well down when we heard the breathings of two persons
+near us. As there was no light, and Mr Witherspoon guessing by what we
+had seen, and by this concealment, that they must be some of the family,
+he began to pray aloud, thereby, without letting wot they were
+discovered, making them to understand what sort of guests we were. At
+the conclusion an old woman spoke to us, telling us dreadful things
+which a gang of soldiers had committed that afternoon, and her sad story
+was often interrupted by the moans of her daughter, the farmer's wife,
+who had suffered from the soldiers an unspeakable wrong.
+
+"But what has become of our men, or where the bairns hae fled, we know
+not,--we were baith demented by the outrage, and hid oursel's here after
+it was owre late," said that aged person, in a voice of settled grief
+that was more sorrowful to hear than any lamentation could have been,
+and all the sacred exhortations that Mr Witherspoon could employ
+softened not the obduracy of her inward sorrowing over her daughter, the
+dishonoured wife. He, however, persuaded them to return with us to the
+house; for the enemy having been there, we thought it not likely he
+would that night come again. As for me, during the dismal recital, I
+could not speak. The eye of my spirit was fixed on the treasure I had
+left at home. Every word I heard was like the sting of an adder. My
+horrors and fears rose to such a pitch, that I could no longer master
+them. I started up and rushed to the door, as if it had been possible to
+arrest the imagined guilt of the persecutors in my own unprotected
+dwelling.
+
+Mr Witherspoon followed me, thinking I had gone by myself, and caught me
+by the arm and entreated me to be composed, and to return with him into
+the house. But while he was thus kindly remonstrating with me,
+something took his foot, and he stumbled and fell to the ground. The
+accident served to check the frenzy of my thoughts for a moment, and I
+stooped down to help him up; but in the same instant he uttered a wild
+howl that made me start from him; and he then added, awfully,--
+
+"In the name of Heaven, what is this?
+
+"What is it?" said I, filled with unutterable dread.
+
+"Hush, hush," he replied as he rose, "lest the poor women hear us," and
+he lifted in his arms the body of a child of some four or five years
+old. I could endure no more; I thought the voices of my own innocents
+cried to me for help, and in the frenzy of the moment I left the godly
+man, and fled like a demoniac, not knowing which way I went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+
+A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold;
+but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all
+wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a
+cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of
+some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of
+thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect
+of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the
+fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the
+moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that
+hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning
+women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like
+palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.
+
+The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.--I began to
+reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the
+succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of
+the eloquent orator can express.--I stopped to collect my reason and my
+thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that
+drifts in the tempestuous air.--I considered, that I knew not a footstep
+of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the
+precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very
+object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within
+me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh
+shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean
+when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five
+miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious
+dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby
+enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful
+in that woful time.
+
+But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the
+fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter
+grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The
+mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up,
+and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in
+my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my
+spirit in its power of resolution.
+
+I had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on
+Rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting
+rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows,
+I had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in
+so much that about sunrise I found myself, I cannot well tell how, on
+the heights to the south of Castlemilk, and the city of Glasgow, with
+her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in
+sight some few miles off on the north. I knew it not; but a herd that I
+fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of
+divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands
+before me.
+
+Among others he pointed out to me Nether Pollock in the midst of a
+skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted
+Christian and true Covenanter, Sir George Maxwell, the savour of whose
+piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore
+imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon
+him, shortly after that conclave of Satan, Middleton's sederunt of the
+privy-council at Glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of
+her first-born, in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of
+the Persecution, whereof I have described the promulgation as it took
+place at Irvine.
+
+Being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd,
+who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, I resolved to
+bend my way toward Nether Pollock, in the confident faith that the
+master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to
+compassionate a persecuted brother. And often since I have thought that
+there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this
+confidence; for indeed, had I reasoned from what was commonly said--and,
+alas! owre truly--that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, I
+would have feared to seek the gates of Sir George Maxwell, lest the love
+he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings
+and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. But I was encouraged of the
+spirit to proceed.
+
+Just, however, as I parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed
+to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand,
+and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "Yon'er's
+Sir George Maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. Eh! but he has had his
+ain luck to fill his pock so weel already."
+
+Whereupon I turned my steps towards Sir George, and, on approaching him,
+beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the
+Pentlands.
+
+He stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his
+head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "It was a hasty
+business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us
+lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to
+Glasgow, where Colonel Drummond came yesterday with a detachment of
+soldiers, and has already spread them over the country."
+
+In saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which,
+instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had
+supposed, contained a store of provisions.
+
+"I came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting
+to me something to eat, "but because last night I heard that many of the
+outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as I
+could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my
+tenants, I have come out with some of my men, as it were to the
+shooting, in order to succour them. But we must not remain long
+together. Take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and I
+counsel you not to take the road to Paisley, but to cross with what
+speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people
+have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of
+Drummond sending any of his force in that direction."
+
+Accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that
+Worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered.
+With many thanks I then hastened from him, praying that his private
+charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. And surely it was a
+thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted Scottish nation to
+meet with such Christian fellowship. For to the perpetual renown of many
+honourable West Country families be it spoken, both master and men were
+daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the
+ravens that fed Elijah in the wilderness.
+
+After parting from Sir George Maxwell, I continued to bend my course
+straight westward, and having crossed the road from Glasgow to Paisley,
+I directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded,
+according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by
+the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning
+my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began
+to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to
+return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the
+determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had
+become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord
+would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those
+who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+
+Towards the afternoon I found myself among the solitudes of the
+Renfrewshire moors. Save at times the melancholious note of the
+peese-weep, neither the sound nor the voice of any living thing was
+heard there. Being then wearied in all my limbs, and willingly disposed
+to sleep, I laid myself down on a green hollow on the banks of the
+Gryffe, where the sun shone with a pleasing warmth for so late a period
+of the year. I was not, however, many minutes stretched on the grass
+when I heard a shrill whistle of some one nigh at hand, and presently
+also the barking of a dog. From the kindly experience I had received of
+Sir George Maxwell's care this occasioned at first no alarm; but on
+looking up I beheld at some distance three soldiers with a dog, on the
+other side of the river.
+
+Near the spot where I lay there was a cloven rock overspread with
+brambles and slae-bushes. It seemed to me as if the cleft had been
+prepared on purpose by Providence for a hiding-place. I crept into it,
+and forgetting Him by whom I was protected, I trembled with a base fear.
+But in that very moment He at once rebuked my infirmity, and gave me a
+singular assurance of His holy wardenship, by causing an adder to come
+towards me from the roots of the bushes, as if to force me to flee into
+the view of the pursuers. Just, however, as in my horror I was on the
+point of doing so, the reptile looked at me with its glittering eyes,
+and then suddenly leapt away into the brake;--at the same moment a hare
+was raised by the dog, and the soldiers following it with shouts and
+halloes, were soon carried, by the impetuosity of the natural incitement
+which man has for the chase, far from the spot, and out of sight.
+
+This adventure had for a time the effect of rousing me from out the
+weariness with which I had been oppressed, and I rose and continued my
+course westward, over the hills, till I came in sight of the
+Shaw's-water,--the stream of which I followed for more than a mile with
+a beating heart; for the valley through which it flows is bare and open,
+and had any of the persecutors been then on the neighbouring hills, I
+must have soon been seen; but gradually my thoughts became more
+composed, and the terrors of the poor hunted creature again became
+changed into confidence and hope.
+
+In this renewed spirit I slackened my pace, and seeing, at a short
+distance down the stream, before me a tree laid across a bridge, I was
+comforted with the persuasion that some farm-town could not be far off,
+so I resolved to linger about till the gloaming, and then to follow the
+path which led over the bridge. For, not knowing how the inhabitants in
+those parts stood inclined in their consciences, I was doubtful to trust
+myself in their power until I had made some espionage. Accordingly, as
+the sun was still above the hills, I kept the hollowest track by the
+river's brink, and went down its course for some little time, till I
+arrived where the hills come forward into the valley; then I climbed up
+a steep hazel bank, and sat down to rest myself on an open green plot on
+the brow, where a gentle west wind shook the boughs around me, as if the
+silent spirits of the solitude were slowly passing by.
+
+In this place I had not been long when I heard, as if it were not far
+off, a sullen roar of falling waters rising hoarsely with the breeze,
+and listening again another sound came solemnly mingled with it, which I
+had soon the delight to discover was the holy harmony of worship, and to
+my ears it was as the first sound of the rushing water which Moses
+brought from the rock to those of the thirsty Israelites, and I was for
+some time so ravished with joy that I could not move from the spot where
+I was sitting.
+
+At last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and I arose and went
+towards the airt from which it had come; but as I advanced, the noise of
+the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the
+breaking of the summer waves along the Ardrossan shore, and presently I
+found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into
+a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and
+hazel, and garmented with ivy.
+
+On a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall,
+screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising
+ground on the other, about thirty of the Lord's flock, old and young,
+were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was
+preaching to them,--his left hand resting on his staff,--his right was
+raised in exhortation,--and a Bible lay on the ground beside him.
+
+I stood for the space of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying
+sight,--mournful it was, to think how God's people were so afflicted,
+that they durst not do their Heavenly King homage but in secrecy,--and
+edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that
+persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold.
+
+As I was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened
+to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him,
+turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. I
+attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract
+drowned my voice. I then ran as swiftly as I could towards the spot of
+worship, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was
+assisting Mr Swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to
+a tree; for the preacher was no other than that godly man; but the
+courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what passed at our
+meeting.
+
+Fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise,
+and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the
+Pentlands; but I importuned him to continue his blessed work, for I
+longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a
+fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom,
+which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called
+the Killochenn,--and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from
+the Back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing,
+in marriage.
+
+When he had closed his sermon and done these things, I went with him,
+walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous
+anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to Glasgow and
+confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had
+been examined by the Bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of
+the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with
+the Bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not
+to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt
+with according to the edict.
+
+Conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been
+solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to
+the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.
+
+"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not
+meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in
+thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats
+among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without
+question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a
+courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a
+man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman,
+and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an
+eydent ettler for preferment."
+
+So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the
+hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went
+with him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX
+
+
+The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his
+house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it
+together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not
+time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at
+the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was
+the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts
+had tasted for more than eight months.
+
+"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to
+think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly
+institution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole
+people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their
+iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the
+power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what
+is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again
+in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction
+and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pass; for no man can say,
+that the peaceful worshipping according to the Word is either a sin, a
+shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and
+the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt
+of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."
+
+As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and
+pointed out to him a lassie coming running towards us. It was his
+daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her
+haste she said--
+
+"O, father ye manna gang hame;--twa of Carswell's men hae been speering
+for you and they had swords and guns. They're o'er the hill to the linn,
+for wee Willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching."
+
+"This comes," says the afflicted Gideon, "of speaking of secret things
+before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old
+would have been an instrument of discovery?--It'll no be safe now for
+you to come hame wi' me, which I'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't;
+but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the Holmstone-hill, aboon
+the auld kirk; I'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter
+for the night."
+
+So we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and
+held our course towards the house of Gideon Kemp's wife's stepmother.
+But it was not ordained that I was yet to enjoy the protection of a
+raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the Daff-burn, down the glen
+of which my godly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less
+observable way than the open road, he saw one of Ardgowan's men coming
+towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the Stuarts, were
+inclined to the prelatic side.
+
+"Hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes."
+
+And I den't myself in a nook of the glen, where I overheard what passed.
+
+"I thought, Gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the
+conventicle this afternoon. We hae heard o't a'; and Carswell has sworn
+that he'll hae baith doited Swinton and Dunrod's leddy at Glasgow afore
+the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower."
+
+"Carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied Gideon Kemp; "for though
+his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when
+horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and
+the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o'
+Carswell."
+
+The way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle;
+but I hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was assuredly in
+them: for, since the Revolution, Carswell's family has gone all to
+drift, and his house become a wastege;--folk say, a new road that's
+talked o' between Inverkip and Greenock is to go through the very
+middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will
+betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would
+exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the godless and the wrength
+of the oppressors.
+
+Ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of Gideon Kemp, and replied in a
+subdued manner, "It's really a melancholious thing to think that folk
+should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;--but tak care of
+yoursel, Gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to Cartsdyke
+to take up ony of the Rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts,
+and they catcht, I hear, in a public in the Stenners, three men, and
+have sent them to Glasgow to be hanged."
+
+I verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom.
+
+"Surely," replied Gideon Kemp, "the wrath of government is no so
+unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are
+doom't to die. But hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where
+they belong to?"
+
+"They're o' the shire o' Ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' Irvine or
+Kilwinning; and I was likewise told their names, but they're no of a
+familiarity easy to be remembered."
+
+The horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own
+peril, and I sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,--
+
+"Do you ken if any of them was of the name of Gilhaize?"
+
+Ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so
+instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at Gideon
+Kemp with a jealous and troubled eye.
+
+"Nay," said I, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you
+shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy
+man." So I took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "Ye're
+in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. I, too, am a
+rebel, as ye say, from Rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the
+ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our
+offence. But fear no wrong, if you have aught of Christian compassion
+in you. Was Gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?"
+
+"I'll no swear't," was his answer; "but I think it was something like
+that;--one of them, I think, they called Finnie."
+
+"Robin Finnie," cried I, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; I
+canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the
+tears flowed from my eyes.
+
+The better nature of Ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my
+distress, and he said to Gideon Kemp,--
+
+"Ye needna be fear't, Gideon; I hope ye ken mair o' me than to think I
+would betray either friend or acquaintance. But gang na' to the toun,
+for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing
+the day at Cartsdyke, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o'
+some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them."
+
+"That's spoken like yoursel, Johnnie Jamieson," said Gideon Kemp; "but
+this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the
+moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. When
+the sword, Johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal
+stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and dejectit, and more houseless
+than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man
+that we're bound by the laws of God and nature to help."
+
+Jamieson remained for a short space in a dubious manner, and looking
+mildly towards me, he said, "Gang you your ways, Gideon Kemp, and I'll
+ne'er say I saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and
+trust me: naebody in a' Inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house
+would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so I'll can bring him to some
+place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi'
+you."
+
+Troubled and sorrowful as I was, I could not but observe the look of
+soul-searching scrutiny that Gideon Kemp cast at Jamieson, who himself
+was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,--
+
+"Dinna misdoot me, Gideon Kemp; I would sooner put my right hand in the
+fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in
+my power."
+
+"And I'll believe you," said I; "so guide me wheresoever you will."
+
+"Ye'll never thrive, Johnnie Jamieson," added honest Gideon, "if ye're
+no sincere in this trust."
+
+So after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and I
+followed Jamieson down the Daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood
+in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water
+with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing
+after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents I had met with.
+
+"Bide you here," said Jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his
+wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before I tak you into the mill
+I maun look that she's no there."
+
+So he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me
+standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, I had not
+occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me
+with his hand to come quickly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX
+
+
+Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner,
+saying to Jamieson,--
+
+"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and
+the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power
+to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me,
+"it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep
+peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated
+to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae
+to mak your bed here in the mill."
+
+While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing
+like a bell.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and
+stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."
+
+Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder,
+I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and
+told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to
+eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the
+trap-door, in came his wife.
+
+"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied
+to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and
+they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your
+covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and
+that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills,
+as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to
+get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they
+say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."
+
+"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the
+miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home,
+so what hae I to dread?"
+
+"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's
+coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners
+Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to
+see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running
+through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's
+the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."
+
+"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things
+I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."
+
+"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A
+cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to
+happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those
+in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! Sauners Paton, ye're a
+born rebel to your King, and kintra, and wife. But this night I'll put
+it out of your power to rebel on me. Stop the mill, Sauners Paton, and
+come out, and tak the door on your back. I hae owre meikle regard for
+you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here."
+
+"Consider," said Sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion,
+"that this is the season of December; and where would ye hae me to gang
+in sic a night?"
+
+"A grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. My jo,
+ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely, Sauners Paton, I'm positive, and
+for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge
+out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.--Hae ye stoppit the mill?"
+
+The mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no
+better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that
+turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel.
+
+"Noo," said he, "to pleasure you, Kate, I hae stoppit the mill, and to
+pleasure me, I hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain
+wi' you, frae my ain house I'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't
+since ye will hae't, I hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at
+hame I will bide;--na, what's mair, Kate, it's a reason that I'll no
+tell to you."
+
+"Dear pity me, Sauners Paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o'
+late an unco reasonable man. But Leddy Stuart's quadrooped bird they ca'
+a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do
+reason; but reason here or reason there, I'll ne'er consent to let you
+stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and
+lock the door."
+
+To this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short
+silence, he said,--
+
+"Kate, my queen, I'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as
+weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' Dunrod; but some providing
+should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. The sun has
+been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a
+creel wi' some vivers prepared."
+
+"Noo, that's like yoursel, Sauners Paton," replied his wife; "and surely
+my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable."
+
+At these words Jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "I hope,
+miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll
+conform to her kind wishes." By which I discernt, that he had purposely
+egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of
+me.
+
+"O, aye," replied the miller; "I could na but be consenting, poor queen,
+to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way
+that I well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a
+watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready;
+therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation
+here."
+
+The three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly
+mystery, I confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's
+ever-wakeful Sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing
+oblivion from all my troubles and fears.
+
+Considering the fatigue I had undergone for so many days and nights
+together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but
+the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to
+depart till he thought I was rested, soon after the moon rose came into
+the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. So I left my couch
+in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from
+the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned
+with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had
+provided for himself.
+
+Having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder
+of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path
+along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by
+the hand, and bade me farewell,--saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten
+the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,--that the
+gudewife would make baith him and Johnnie Jamieson suffer in the body
+for the fright she had gotten. "For ye should ken," said he, "that the
+terror she was in was a' bred o' Johnnie's pawkerie. He knew that she
+was aye in a dread that I would be laid hands on ever since I signed the
+remonstrance to the laird; and Johnnie thought, that if he could get her
+to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the
+provision yours. So, Gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted,
+when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'."
+
+Being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of
+Inverkip, I went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my
+heart. The night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea
+glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then
+walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose
+perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little
+while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had
+not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief
+for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the
+treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the
+part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful
+auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost
+in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air
+breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then
+questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given
+no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught,
+but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart
+with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a
+softer sorrow.
+
+But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I
+met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning.
+Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place
+in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one
+William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest
+myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path
+that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted
+and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His
+cattle were on the stubble--the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown
+of the morning--the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been
+lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still
+there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I
+saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and
+unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a
+park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me.
+I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched
+him, but he was dead.
+
+The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered
+with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was
+warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.
+
+I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight of this woful murder;
+but I ran for help to the house; and just as I turned the corner of the
+barn, two soldiers met me, and I became their prisoner.
+
+One of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but
+the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it
+were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind.
+
+They took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and I could not
+speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and I thought
+it was a dream. The air I breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; I
+gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as
+the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of Kedar.
+
+Soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had
+been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as
+they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. They taunted me and plucked me
+by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more
+fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and I inwardly
+chided the slow anger of the mysterious Heavens for permitting the rage
+of those agents of the apostate James Sharp and his compeers, whom a
+mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority.
+
+But even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was
+whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a
+seraph, that the Lord in all things moveth according to His established
+laws; and I was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof I was
+a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the
+people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the
+deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and
+arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to
+return to their quarters in Irvine, I walked with them--their captive,
+it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at
+the proudness of my tread.
+
+There was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the
+avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or
+who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. Hundreds that sympathised
+with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who
+had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment.
+The crowd came pressing around as I was conducted up the gait to the
+tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children
+wondered whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. Some
+who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers
+grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely
+upon us.
+
+As I was ascending the tolbooth-stair, I heard a shriek; and I looked
+around, and beheld Michael, my first-born, a stripling then only twelve
+years old, amidst the crowd, stretching out his hands and crying, "O, my
+father, my father!"
+
+I halted for a moment, and the soldiers seemed to thaw with compassion;
+but my hands were tied,--I was a captive on the threshold of the
+dungeon, and I could only shut my eyes and bid the stern agents of the
+persecutors go on. Still the cry of my distracted child knelled in my
+ear, and my agony grew to such a pitch, that I flew forward up the
+steps, and, in the dismal vaults within, sought refuge from the misery
+of my child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI
+
+
+I was conducted into a straight and dark chamber, and the cord wherewith
+my hands were bound was untied, and a shackle put upon my right wrist;
+the flesh of my left was so galled with the cord, that the jailor was
+softened at the sight, and from the humanity of his own nature,
+refrained from placing the iron on it, lest the rust should fester the
+quick wound.
+
+Then I was left alone in the gloomy solitude of the prison-room, and the
+ponderous doors were shut upon me, and the harsh bolts driven with a
+horrid grating noise, that caused my very bones to dinle. But even in
+that dreadful hour an unspeakable consolation came with the freshness of
+a breathing of the airs of paradise to my soul. Methought a wonderful
+light shone around me, that I heard melodious voices bidding me be of
+good cheer, and that a vision of my saintly grandfather, in the glorious
+vestments of his heavenly attire, stood before me, and smiled upon me
+with that holy comeliness of countenance which has made his image in my
+remembrance ever that of the most venerable of men; so that, in the very
+depth of what I thought would have been the pit of despair, I had a
+delightful taste of those blessed experiences of divine aid, by which
+the holy martyrs were sustained in the hours of trial, and cheered
+amidst the torments in which they sealed the truth of their testimony.
+
+After the favour of that sweet and celestial encouragement, I laid
+myself down on a pallet in the corner of the room, and a gracious sleep
+descended upon my eyelids, and steeped the sense and memory of my griefs
+in forgetfulness. When I woke the day was far spent, and the light
+through the iron stainchers of the little window showed that the shadows
+of the twilight were darkening over the world. I raised myself on my
+elbow, and listened to the murmur of the multitude that I heard still
+lingering around the prison; and sometimes I thought that I discovered
+the voice of a friend.
+
+In that situation, and thinking of all those dear cares which filled my
+heart with tenderness and fear, and of the agonising grief of my little
+boy, the sound of whose cries still echoed in my bosom, I rose upon my
+knees and committed myself entirely to the custody of Him that can give
+the light of liberty to the captive even in the gloom of the dungeon.
+And when I had done so I again prepared to lay myself on the ground; but
+a rustle in the darkness of the room drew my attention, and in the same
+moment a kind hand was laid on mine.
+
+"Sarah Lochrig," said I, for I knew my wife's gentle pressure,--"How is
+it that you are with me in this doleful place? How found you entrance,
+and I not hear you come in?"
+
+But before she had time to make any answer, another's fond arms were
+round my neck, and my affectionate young Michael wept upon my shoulder.
+
+Bear with me, courteous reader, when I think of those things,--that wife
+and that child, and all that I loved so fondly, are no more! But it is
+not meet that I should yet tell how my spirit was turned into iron and
+my heart into stone. Therefore will I still endeavour to relate, as with
+the equanimity of one that writes but of indifferent things, what
+further ensued during the thirteen days of my captivity.
+
+Sarah Lochrig, with the mildness of her benign voice, when we had
+mingled a few tears, told me that, after I went to Galloway with Martha
+Swinton, she had been moved by our neighbours to come with our children
+into the town, as being safer for a lanerly woman and a family left
+without its head; and a providential thing it was that she had done so;
+for on the very night that my brother came off with the men of the
+parish to join us, as I have noted down in its proper place, a gang of
+dragoons plundered both his house and mine; and but that our treasures
+had been timeously removed, his family having also gone that day into
+Kilmarnock, the outrages might have been unspeakable.
+
+We then had some household discourse, anent what was to be done in the
+event of things coming to the worst with me; and it was an admiration to
+hear with what constancy of reason, and the gifts of a supported
+judgment, that Gospel-hearted woman spoke of what she would do with her
+children, if it was the Lord's pleasure to honour me with the crown of
+martyrdom.
+
+"But," said she, "I hae an assurance within that some great thing is yet
+in store for you, though the hope be clouded with a doubt that I'll no
+be spar't to see it, and therefore let us not despond at this time, but
+use the means that Providence may afford to effect your deliverance."
+
+While we were thus conversing together the doors of the prison-room were
+opened, and a man was let in who had a cruisie in the one hand and a
+basket in the other. He was lean and pale-faced, bordering on forty
+years, and of a melancholy complexion; his eye was quick, deep set, and
+a thought wild; his long hair was carefully combed smooth, and his
+apparel was singularly well composed for a person of his degree.
+
+Having set down the lamp on the floor, he came in a very reverential
+manner towards where I was sitting, with my right hand fettered to the
+ground, between Sarah Lochrig and Michael our son, and he said, with a
+remarkable and gentle simplicity of voice, in the Highland accent, that
+he had been requested by a righteous woman, Provost Reid's wife, to
+bring me a bottle of cordial wine and some little matters that I might
+require for bodily consolation.
+
+"It's that godly creature, Willie Sutherland, the hangman," said my
+wife. "Though Providence has dealt hardly with him, poor man, in this
+life, every body says he has gotten arles of a servitude in glory
+hereafter."
+
+When he had placed the basket at the knees of Michael, he retired to a
+corner of the room, and stood in the shadow, with his face turned
+towards the wall, saying, "I'm concern't that it's no in my power to
+leave you to yoursels till Mungo Robeson come back, for he has lockit me
+in, but I'll no hearken to what ye may say;" and there was a modesty of
+manner in the way that he said this, which made me think it not possible
+he could be of so base a vocation as the public executioner, and I
+whispered my opinion of him to Sarah Lochrig. It was, however, the case;
+and verily in the life and conduct of that simple and pious man there
+was a manifestation of the truth, that to him whom the Lord favours it
+signifieth not whatsoever his earthly condition may be.
+
+After I had partaken with my wife and son of some refreshment which they
+had brought with them, and tasted of the wine that Provost Reid's lady
+had sent, we heard the bolts of the door drawn, and the clanking of
+keys, at which Willie Sutherland came forward from the corner where he
+had stood during the whole time, and lifting the lamp from the floor,
+and wetting his fore-finger with spittle as he did so, he trimmed the
+wick, and said, "The time's come when a' persons not prisoners must
+depart forth the tolbooth for the night; but, Master Gilhaize, be none
+discomforted thereat, your wife and your little one will come back in
+the morning, and your lot is a lot of pleasure; for is it not written in
+the book of Ecclesiastes, fourth and eighth, 'There is one alone, and
+there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother?' and such
+an one am I."
+
+The inner door was thrown open, and Mungo Robeson, looking in, said, "I
+wae to molest you, but ye'll hae to come out, Mrs Gilhaize." So that
+night we were separated; and when Sarah Lochrig was gone, I could not
+but offer thanksgiving that my lines had fallen in so pleasant a place,
+compared with the fate of my poor brother, suffering among strangers in
+the doleful prison of Glasgow, under the ravenous eyes of the prelate of
+that city, then scarcely less hungry for the bodies of the faithful and
+the true, than even the apostate James Sharp himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII
+
+
+The deep sleep into which I had fallen when Sarah Lochrig and my son
+were admitted to see me, and during the season of which they had sat in
+silence beside me till revived nature again unsealed my eyes, was so
+refreshing, that after they were gone away I was enabled to consider my
+condition with a composed mind, and free from the heats of passion and
+anxiety wherewith I had previously been so greatly tossed. And calling
+to mind all that had taken place, and the ruthless revenge with which
+the cruel prelates were actuated, I saw, as it were written in a book,
+that for my part and conduct I was doomed to die. I felt not, however,
+the sense of guilt in my conscience; and I said to myself, that this
+sore thing ought not to be, and that, as an innocent man and the head of
+a family, I was obligated by all expedient ways to escape, if it were
+possible, from the grasps of the tyranny. So from that time, the first
+night of my imprisonment, I set myself to devise the means of working
+out my deliverance; and I was not long without an encouraging glimmer of
+hope.
+
+It seemed to me, that in the piety and simplicity of Willie Sutherland,
+instruments were given by which I might break through the walls of my
+prison; and accordingly, when he next morning came in to see me, I
+failed not to try their edge. I entered into discourse with him, and
+told him of many things which I have recorded in this book, and so won
+upon his confidence and the singleness of his heart, that he shed tears
+of grief at the thought of so many blameless men being ordained to an
+untimely end. "It has pleased God," said he, "to make me as it were a
+leper and an excommunicant in this world, by the constraints of a low
+estate, and without any fault of mine. But for this temporal ignominy,
+He will, in His own good time, bestow an exceeding great reward;--and
+though I may be called on to fulfil the work of the persecutors, it
+shall yet be seen of me, that I will abide by the integrity of my faith,
+and that, poor despised hangman as I am, I have a conscience that will
+not brook a task of iniquity, whatsoever the laws of man may determine,
+or the King's judges decree."
+
+I was, as it were, rebuked by this proud religious declaration, and I
+gently inquired how it was that he came to fall into a condition so
+rejected of the world.
+
+"Deed, sir," said he, "my tale is easy told. My parents were very poor
+needful people in Strathnavar, and no able to keep me; and it happened
+that, being cast on the world, I became a herd, and year by year, having
+a desire to learn the Lowland tongue, I got in that way as far as
+Paisley, where I fell into extreme want and was almost famished; for the
+master that I served there being in debt, ran away, by which cause I
+lost my penny fee, and was obligated to beg my bread. At that time many
+worthy folk in the shire of Renfrew having suffered great molestation
+from witchcraft, divers malignant women, suspectit of that black art,
+were brought to judgment, and one of them being found guilty, was
+condemned to die. But no executioner being in the town, I was engaged,
+by the scriptural counsel of some honest men, who quoted to me the text,
+'Suffer not a witch to live,' to fulfil the sentence of the law. After
+that I bought a Question-book, having a mind to learn to read, that I
+might gain some knowledge of THE WORD. Finding, however, the people of
+Paisley scorn at my company, so that none would give me a lesson, I came
+about five years since to Irvine, where the folk are more charitable;
+and here I act the part of an executioner when there is any malefactor
+to put to death. But my Bible has instructed me, that I ought not to
+execute any save such as deserve to die; so that, if ye should be
+condemned, as like is you will be, my conscience will ne'er allow me to
+execute you, for I see you are a Christian man."
+
+I was moved with a tender pity by the tale of the simple creature; but a
+strong necessity was upon me, and it was needful that I should make use
+of his honesty to help me out of prison. So I spoke still more kindly to
+him, lamenting my sad estate, and that in the little time I had in all
+likelihood to live, the rigour of the jailor would allow but little
+intercourse with my family, wishing some compassionate Christian friend
+would intercede with him in order that my wife and children, if not
+permitted to bide all night, might be allowed to remain with me as long
+and as late as possible.
+
+The pious creature said that he would do for me in that respect all in
+his power, and that, as Mungo Robeson was a sober man, and aye wanted
+to go home early to his family, he would bide in the tolbooth to let out
+my wife, though it should be till ten o'clock at night--"for," said he,
+piteously, "I hae nae family to care about."
+
+Accordingly, he so set himself, that Mungo Robeson consented to leave
+the keys of the tolbooth with him; and for several nights everything was
+so managed that he had no reason to suspect what my wife and I were
+plotting; for he being of a modest and retiring nature, never spoke to
+her when she parted from me, save when she thanked him as he let her
+out; and that she did not do every night lest it should grow into a
+habit of expectation with him, and cause him to remark when the civility
+was omitted.
+
+In the meantime all things being concerted between us, through the mean
+of a friend a cart was got in readiness, loaded with seemingly a hogget
+of tobacco and grocery wares, but the hogget was empty and loose in the
+head.
+
+This was all settled by the nineteenth of December; on the twenty-fourth
+of the month the Commissioners appointed to try the Covenanters in the
+prisons throughout the shire of Ayr were to open their court at Ayr, and
+I was, by all who knew of me, regarded in a manner as a dead man. On the
+night of the twentieth, however, shortly before ten o'clock, James
+Gottera, our friend, came with the cart in at the town-head port, and in
+going down the gait stopped, as had been agreed, to give his beast a
+drink at the trough of the cross-well, opposite the tolbooth-stair foot.
+
+When the clock struck ten, the time appointed, I was ready dressed in my
+wife's apparel, having, in the course of the day, broken the chain of
+the shackle on my arm; and the door being opened by Willie Sutherland in
+the usual manner, I came out, holding a napkin to my face and weeping in
+sincerity very bitterly, with the thought of what might ensue to Sarah
+Lochrig, whom I left behind in my place.
+
+In reverence to my grief the honest man said nothing, but walked by my
+side till he had let me out at the outer stair-head door, where he
+parted from me, carrying the keys to Mungo Robeson's house, aneath the
+tolbooth, while I walked towards James Gottera's cart, and was presently
+in the inside of the hogget.
+
+With great presence of mind and a soldierly self-possession, that
+venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began
+to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so
+to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old
+woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such
+profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the
+tolbooth. To the which he replied scoffingly, "that martyr was a new
+name for a sworn rebel to king and country,"--words which so kindled the
+worthy woman's ire, that she began to ban his prelatic ungodliness to
+such a degree that a crowd collected, which made me tremble. For the
+people sided with the zealous carlan, and spoke fiercely, threatening to
+gar James Gottera ride the stang for his sinfulness in so traducing
+persecuted Christians. What might have come to pass is hard to say, had
+not Providence been pleased, in that most critical and perilous time, to
+cause a foul lum in a thacket house in the Sea-gate to take fire, by
+which an alarm was spread that drew off the mob, and allowed James
+Gottera to pass without farther molestation out at the town-end port.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII
+
+
+From the time of my evasion from the tolbooth, and during the
+controversy between James Gottera and the mob in the street, there was a
+whirlwind in my mind that made me incapable of reason. But when we had
+passed through the town-end port, and the cart had stopped at the
+minister's carse till I could throw off my female weeds and put on a
+sailor's garb, provided for the occasion, tongue nor pen cannot express
+the passion wherewith my yearning soul was then affected.
+
+The thought of having left Sarah Lochrig within bolts and bars, a ready
+victim to the tyranny which so thirsted for blood, lightened within me
+as the lightnings of heaven in a storm. I threw myself on the ground,--I
+grasped the earth,--I gathered myself as it were into a knot, and howled
+with horror at my own selfish baseness. I sprung up and cried, "I will
+save her yet!" and I would have run instanter to the town; but the
+honest man who was with me laid his grip firmly upon my arm, and said
+in a solemn manner,--
+
+"This is no Christian conduct, Ringan Gilhaize; the Lord has not
+forgotten to be gracious."
+
+I glowered upon him, as he has often since told me, with a shudder, and
+cried, "But I hae left Sarah Lochrig in their hands, and, like a coward,
+run away to save mysel."
+
+"Compose yoursel, Ringan, and let us reason together," was his discreet
+reply. "It's vera true ye hae come away and left your wife as it were an
+hostage in the prison, but the persecutors and oppressors will respek
+the courageous affection of a loving wife, and Providence will put it in
+their hearts to spare her."
+
+"And if they do not, what shall I then be? and what's to become of my
+babies?--Lord, Lord, thou hast tried me beyond my strength!"
+
+And I again threw myself on the earth, and cried that it might open and
+swallow me; for, thinking but of myself, I was becoming unworthy to
+live.
+
+The considerate man stood over me in compassionate silence for a season,
+and allowed me to rave in my frenzy till I had exhausted myself.
+
+"Ringan," said he at last, "ye were aye respekit as a thoughtful and
+discreet character, and I'll no blame you for this sorrow; but I entreat
+you to collek yersel, and think what's best to be done, for what avails
+in trouble the cry of alas, alas! or the shedding of many tears? Your
+wife is in prison, but for a fault that will wring compassion even frae
+the brazen heart of the remorseless James Sharp, and bring back the
+blood of humanity to the mansworn breast of Charles Stuart. But though
+it were not so, they daurna harm a hair of her head; for there are
+things, man, that the cruellest dread to do for fear o' the world, even
+when they hae lost the fear o' God. I count her far safer, Ringan, frae
+the rage of the persecutors, where she lies in prison aneath their bolts
+and bars, than were she free in her own house; for it obligates them to
+deal wi' her openly and afore mankind, whose goodwill the worst of
+princes and prelates are from an inward power forced to respek; whereas,
+were she sitting lanerly and defenceless, wi' naebody near but only your
+four helpless wee birds, there's no saying what the gleds might do.
+Therefore be counselled, my frien, and dinna gi'e yoursel up utterly to
+despair; but, like a man, for whom the Lord has already done great
+things, mak use of the means which, in this jeopardy of a' that's sae
+dear to you, he has so graciously put in your power."
+
+I felt myself in a measure heartened by this exhortation, and rising
+from the ground completed the change I had begun in my apparel; but I
+was still unable to speak,--which he observing, said,--
+
+"Hae ye considered the airt ye ought now to take, for it canna be that
+ye'll think of biding in this neighbourhood!"
+
+"No; not in this land," I exclaimed; "would that I might not even in
+this life!"
+
+"Whisht! Ringan Gilhaize, that's a sinful wish for a Christian," said a
+compassionate voice at my side, which made us both start; and on looking
+round we saw a man who, during the earnestest of our controversy, had
+approached close to us unobserved.
+
+It was that Gospel-teacher, my fellow-sufferer, Mr Witherspoon; and his
+sudden apparition at that time was a blessed accident, which did more to
+draw my thoughts from the anguish of my affections than any thing it was
+possible for James Gottera to have said.
+
+He was then travelling in the cloud of night to the town, having, after
+I parted from him in Lanerkshire, endured many hardships and perils, and
+his intent was to pass to his friends, in order to raise a trifle of
+money, to transport himself for a season into Ireland.
+
+But James Gottera, on hearing this, interposed his opinion, and said a
+rumour was abroad that in all ports and towns of embarkation orders were
+given to stay the departure of passengers, so that to a surety he would
+be taken if he attempted to quit the kingdom.
+
+By this time my mind had returned into something like a state of
+sobriety; so I told him how it had been concerted between me and Sarah
+Lochrig that I should pass over to the wee Cumbrae, there to wait till
+the destroyers had passed by; for it was thought not possible that such
+an inordinate thirst for blood, as had followed upon our discomfiture at
+Rullion-green, could be of a long continuance; and I beseeched him to
+come with me, telling him that I was provided with a small purse of
+money in case need should require it, but in the charitable hearts of
+the pious we might count on a richer store.
+
+Accordingly, we agreed to join our fortunes again; and having parted
+from James Gottera at Kilwinning, we went on our way together, and my
+heart was refreshed by the kind admonitions and sweet converse of my
+companion, though ever and anon the thought of my wife in prison, and
+our defenceless lambs, shot like a fiery arrow through my bosom. But man
+is by nature a sordid creature, and the piercing December blast, the
+threatening sky, and the frequent shower, soon knit up my thoughts with
+the care of my worthless self: maybe there was in that the tempering
+hand of a beneficent Providence; for when I have at divers times since
+considered how much the anguish of my inner sufferings exceeded the
+bodily molestation, I could not but confess, though it was with a
+humbled sense of my own selfishness, that it was well for me, in such a
+time, to be so respited from the upbraidings of my tortured affections.
+
+But, not to dwell on the specialities of my own feelings on that
+memorable night, let it suffice, that after walking some four or five
+miles towards Pencorse ferry, where we meant to pass to the island, I
+became less and less attentive to the edifying discourse of Mr
+Witherspoon, and his nature also yielding to the influences of the time,
+we travelled along the bleak and sandy shore between Ardrossan and
+Kilbride hill without the interchange of conversation. The wind came
+wild and gurly from the sea,--the waves broke heavily on the shore,--and
+the moon, swiftly wading the cloud, threw over the dreary scene a
+wandering and ghastly light. Often to the blast we were obligated to
+turn our backs, and, the rain being in our faces, we little heeded each
+other.
+
+In that state, so like sullenness, we had journeyed onward, it might be
+better than a mile, when, happening to observe something lying on the
+shore, as if it had been cast out by the sea, I cried, under a sense of
+fear,--
+
+"Stop, Mr Witherspoon; what's that?"
+
+In the same moment he uttered a dreadful sound of horror, and, on
+looking round, I saw we were three in company.
+
+"In the name of Heaven," exclaimed Mr Witherspoon, "who and what are you
+that walk with us?"
+
+But instanter our fears and the mystery of the appearance were
+dispelled, for it was my brother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV
+
+
+"Weel, Ringan," said my brother, "we have met again in this world; it's
+a blessing I never looked for;" and he held out his two hands to take
+hold of mine, but the broken links of the shackle still round my wrist
+made him cry out,--
+
+"What's this?--Whare hae ye come fra? But I need na inquire."
+
+"I have broken out of the tolbooth o' Irvine," said I, "and I am fleeing
+here with Mr Witherspoon."
+
+"I, too," replied my brother, mournfully, "hae escaped from the hands of
+the persecutors."
+
+We then entered into some conversation concerning what had happened to
+us respectively, from the fatal twenty-eighth of November, when our
+power and host were scattered on Rullion-green, wherein Mr Witherspoon,
+with me, rehearsed to him the accidents herein set forth, with the
+circumstantials of some things that befel the godly man after I left him
+with the corpse of the baby in his arms; but which being in some points
+less of an adventurous nature than had happened to myself, I shall be
+pardoned by the courteous reader for not enlarging upon it at greater
+length. I should, however, here note, that Mr Witherspoon was not so
+severely dealt with as I was; for though an outcast and a fugitive, yet
+he was not a prisoner; on the contrary, under the kindly cover of the
+Lady Auchterfardel, whose excellent and truly covenanted husband was a
+sore sufferer by the fines of the year 1662, he received great
+hospitality for the space of sixteen days, and was saved between two
+feather beds, on the top of which the laird's aged mother, a bed-rid
+woman, was laid, when some of Drummond's men searched the house on an
+information against him.
+
+But disconsolatory as it was to hear of such treatment of a
+Gospel-minister, though lightened by the reflection of the saintly
+constancy that was yet to be found in the land, and among persons too of
+the Lady of Auchterfardel's degree, and severe as the trials were, both
+of body and mind, which I had myself undergone, yet were they all as
+nothing compared to the hardships of my brother, a man of a temperate
+sobriety of manner, bearing all changes with a serene countenance and a
+placable mind, while feeling them in the uttermost depths of his
+capacious affections.
+
+"On the night of the battle," said he, "it would not be easy of me to
+tell which way I went, or what ensued, till I found myself with three
+destitute companions on the skirts of the town of Falkirk. By that time
+the morning was beginning to dawn, and we perceived not that we had
+approached so nigh unto any bigget land; as the day, however, broke, the
+steeple caught our eye, and we halted to consider what we ought to do.
+And as we were then standing in a field diffident to enter the town, a
+young woman came from a house that stands a little way off the road,
+close to Graham's dyke, driving a cow to grass with a long staff, which
+I the more remarked as such, because it was of the Indian cane, and
+virled with silver, and headed with ivory.
+
+"'Sirs,' said Menie Adams, for that was the damsel's name, 'I see what
+ye are; but I'll no speir; howsever, be ruled by me, and gang na near
+the town of Falkirk this morning, for atwish the hours of dark and dawn
+there has been a congregationing o' horses and men, and other sediments
+o' war, that I hae a notion there's owre meikle o' the King's power in
+the place for any Covenanter to enter in, save under the peril o'
+penalties. But come wi' me, and I'll go back wi' you, and in our
+hay-loft you may scog yoursels till the gloaming.'
+
+"Who could have thought," said my brother, "that in such discourse from
+a young woman, not passing four-and-twenty years of age, and of a
+pleasant aspect, any guilty stratagem of blood was hidden!"
+
+He and his friends never questioned her truth, but went with her, and
+she conducted them to her father's house, and lodged them in the
+hay-loft.
+
+It seems that Menie Adams was, however, at the time betrothed to the
+prelatic curate that had been laid upon the parish, and that, in
+consequence, aneath her courtesy, she had concealed a very treacherous
+and wicked intent. For no sooner had she got my brother and his three
+companions into the hay-loft, than she hies herself away to the town,
+and, in the hope of pleasing her prelatic lover, informs the captain of
+the troop there of the birds she had ensnared.
+
+As soon as the false woman had thus committed the sin of perfidy, she
+went to the curate to brag how she had done a service to his cause; but
+he, though of the prelatic germination, being yet a person who had some
+reverence for truth and the gentle mercies of humanity, was so disturbed
+by her unwomanly disposition, that he bade her depart from his presence
+for ever, and ran with all possible speed to waken the poor men whom she
+had so betrayed.
+
+On his way to the house he saw a party of the soldiers, whom their
+officer, as in duty bound, was sending to seize the unsuspecting
+sleepers, and running on before them, he just got forward in time to
+give the alarm. My brother and one of them, Esau Wardrop, the wife's
+brother of James Gottera, who had been so instrumental in my evasion,
+were providentially enabled to get out and flee; but the other two were
+taken by the soldiers and carried to prison.
+
+The base conduct of that Menie Adams, as we some years after heard, did
+not go long unvisited by the displeasure of Heaven, for, some scent of
+her guilt taking wind, the whole town, in a sense, grew wud against her,
+and she was mobbet, and the wells pumped upon her by the enraged
+multitude; and she never recovered from the handling that she therein
+suffered.
+
+My brother and Esau Wardrop, on getting into the open fields, made all
+the speed they could, like the panting hart when pursued by the hunter,
+and distrusting the people of that part of the country, they travelled
+all day, not venturing to approach any reeking house. Towards gloaming,
+however, being hungry and faint, the craving of nature overcame their
+fears, and they went up to a house where they saw a light burning.
+
+As they approached the door they faltered a little in their resolution,
+for they heard the dissonance of riot and revelry within. Their need,
+however, was great, and the importunities of hunger would not be
+pacified, so they knocked, and the door was soon opened by a soldier,
+the party within being a horde of Dalziel's men, living at free quarters
+in the house of that excellent Christian and much-persecuted man, the
+Laird of Ringlewood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV
+
+
+The moment that the man who came to the door saw, by the glimpse of the
+light, that both my brother and Esau Wardrop had swords at their sides,
+he uttered a cry of alarm, thinking the house was surrounded, at which
+all the riotous soldiers within flew to their arms, while the man who
+opened the door seized my brother by the throat and harl't him in. The
+panic, however, was but of short duration; for my brother soon expounded
+that they were two perishing men who came to surrender themselves; so
+the door was again opened and Esau Wardrop commanded to come in.
+
+"It's but a justice to say of those rampageous troopers," said my
+brother, "that, considering us as prisoners of war, they were free and
+kind enough, though they mocked at our cause, and derided the equipage
+of our warfare. But it was a humiliating sight to see in what manner
+they deported themselves towards the unfortunate family."
+
+Ringlewood himself, who had remonstrated against their insolence to his
+aged leddy, they had tied in his arm-chair and placed at the head of his
+own table, round which they sat carousing, and singing the roister
+ribaldry of camp songs. At first, when my brother was taken into this
+scene of military domination, he did not observe the laird; for in the
+uproar of the alarm the candles had been overset and broken, but new
+ones being sworn for and stuck into the necks of the bottles of the wine
+they were lavishly drinking, he discovered him lying as it were asleep
+where he sat, with his head averted, and his eyes shut on the iniquity
+of the scene of oppression with which he was oppressed.
+
+Some touch of contrition had led one of the soldiers to take the aged
+matron under his care; and on his intercession she was not placed at the
+table, but allowed to sit in a corner, where she mourned in silence,
+with her hands clasped together, and her head bent down over them upon
+her breast. The laird's grandson and heir, a stripling of some fifteen
+years or so, was obligated to be page and butler, for all the rest of
+the house had taken to the hills at the approach of the troopers.
+
+As the drinking continued the riot increased, and the rioters growing
+heated with their drink, they began to quarrel: fierce words brought
+angry answers, and threats were followed by blows. Then there was an
+interposition, and a shaking of hands, and a pledging of renewed
+friendship.
+
+But still the demon of the drink continued to grow stronger and stronger
+in their kindling blood, and the tumult was made perfect by one of the
+men, in the capering of his inebriety, rising from his seat, and taking
+the old leddy by the toupie to raise her head as he rudely placed his
+foul cup to her lips. This called up the ire of the fellow who had sworn
+to protect her, and he, not less intoxicated than the insulter, came
+staggering to defend her; a scuffle ensued, the insulter was cast with a
+swing away, and falling against the laird, who still remained as it were
+asleep, with his head on his shoulder, and his eyes shut, he overthrew
+the chair in which the old gentleman sat fastened, and they both fell to
+the ground.
+
+The soldier, frantic with wine and rage, was soon, like a tiger, on his
+adversary; the rest rose to separate them. Some took one side, some
+another; bottles were seized for weapons, and the table was overthrown
+in the hurricane. Their sergeant, who was as drunk as the worst of them,
+tried in vain to call them into order, but they heeded not his call,
+which so enraged him, that he swore they should shift their quarters,
+and with that seizing a burning brand from the chumla, he ran into a
+bedchamber that opened from the room where the riot was raging, and set
+fire to the curtains.
+
+My brother seeing the flames rising, and that the infuriated war-wolves
+thought only of themselves, ran to extricate Ringlewood from the cords
+with which he was tied; and calling to the leddy and her grandson to
+quit the burning house, every one was soon out of danger from the fire.
+
+The sense of the soldiers were not so overborne by their drink as to
+prevent them from seeing the dreadful extent of their outrage; but
+instead of trying to extinguish the flames, they marched away to seek
+quarters in some other place, cursing the sergeant for having so
+unhoused them in such a night.
+
+At first they thought of carrying my brother and Esau Wardrop with them
+as prisoners; but one of them said it would be as well to give the wyte
+of the burning, at headquarters, to the rebels; so they left them
+behind.
+
+Esau Wardrop, with the young laird and my grandfather, seeing it was in
+vain to stop the progress of the fire, did all that in them lay to
+rescue some of the furniture, while poor old Ringlewood and his aged and
+gentle lady, being both too infirm to lend any help, stood on the green,
+and saw the devouring element pass from room to room, till their ancient
+dwelling was utterly destroyed. Fortunately, however, the air was calm,
+and the out-houses escaping the ruinous contagion of the flames, there
+was still a beild left in the barn to which they could retire.
+
+In the meantime the light of the burning spread over the country; but
+the people knowing that soldiers were quartered in Ringlewood, stood
+aloof in the dread of firearms, thinking the conflagration might be
+caused by some contest of war; so that the mansion of a gentleman much
+beloved of all his neighbours was allowed to burn to the ground before
+their eyes, without any one venturing to come to help him, to so great a
+degree had distrust and the outrages of military riot at that epoch
+altered the hearts of men.
+
+My brother and Esau Wardrop staid with Ringlewood till the morning, and
+had, for the space of three or four hours, a restoring sleep. Fain would
+they have remained longer there, but the threat of the soldiers to
+accuse them as the incendiaries made Ringlewood urge them to depart;
+saying, that maybe a time would come when it would be in his power to
+thank them for their help in that dreadful night. But he was not long
+exposed to many sufferings; for the leddy on the day following, as in
+after-time we heard, was seized with her dead-ill, and departed this
+life in the course of three days; and the laird also, in less than a
+month, was laid in the kirk-yard, with his ancestors, by her side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI
+
+
+After leaving Ringlewood, the two fugitives, by divers journeyings and
+sore passages through moss and moor, crossed the Balloch ferry, and
+coming down the north side of the Clyde frith to Ardmore, they boated
+across to Greenock, where, in little more than an hour after their
+arrival, they were taken in Euphan Blair's public in Cartsdyke, and the
+same night marched off to Glasgow; of all which I have already given
+intimation in recording my own trials at Inverkip.
+
+But in that march, as my brother and Esau Wardrop were passing with
+their guard at the Inchinnan ferry, the soldiers heedlessly laying their
+firelocks all in a heap in the boat, the thought came into my brother's
+head, that maybe it might be turned to an advantage if he was to spoil
+the powder in the firelocks; so, as they were sitting in the boat, he,
+with seeming innocence, drew his hand several times through the water,
+and in lifting it took care to drop and sprinkle the powder-pans of the
+firelocks, in so much, that by the time they were ferried to the Renfrew
+side, they were spoiled for immediate use.
+
+"Do as I do," said he softly to Esau Wardrop, as they were stepping out,
+and with that he feigned some small expedient for tarrying in the boat,
+while the soldiers, taking their arms, leapt on shore. The ferryman also
+was out before them; and my brother seeing this, took up an oar,
+seemingly to help him to step out; but pretending at the time to
+stumble, he caught hold of Esau's shoulder, and pushing with, the oar,
+shoved off the boat in such a manner, that the rope was pulled out of
+the ferryman's hand, who was in a great consternation. The soldiers,
+however, laughed at seeing how the river's current was carrying away
+their prisoners; for my brother was in no hurry to make use of the oar
+to pull the boat back; on the contrary he pushed her farther and farther
+into the river, until one of the guards, beginning to suspect some
+stratagem, levelled his firelock, and threatened to shoot. Whereupon my
+brother and Esau quickened their exertions, and soon reached the
+opposite side of the river, while the soldiers were banning and tearing
+with rage to be so outwitted, and their firelocks rendered useless for
+the time.
+
+As soon as the fugitives were within wadeable reach of the bank, they
+jumpit out of the boat and ran, and were not long within the scope of
+their adversaries' fire.
+
+By this time the sun was far in the west, and they knew little of the
+country about where they were; but, before embarking, the ferryman had
+pointed out to them the abbey towers of Paisley, and they knew that, for
+a long period, many of the humane inhabitants of that town had been
+among the faithfullest of Scottishmen to the cause of the Kirk and
+Covenant; and therefore they thought that, under the distraction of
+their circumstances maybe it would be their wisest course to direct
+their steps in the dusk of evening towards the town, and they threw
+aside their arms, that they might pass as simple wayfaring men.
+
+Accordingly, having loitered in the way thither, they reached Paisley
+about the heel of the twilight, and searching their way into the heart
+of the town, they found a respectable public near the Cross, into which
+they entered, and ordered some consideration of vivers for supper, just
+as if they had been on market business. In so doing nothing particular
+was remarked of them; and my brother, by way of an entertainment before
+bed-time, told his companion of my grandfather's adventure in Paisley,
+the circumstantials whereof are already written in this book; drawing
+out of what had come to pass with him cheering aspirations of happier
+days for themselves.
+
+While they were thus speaking, one of the town-council, Deacon Fulton,
+came in to have a cap and a crack with any stranger that might be in the
+house. This deacon was a man who well represented and was a good swatch
+of the plain honesty and strict principles which have long governed
+within that ancient borough of regality. He seeing them, and being
+withal a man of shrewd discernment, eyed them very sharply, and maybe
+guessing what they were and where they had come from entered into a
+discreet conversation with them anent the troubles of the time. In this
+he showed the pawkrie, that so well becomes those who sit in council,
+with a spicerie of that wholesome virtue and friendly sympathy of which
+all the poor fugitives from the Pentland raid stood in so great need.
+For, without pretending to jealouse any thing of what they were, he
+spoke of that business as the crack of the day, and told them of many of
+the afflicting things which had been perpetrated after the dispersion of
+the Covenanters, saying,--
+
+"It's a thing to be deplored in all time coming, that the poor,
+misguided folk, concern't in that rash wark, didna rather take refuge in
+the towns, and amang their brethren and fellow-subjects, than flee to
+the hills, where they are hunted down wi' dog and gun, as beasts o' an
+ill kind. Really every body's wae for their folly; though to be sure, in
+a government sense, their fault's past pardon. It's no indeed a thing o'
+toleration, that subjects are to rise against rulers."
+
+"True," said my brother, "unless rulers fall against subjects."
+
+The worthy magistrate looked a thought seriously at him; no in reproof
+for what he had said, or might say, but in an admonitory manner,
+saying,--
+
+"Ye're owre douce a like man, I think, to hae been either art or part in
+this headstrong Reformation, unless ye had some great cause to provoke
+you; and I doubt na ye hae discretion enough no to contest without need
+points o' doctrine; at least for me, I'm laith to enter on ony sort o'
+polemtic, for it's a Gude's truth, I'm nae deacon at it."
+
+My brother discerning by his manner that he saw through them, would have
+refrain't at the time from further discourse; but Esau Wardrop was,
+though a man of few words, yet of such austerity of faith, that he could
+not abide to have it thought he was in any time or place afraid for
+himself to bear his testimony, even when manifestly uncalled on to do;
+so he here broke in upon the considerate and worthy counsellor, and
+said,--
+
+"That a covenanted spirit was bound at a' times and in a' situations,
+conditions, and circumstances, 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 God. 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 passed 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
+compassionately 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 spunk 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' prone to do
+evil."
+
+By this sort of petitionary 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 rehearse.
+
+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, passing 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 pass, 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
+Cumbrae, 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 incumbent, 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
+space 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 pronouncing 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 bloody 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 God 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 massacre 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 passage 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.
+
+"The time of weeping, Michael," said I, "is past, and the time of
+warring will soon come. It is not in man to bear always aggression, nor
+can it be required of him ever to endure contumely."
+
+"What has befallen Bell?" said his mother to him; but instead of making
+her any answer, he uttered a dreadful sound, like the howl of madness,
+and hastily quitted the house.
+
+Sarah Lochrig, who was a woman of a serene reason, and mild and gracious
+in her nature, looked at me with a silent sadness, that told all the
+anguish with which the horror that she guessed had darted into her soul;
+and then, with an energy that I never saw in her before, folded her own
+two daughters to her bosom, as if she was in terror for them, and bathed
+their necks with tears.
+
+While we were in this state my brother himself came in. He was now a man
+well stricken in years, but of a hale appearance, and usually of an open
+and manly countenance. Nor on this occasion did he appear greatly
+altered; but there was a fire in his eye, and a severity in his aspect,
+such as I'd never seen before, yet withal a fortitude that showed how
+strong the self-possession was, which kept the tempest within him from
+breaking out in word or gesture.
+
+"Ringan," said he, "we have met with a misfortune. It's the will of
+Providence, and we maun bear it. But surely in the anger that is caused
+by provocation, our Creator tells us to resent. From this hour, all
+obligation, obedience, allegiance, all whatsoever that as a subject I
+did owe to Charles Stuart is at an end. I am his foe; and the Lord put
+strength into my arm to revenge the ruin of my bairn!"
+
+There was in the utterance of these words a solemnity at first
+terrifying to hear; but his voice in the last clause of the sentence
+faltered, and he took off his bonnet and held it over his face, and wept
+bitterly.
+
+I could make him no answer for some time; but I took hold of his hand,
+and when he had a little mastered his grief, I said, "Brother, we are
+children of the same parents, and the wrongs of one are the wrongs of
+both. But let us not be hasty."
+
+He took the bonnet from his face, and looked at me sternly for a little
+while, and then he said,--
+
+"Ringan Gilhaize, till you have felt what I feel, you ne'er can know
+that the speed o' lightning is slow to the wishes and the will of
+revenge."
+
+At that moment his daughter Bell was brought in, led by my son Michael.
+Her father, at the sight of her, clasped his hands wildly above his
+head, and rushed out of the house. My wife went towards her, but stopped
+and fell back into my arms at the sight of her demented look. My
+daughters gazed, and held up their trembling hands.
+
+"Speak to her," said Michael to his sisters; "she'll maybe heed you;"
+and he added, "Bell, it's Mary and Peggy," and dropping her hand, he
+went to lead Mary to her, while she stood like a statue on the spot.
+
+"Dear Bell," said I, as I moved myself gently from the arms of my
+afflicted wife, "come wi' me to the open air;" and I took her by the
+hand which poor Michael had dropped, and led her out to the green, but
+still she looked the same demented creature.
+
+Her father, who had by this time again overcome his distress, seeing us
+on the green, came towards us, while my wife and daughters also came
+out; but Michael could no longer endure the sight of the rifled rose
+that he had cherished for the ornament of his bosom, and he remained to
+hide his grief in the house.
+
+"Her mind's gone, Ringan," said my brother, "and she'll ne'er be better
+in this world!" Nor was she; but she lived many months after, and in all
+the time never shed a tear, nor breathed a sigh, nor spoke a word; where
+she was led she went; where she was left, she stood. At last she became
+so weak that she could not stand; and one day, as I was sitting at her
+bedside, I observed that she lay unusually still, and touching her hand,
+found that all her sorrows were over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX
+
+
+From the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom held
+any communion with me; but I observed that with Michael he had much
+business, and though I asked no questions, I needed not to be told that
+there was a judgment and a doom in what they did. I was therefore
+fearful that some rash step would be taken at the burial of Bell; for it
+was understood that all the neighbours, far and near, intended to be
+present to testify their pity for her fate. So I spoke to Mr Witherspoon
+concerning my fears, and by his exhortations the body was borne to the
+kirk-yard in a solemn and peaceable manner.
+
+But just as the coffin was laid in the grave, and before a spadeful of
+earth was thrown, a boy came running crying, "Sharp's kill't!--the
+apostate's dead!" which made every one turn round and pause; and while
+we were thus standing, a horseman came riding by, who confirmed the
+tidings, that a band of men whom his persecutions had made desperate,
+had executed justice on the apostate as he was travelling in his
+carriage with his daughter on Magus-moor. While the stranger was telling
+the news, the corpse lay in the grave unburied; and dreadful to tell!
+when he had made an end of his tale, there was a shout of joy and
+exultation set up by all present, except by Michael and my brother. They
+stood unmoved, and I thought--do I them any wrong?--that they looked
+disconsolate and disappointed.
+
+But though the judgment on James Sharp was a cause of satisfaction to
+all covenanted hearts, many were not yet so torn by the persecution as
+entirely to applaud the deed. I shall not therefore enter upon the
+particulars of what was done anent those who dealt his doom, for they
+were not of our neighbourhood.
+
+The crime, however, of listening peacefully in the fields to the truths
+of the Gospel became, in the sight of the persecutors, every day more
+and more heinous, and they gave themselves up to the conscience-soothing
+tyranny of legal ordinances, as if the enactment and execution of bloody
+laws, contrary to those of God, and against the unoffending privileges
+of our nature, were not wickedness of as dark a stain as the murderer's
+use of his secret knife. Edict and proclamation against field-preachings
+and conventicles came following each other, and the latest was the
+fiercest and fellest of all which had preceded. But the cause of truth,
+and the right of communion with the Lord, was not to be given up: "It is
+not for glory," we said in the words of those brave Scottish barons that
+redeemed, with King Robert the Bruce, their native land from the
+thraldom of the English Edward, "nor is it for riches, neither is it for
+honour, but it is for liberty alone we contend, which no true man will
+lose but with his life;" and therefore it was that we would not yield
+obedience to the tyranny, which was revived with new strength by the
+death of James Sharp, in revenge for his doom, but sought, in despite of
+decrees and statutes, to hear THE WORD where we believed it was best
+spoken.
+
+The laws of God, which are above all human authority, require that we
+should worship him in truth and in holiness, and we resolved to do so to
+the uttermost, and prepared ourselves with arms to resist whoever might
+be sent to molest us in the performance of that the greatest duty. But
+in so exercising the divine right of resistance, we were not called upon
+to harm those whom we knew to be our adversaries. Belting ourselves for
+defence, not for war, we went singly to our places of secret meeting in
+the glens and on the moors, and when the holy exercise was done, we
+returned to our homes as peacefully as we went thither.
+
+Many a time I have since thought, that surely in no other age or land
+was ever such a solemn celebration of the Sabbath as in those days. The
+very dangers with which we were environed exalted the devout heart;
+verily it was a grand sight to see the fearless religious man moving
+from his house in the grey of the morning, with the Bible in his hand,
+and his sword for a staff, walking towards the hills for many a weary
+mile, hoping the preacher would be there, and praying as he went that
+there might be no molestation.
+
+Often and often on those occasions has the Lord been pleased to shelter
+his worshippers from their persecutors by covering them with the mantle
+of His tempest; and many a time at the dead of night, when the winds
+were soughing around, and the moon was bowling through the clouds, we
+have stood on the heath of the hills and the sound of our psalms has
+been mingled with the roaring of the gathering waters.
+
+The calamities which drove us thus to worship in the wilderness, and
+amidst the storm, rose to their full tide on the back of the death of
+the arch-apostate James Sharp; for all the religious people in the realm
+were in a manner regarded by the government as participators in the
+method of his punishment. And Claverhouse, whom I have now to speak of,
+got that special commission on which he rode so wickedly, to put to the
+sword whomsoever he found with arms at any preaching in the fields; so
+that we had no choice in seeking to obtain the consolations of religion,
+which we then stood so much in need of, but to congregate in such
+numbers as would deter the soldiers from venturing to attack us. This it
+was which caused the second rising, and led to the fatal day of
+Bothwell-brigg, whereof it is needful that I should particularly speak,
+not only on account of the great stress that was thereon laid by the
+persecutors, in making out of it a method of fiery ordeal to afflict the
+covenanted, but also because it was the overflowing fountain-head of the
+deluge that made me desolate. And herein, courteous reader, should aught
+of a fiercer feeling than belongs to the sacred sternness of truth and
+justice escape from my historical pen, thou wilt surely pardon the same,
+if there be any of the gracious ruth of Christian gentleness in thy
+bosom; for now I have to tell of things that have made the annals of the
+land as red as crimson and filled my house with the blackness of ashes
+and universal death.
+
+For a long period there had been, from the causes and circumstances
+premised, sore difficulties in the assembling of congregations, and the
+sacrament of the Supper had not been dispensed in many parts of the
+shire of Ayr from the time of the Highland host; so that there was a
+great longing in the hearts of the covenanted to partake once again of
+that holy refreshment; and shortly after the seed-time it began to be
+concerted, that early in the summer a day should be set apart, and a
+place fixed for the celebration of the same. About the time of the
+interment of my brother's desolated daughter, and the judgment of the
+death executed on James Sharp, it was settled that the moors of
+Loudon-hill should be the place of meeting, and that the first Sabbath
+of June should be the day. But what ministers would be there was not
+settled; for who could tell which, in those times, would be spared from
+prison?
+
+It was, however, forethought and foreseen, that the assemblage of
+communicants would be very considerable; for, in order that there might
+be the less risk of molestation, a wish that it should be so was put
+forth among us, to the end that the King's forces might swither to
+disperse us. Accordingly, with my disconsolate brother and son, I went
+to be present at that congregation, and we carried our arms with us, as
+we were then in the habit of doing on all occasions of public testimony
+by worship.
+
+In the meantime a rent had been made in the Covenant, partly by the
+over-zeal of certain young preachers, who, not feeling, as we did, that
+the duty of presbyterians went no farther than defence and resistance,
+strove, with all the pith of an effectual eloquence, to exasperate the
+minds of their hearers into hostility against those in authority; and it
+happened that several of those who had executed the judgment on James
+Sharp, seeing no hope of pardon for what they had done, leagued
+themselves with this party, in the hope of thereby making head against
+their pursuers.
+
+I have been the more strict in setting down these circumstantials,
+because in the bloody afterings of that meeting they were altogether
+lost sight of; and also because the implacable rage with which
+Claverhouse persecuted the Covenanters has been extenuated by some
+discreet historians, on the plea of his being an honourable officer,
+deduced from his soldierly worth elsewhere; whereas the truth is, that
+his cruelties in the shire of Ayr, and other of our western parts, were
+less the fruit of his instructions, wide and severe as they were, than
+of his own mortified vanity and malignant revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI
+
+
+It was in the cool of the evening, on Saturday, the last day of May,
+when my brother came over to my house, where, with Michael, I had
+prepared myself to go with him to Loudon-hill. Our intent was to walk
+that night to Kilmarnock, and abide till the morning with our brother
+Jacob's widow, not having seen her for a long time.
+
+We had in the course of that day heard something of the publication of
+"The Declaration and Testimony," which, through the vehemence of the
+preachers before spoken of, had been rashly counselled at Ruglen, the
+twenty-ninth of the month; but there was no particulars, and what we did
+hear was like, as all such things are, greatly magnified beyond the
+truth. We, however, were grieved by the tidings; for we feared some
+cause of tribulation would be thereby engendered detrimental to the
+religious purposes of our journey.
+
+This sentiment pressing heavily on our hearts, we parted from my family
+with many misgivings, and the bodements of further sorrows. But the
+outward expression of what we all felt was the less remarkable, on
+account of what so lately had before happened in my brother's house. Nor
+indeed did I think at the time, that the foretaste of what was ordained
+so speedily to come to a head was at all so lively in his spirit, or
+that of my son, as it was in mine, till, in passing over the top of the
+Gowan-brae, he looked round on the lands of Quharist, and said,--
+
+"I care nae, Ringan, if I ne'er come back; for though we hae lang dwelt
+in affection together yon'er, thae that were most precious to me are now
+both aneath the sod,"--alluding to his wife who had been several years
+dead,--and poor Bell, that lovely rose which the ruthless spoiler had so
+trampled into the earth.
+
+"I feel," said Michael, "as if I were going to a foreign land, there is
+sic a farewell sadness upon me."
+
+But we strove to overcome this, and walked leisurely on the high road
+towards Kilmarnock, trying to discourse of indifferent things; and as
+the gloaming faded, and the night began to look forth, from her
+watch-tower in the heavens, with all her eyes of beautiful light, we
+communed of the friends that we trusted were in glory, and marvelled if
+it could be that they saw us after death, or ever revisited the persons
+and the scenes that they loved in life. Rebellion or treason, or any
+sense of thoughts and things that were not holy, had no portion in our
+conversation: we were going to celebrate the redemption of fallen man;
+and we were mourning for friends no more; our discourse was of eternal
+things, and the mysteries of the stars and the lights of that world
+which is above the firmament.
+
+When we reached Kilmarnock we found that Jacob's widow had, with several
+other godly women, set out towards the place of meeting, to sojourn with
+a relation that night, in order that they might be the abler to gather
+the manna of the word in the morning. We therefore resolved not to halt
+there, but to go forward to the appointed place, and rest upon the spot.
+This accordingly doing, we came to the eastern side of Loudon-hill, the
+trysted place, shortly after the first scad of the dawn.
+
+Many were there before us, both men and women and little children, and
+horses intermingled, some slumbering, and some communing with one
+another; and as the morning brightened, it was a hallowed sight to
+behold from that rising ground the blameless persecuted coming with
+sedate steps to worship their Maker on the mountain.
+
+The Reverend Mr Thomas Douglas, who was to open the action, arrived
+about the rising of the sun with several other ministers, and behind
+them four aged men belonging to Strathaven bearing the elements.
+
+A pious lady, whose name I never heard, owing to what ensued, spread
+with her own hands a damask tablecloth on the ground, and the bread and
+wine were placed upon it with more reverence than ever was in kirk.
+
+Mr Douglas having mounted upon a rock nigh to where this was done, was
+about to give out the psalm, when we observed several country lads, that
+were stationed as watchers afar off, coming with great haste in; and
+they brought word, that Claverhouse and his dragoons were coming to
+disperse us, bringing with them the Reverend Mr King, a preacher of the
+gospel at Hamilton, and others that they had made prisoners, tied with
+cords two and two.
+
+The tidings for a moment caused panic and consternation; but as the men
+were armed, and resolved to resist, it was thought, in consideration of
+the women and children, that we ought to go forward, and prevent the
+adversaries from advancing. Accordingly, to the number of forty
+horsemen, and maybe near to two hundred foot, we drew ourselves apart
+from the congregation, and marched to meet Claverhouse, thinking,
+perhaps, on seeing us so numerous, that he would not come on,--while Mr
+Douglas proceeded with the worship, the piety of none with him being
+abated by this grievous visitation.
+
+Mr William Clelland, with Mr Hamilton, who had come with Mr Douglas,
+were our leaders, and we met Claverhouse on the moor of Drumclog.
+
+The dragoons were the first to halt, and Claverhouse, having ordered his
+prisoners to be drawn aside, was the first who gave the word to fire.
+This was without any parley or request to know whether we came with
+hostile intent or no. Clelland, on seeing the dragoons make ready, cried
+to us all to den ourselves among the heather; by which forethought the
+shot flew harmless. Then we started up, and every one, with the best aim
+he could, fired at the dragoons as they were loading their carabines.
+Several men and horses were killed, and many wounded. Claverhouse seeing
+this, commanded his men to charge upon us; but the ground was rough, the
+heather deep, and the moss broken where peats had been dug, and the
+horses floundered, and several threw their riders, and fell themselves.
+
+We had now loaded again, and the second fire was more deadly than the
+first. Our horsemen also seeing how the dragoons were scattered, fell in
+the confusion as it were man for man upon them. Claverhouse raged and
+commanded, but no one now could or would obey. In that extremity his
+horse was killed, and, being thrown down, I ran forward to seize him, if
+I could, prisoner; but he still held his sword in his hand, and rising
+as I came up, used it manfully, and with one stroke almost hewed my
+right arm from my shoulder. As he fled I attempted for a moment to
+follow, but staggered and fell. He looked back as he escaped, and I
+cried--"Blood for blood;" and it has been so, as I shall hereafter in
+the sequel relate.
+
+When the day was won, we found we numbered among the slain on the side
+of the vanquished nearly twenty of the dragoons: on our side we lost but
+one man, John Morton--a ripe saint; but several were wounded; and John
+Weir and William Daniel died of their wounds. Such was the day of
+Drumclog.
+
+Being wounded, I was carried to a neighbouring farm, attended by my
+brother and son, and there put upon a cart and sent home to Quharist, as
+it was thought I would be best attended there. They then returned to the
+rest of the host, who, seeing themselves thus brought into open war,
+resolved forthwith to proceed to Glasgow, and to raise again the banner
+of the Covenant.
+
+But Claverhouse had fled thither, burning with the thought of being so
+shorn in his military pride by raw and undisciplined countrymen, whom,
+if we had been bred soldiers, maybe he would have honoured, but being
+what we were, though our honour was the greater, he hated us with the
+deadly aversion that is begotten of vanity chastised; for that it was
+which incited him to ravage the West Country with such remorselessness,
+and which, when our men were next day repulsed at Glasgow with the loss
+of lives, made him hinder the removal of the bodies from the streets,
+till it was said the butchers' dogs began to prey upon them.
+
+But not to insist on matters of hearsay, nor to dwell at any greater
+length on those afflicting events, I must refer the courteous reader to
+the history of the times for what followed, it being enough for me to
+state here that as soon as the news spread of the battle and the
+victory, the persecuted ran flocking in from all quarters, by which the
+rope of sand, that the Lord permitted Monmouth to break at
+Bothwell-brigg, was soon formed. My brother and my son were both there,
+and there my gallant Michael lies. My brother, then verging on
+threescore, being among the prisoners, was, after sore sufferings in the
+Greyfriars church-yard of Edinburgh, sent on board a vessel as a
+bondsman to the plantations in America. His wrongs, however, were
+happily soon over; for the ship in which he was embarked perished among
+the Orkney islands, and he, with two hundred other sufferers, received
+the crown of martyrdom from the waves.
+
+O Charles Stuart, king of Scotland! and thou, James Sharp!--false and
+cruel men--But ye are called to your account; and what avails it now to
+the childless father to rail upon your memory?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII
+
+
+Before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale of
+my own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, to
+note here a very singular example of the spirit of piety which reigned
+in the hearts of the Covenanters, especially as I shall have to show
+that such was the cruel and implacable nature of the Persecution, that
+time had not its wonted influence to soften in any degree its rigour.
+Thirteen years had passed from the time of the Pentland raid; and surely
+the manner in which the country had suffered for that rising might, in
+so long a course of years, have subdued the animosity with which we were
+pursued; especially, as during the Earl of Tweeddale's administration
+the bonds of peace had been accepted. But Lauderdale, now at the head of
+the councils, was rapacious for money; and therefore all offences, if I
+may employ that courtly term, by which our endeavours to taste of the
+truth were designated,--all old offences, as I was saying, were renewed
+against us as recent crimes, and an innocent charity to the remains of
+those who had suffered for the Pentland raid was made a reason, after
+the battle of Bothwell-brigg, to revive the persecution of those who had
+been out in that affair.
+
+The matter particularly referred to arose out of the following
+circumstances:
+
+The number of honest and pious men who were executed in different
+places, and who had their heads and their right hands with which they
+signed the Covenant at Lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of towns
+and over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great. And it was very
+grievous, and a sore thing to the friends and acquaintances of those
+martyrs, when they went to Glasgow, or Kilmarnock, or Irvine, or Ayr, on
+their farm business, to tryst or market, to see the remains of persons,
+whom they so loved and respected in life, bleaching in the winds and the
+rains of Heaven. It was, indeed, a matter of great heart-sadness, to
+behold such animosity carried beyond the grave; and few they were who
+could withstand the sight of the orphans that came thither, pointing out
+to one another their fathers' bones, and weeping as they did so, and
+vowing, with an innocent indignation, that they would avenge their
+martyrdom.
+
+Well do I remember the great sorrow that arose one market-day in Irvine,
+some five or six years after the Pentland raid, when Mrs M'Coul came,
+with her four weans and her aged gudemother, to look at the relics of
+her husband, who was martyred for his part in that rising. The bones
+were standing, with those of another martyr of that time, on a shelf
+which had been put up for the purpose, below the first wicket-hole in
+the steeple, just above the door. The two women were very decent in
+their apparel, rather more so than the common country wives. The
+gudemother, in particular, had a cast of gentility both in her look and
+garments; and I have heard the cause of it expounded, from her having
+been the daughter of one of the Reformation preachers in the
+Gospel-spreading epoch of John Knox. She had a crimson satin plaid over
+her head, and she wore a black silk apron and a grey camlet gown. With
+the one hand she held the plaid close to her neck, and the youngest
+child, a lassie of seven years or so, had hold of her by the fore-finger
+of the other.
+
+Mrs M'Coul was more of a robust fabric, and she was without any plaid,
+soberly dressed in the weeds of a widow, with a clean cambric
+handkerchief very snodly prined over her breast. The children were
+likewise beinly apparelled, and the two sons were buirdly and brave
+laddies, the one about nine, and the other maybe eleven years old.
+
+It would seem that this had been the first of their pilgrimages of
+sorrow; for they stood some time in a row at the foot of the tolbooth
+stair, looking up at the remains, and wondering, with tears in their
+eyes, which were those they had come to see.
+
+Their appearance drew around them many onlookers, both of the country
+folk about the Cross and inhabitants of the town; but every one
+respected their sorrow, and none ventured to disturb them with any
+questions; for all saw that they were kith or kin to the godly men who
+had testified to the truth and the Covenant in death.
+
+It happened, however, that I had occasion to pass by, and some of the
+town's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, but
+loud enough to be heard, that I was one of the persecuted; whereupon Mrs
+M'Coul turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure,--
+
+"Can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' John M'Coul, that
+was executed for the covenanting at Lanerk?"
+
+I knew the remains well, for they had been pointed out to me and I had
+seen them very often, but really the sight of the two women and the
+fatherless bairns so overcame me that I was unable to answer.
+
+"It's the head and the hand beside it, that has but twa fingers left, on
+the Kirkgate end o' the shelf!" replied a person in the crowd, whom I
+knew at once by his voice to be Willy Sutherland the hangman, although I
+had not seen him from the night of my evasion. And here let me not
+forget to set down the Christian worth and constancy of that simple and
+godly creature, who, rather than be instrumental in the guilty judgment
+by which John M'Coul and his fellow-sufferer were doomed to die, did
+himself almost endure martyrdom, and yet never swerved in his purpose,
+nor was abated in his integrity, in so much, that when questioned
+thereafter anent the same by the Earl of Eglinton, and his Lordship,
+being moved by the simplicity of his piety, said, "Poor man, you did
+well in not doing what they would have had you to do."
+
+"My Lord," replied Willy, "you are speaking treason! and yet you
+persecute to the uttermost, which shows that you go against the light of
+your conscience."
+
+"Do you say so to me, after I kept you from being hanged?" said his
+Lordship.
+
+"Keep me from being drowned, and I will still tell you the verity." The
+which honesty in that poor man begat for him a compassionate regard that
+the dignities of many great and many noble in that time could never
+command.
+
+When the sorrowful M'Couls had indulged themselves in their melancholy
+contemplation, they went away, followed by the multitude with silence
+and sympathy, till they had mounted upon the cart which they had brought
+with them into the town. But from that time every one began to speak of
+the impiety of leaving the bones so wofully exposed; and after the
+skirmish at Drumclog, where Robin M'Coul, the eldest of the two
+striplings above spoken of, happened to be, when Mr John Welsh, with
+the Carrick men that went to Bothwell-brigg, was sent into Glasgow to
+bury the heads and hands of the martyrs there, Robin M'Coul came with a
+party of his friends to Irvine to bury his father's bones. I was not
+myself present at the interment, being, as I have narrated, confined to
+my bed by reason of my wound. But I was told by the neighbours, that it
+was a very solemn and affecting scene. The grieved lad carried the
+relics of his father in a small box in his hands, covered with a white
+towel; and the godly inhabitants of the town, young and old, and of all
+denominations, to the number of several hundreds, followed him to the
+grave where the body was lying; and Willy Sutherland, moved by a simple
+sorrow, was the last of all; and he walked, as I was told, alone,
+behind, with his bonnet in his hand; for, from his calling, he counted
+himself not on an equality with other men. But it is time that I should
+return from this digression to the main account of my narrative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII
+
+
+Being wounded, as I have rehearsed, at Drumclog, and carried to my own
+house, Sarah Lochrig, while she grieved with a mother's grief for the
+loss of our first-born and the mournful fate of my honest brother,
+advanced my cure more by her loving ministrations to my aching mind,
+than by the medicaments that were applied to the bodily wound, in so
+much that something like a dawn of comfort was vouchsafed to me.
+
+Our parish was singularly allowed to remain unmolested when, after the
+woful day of Bothwell-brigg, Claverhouse came to ravage the shire of
+Ayr, and to take revenge for the discomfiture which he had suffered, in
+his endeavour to disturb the worship and sacrament at Loudon-hill.
+Still, however, at times clouds overcame my spirit; and one night my
+daughter Margaret had a remarkable dream, which taught us to expect some
+particular visitation.
+
+It was surely a mysterious reservation for the greater calamity which
+ensued, that while the vial of wrath was pouring out around us, my house
+should have been allowed to remain so unmolested. Often indeed when in
+our nightly worship I returned thanks for a blessing so wonderful in
+that time of general woe, has a strange fear fallen upon me and I have
+trembled in thought, as if the thing for which I sent up the incense of
+my thanks to heaven, was a device of the Enemy of man, to make me think
+myself more deserving of favour than the thousands of covenanted
+brethren who then, in Scotland, were drinking of the bitterness of the
+suffering. But in proportion as I was then spared, the heavier
+afterwards was my trial.
+
+Among the prisoners taken at Bothwell-brigg were many persons from our
+parish and neighbourhood, who, after their unheard-of sufferings among
+the tombs and graves of the Greyfriars church-yard at Edinburgh, were
+allowed to return home. Though in this there was a show of clemency, it
+was yet but a more subtle method of the tyranny to reach new victims.
+For those honest men were not long home till grievous circuit-courts
+were set agoing, to bring to trial not only all those who were at
+Bothwell, or approved of that rising, but likewise those who had been at
+the Pentland raid; and the better to ensure condemnation and punishment,
+sixteen persons were cited from every parish to bear witness as to who,
+among their neighbours, had been out at Bothwell, or had harboured any
+of those who were there. The wicked curates made themselves, in this
+grievous matter, engines of espionage, by giving in the names of those,
+their parishioners, whom they knew could bear the best testimony.
+
+Thus it was, that many who had escaped from the slaughter--from the
+horrors of the Greyfriars church-yard--and from the drowning in the
+Orkneys,--and, like myself, had resumed their quiet country labour, were
+marked out for destruction. For the witnesses cited to Ayr against us
+were persons who had been released from the Greyfriars church-yard, as I
+have said, and who, being honest men, could not, when put to their
+oaths, but bear witness to the truth of the matters charged against us.
+And nothing surely could better show the devilish spirit with which
+those in authority were at that time actuated, nor the unchristian
+nature of the prelacy, than that the prisoners should thus have been set
+free to be made the accusers of their neighbours; and that the curates,
+men professing to be ministers of the Gospel, should have been such fit
+instruments for such unheard-of machinations. But to hasten forward to
+the fate and issue of this self-consuming tyranny, I shall leave all
+generalities, and proceed with the events of my own case; and, in doing
+so, I shall endeavour what is in me to inscribe the particulars with a
+steady hand; for I dare no longer now trust myself with looking to the
+right or to the left of the field of my matter. I shall, however, try to
+narrate things just as they happened, leaving the courteous reader to
+judge what passed at the time in the suffocating throbs wherewith my
+heart was then affected.
+
+It was the last day of February, of the year following Bothwell-brigg,
+that, in consequence of these subtle and wicked devices, I was taken up.
+I had, from my wound, been in an ailing state for many months, and could
+then do little in the field; but the weather for the season was mild,
+and I had walked out in the tranquillity of a sunny afternoon to give my
+son Joseph some instructions in the method of ploughing; for, though he
+was then but in his thirteenth year, he was a by-common stripling in
+capacity and sense. He was indeed a goodly plant; and I had hoped, in my
+old age, to have sat beneath the shelter of his branches; but the axe of
+the feller was untimely laid to the root, and it was too soon, with all
+the blossoms of the fairest promise, cast down into the dust. But my
+task now is of vengeance and justice, not of sorrowing, and I must more
+sternly grasp the iron pen.
+
+A party of soldiers, who had been that afternoon sent out to bring in
+certain persons (among whom I was one) in a list malignantly transmitted
+to the Archbishop of Glasgow, by Andrew Dornoch, the prelatic usurper of
+our minister's place, as I was leaving the field where my son was
+ploughing, saw me from the road, and ordered me to halt till they came
+up, or they would fire at me.
+
+It would have been unavailing of me, in the state I then was, to have
+attempted to flee, so I halted; and, after some entreaty with the
+soldiers, got permission from them to have my horse and cart yoket, as I
+was not very well, and so to be carried to Ayr. And here I should note
+down that, although there was in general a coarse spirit among the
+King's forces, yet in these men there was a touch of common humanity.
+This was no doubt partly owing to their having been some months
+quartered in Irvine, where they became naturally softened by the
+friendly spirit of the place. It was not, however, ordained that men so
+merciful should be permitted to remain long there.
+
+As it was an understood thing that the object of the trials to which the
+Covenanters were in this manner subjected was chiefly to raise money and
+forfeitures for the rapacious Duke of Lauderdale, then in the rule and
+power of the council at Edinburgh, my being carried away prisoner to Ayr
+awakened less grief and consternation in my family than might have been
+expected from the event. Through the humane permission of my guard,
+having a little time to confer with Sarah Lochrig before going away, it
+was settled between us that she should gather together what money she
+could procure, either by loan or by selling our corn and cattle, in
+order to provide for the payment of the fine that we counted would be
+laid upon us. I was then taken to the tolbooth of Ayr, where many other
+covenanted brethren were lying to await the proceedings of the
+circuit-court, which was to be opened by the Lord Kelburne from Glasgow,
+on the second day after I had been carried thither.
+
+Among the prisoners were several who knew me well, and who condoled as
+Christians with me for the loss I had sustained at Bothwell; so, but for
+the denial of the fresh and heavenly air, and the freedom of the fields,
+the time of our captivity might have been a season of much solace: for
+they were all devout men, and the tolbooth, instead of resounding with
+the imprecations of malefactors, became melodious with the voice of
+psalms and of holy communion, and the sweet intercourse of spirits that
+delighted in one another for the constancy with which they had borne
+their testimony.
+
+When the Lord Kelburne arrived, on the first day that the court opened,
+I was summoned to respond to the offences laid to my charge, if any
+charge of offence it may be called, wherein the purpose of the court was
+seemingly to search out opinions that might serve as matter to justify
+the infliction of the fines,--the whole end and intent of those circuits
+not being to award justice, but to find the means of extorting money. In
+some respects, however, I was more mercifully dealt by than many of my
+fellow-sufferers; but in order to show how, even in my case, the laws
+were perverted, I will here set down a brief record of my examination or
+trial, as it was called.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV
+
+
+The council-room was full of people when I was taken thither, and the
+Lord Kelburne, who sat at the head of the table, was abetted in the
+proceedings by Murray, an advocate from Edinburgh. They were sitting at
+a wide round table, within a fence which prevented the spectators from
+pressing in upon them. There were many papers and letters folded up in
+bundles lying before them, and a candle burning, and wax for
+sigillation. Besides Lord Kelburne and his counsellor, there were divers
+gentlemen seated at the table, and two clerks to make notations.
+
+Lord Kelburne, in his appearance, was a mild-looking man, and for his
+years his hair was very hoary; for though he was seemingly not passing
+fifty, it was in a manner quite blanched. In speech he was moderate, in
+disposition indulgent, and verily towards me he acted in his harsh duty
+with much gentleness.
+
+But Murray had a doure aspect for his years, and there was a smile among
+his features not pleasant to behold, breeding rather distrust and dread
+than winning confidence or affection, which are the natural fruit of a
+countenance rightly gladdened. He looked at me from aneath his brows as
+if I had been a malefactor, and turning to the Lord Kelburne, said,--
+
+"He has the true fanatical yellow look."
+
+This was a base observe; for naturally I was of a fresh complexion, but
+my long illness, and the close air of the prison, had made me pale.
+
+After some more impertinences of that sort, he then said,--
+
+"Ringan Gilhaize, you were at the battle of Bothwell-brigg."
+
+"I was not," said I.
+
+"You do not mean to say so, surely?"
+
+"I have said it," was my answer.
+
+Whereupon one of the clerks whispered to him that there were three of
+the name in the list.
+
+"O!" cried he, "I crave your pardon, Ringan; there are several persons
+of your name; and though you were not at Bothwell yourself, maybe ye ken
+those of your name who were there,--Do you?"
+
+"I did know two," was my calm answer; "one was my brother, and the other
+my son."
+
+All present remained very silent as I made this answer; and the Lord
+Kelburne bending forward, leant his cheek on his hand as he rested his
+elbow on the table, and looked very earnestly at me. Murray resumed,--
+
+"And pray now, Ringan, tell us what has become of the two rebels?"
+
+"They were covenanted Christians," said I; "my son lies buried with
+those that were slain on that sore occasion."
+
+"But your brother; he was of course younger than you?"
+
+"No; he was older."
+
+"Well, well, no matter as to that; but where is he?"
+
+"I believe he is with his Maker; but his body lies among the rocks at
+the bottom of the Orkney seas."
+
+The steadiness of the Lord Kelburne's countenance saddened into the look
+of compassion, and he said to Murray,--
+
+"There is no use in asking him any more questions about them; proceed
+with the ordinary interrogatories."
+
+There was a murmur of satisfaction towards his Lordship at this; and
+Murray said,--
+
+"And so you say that those in the late rebellion at Bothwell were not
+rebels?"
+
+"I said, sir, that my son and my brother were covenanted Christians."
+
+This I delivered with a firm voice, which seemed to produce some effect
+on the Lord Kelburne, who threw himself back in his chair, and crossing
+his arms over his breast, looked still more eagerly towards me.
+
+"Do you mean then to deny," said Murray, "that the late rebellion was
+not a rebellion?"
+
+"It would be hard, sir, to say what it was; for the causes thereto
+leading," replied I, "were provocations concerning things of God, and to
+those who were for that reason religiously there, I do not think, in a
+right sense, it can be called rebellion. Those who were there for
+carnal motives, and I doubt not there were many such, I fancy every
+honest man may say it was with them rebellion."
+
+"I must deal more closely with him," said Murray to his Lordship; but
+his Lordship, before allowing him to put any more questions, said
+himself to me,--
+
+"But you know, to state the thing plainly, that the misguided people who
+were at Bothwell had banded themselves against the laws of the realm,
+whether from religious or carnal motives is not the business we are here
+to sift, that point is necessarily remitted to God and their
+consciences."
+
+Murray added, "It is most unreasonable to suppose that every subject is
+free to determine of what is lawful to be obeyed. The thought is
+ridiculous. It would destroy the end of all laws which are for the
+advantage of communities, and which speak the sense of the generality,
+touching the matter and things to which they refer."
+
+"My Lord," said I, addressing myself to Lord Kelburne, "it surely will
+ne'er be denied that every subject is free to exercise his discretion
+with respek to his ain conduct; and your Lordship kens vera weel that it
+is the duty of subjects to know the laws of the land; and your Lordship
+likewise knows that God has given laws to all rulers as well as
+subjects, and both may and ought to know His laws. Now if I, knowing
+both the laws of God and the laws of the land, find the one contrary to
+the other, undoubtedly God's laws ought to hae the preference in my
+obedience."
+
+His Lordship looked somewhat satisfied with this answer; but Murray said
+to him,--
+
+"I will pose him with this question. If presbyterian government were
+established, as it was in the year 1648, and some ministers were not
+free to comply with it, and a law were made that none should hear them
+out o' doors, would you judge it reasonable that such ministers or their
+people should be at liberty to act in contempt of that law."
+
+And he looked mightily content with himself for this subtlety; but I
+said,--
+
+"Really, sir, I canna see a reason why hearkening to a preaching in the
+fields should be a greater guilt than doing the same thing indoors."
+
+"If I were of your principles," said the advocate, "and thought in my
+conscience that the laws of the land were contrary to the laws of God,
+and that I could not conform to them, I would judge it my duty rather to
+go out of the nation and live elsewhere, than disturb the peace of the
+land."
+
+"That were to suppose two things," said I; "first, that rulers may make
+laws contrary to the laws of God, and that when such laws are once made,
+they ought to be submitted to. But I think, sir, that rulers being under
+the law of God act wickedly and in rebellion to Him, when they make
+enactments contrary to His declared will; and surely it can ne'er be
+required that we should allow wickedness to be done."
+
+"I am not sure," said Murray to his Lordship, "that I do right in
+continuing this irrelevant conversation."
+
+"I am interested in the honest man's defence," replied Lord Kelburne;
+"and as 'tis in a matter of conscience, let us hear what makes it so."
+
+"Well, then," resumed the advocate, "what can you say to the barbarous
+murder of Archbishop Sharp?--You will not contend that murder is not
+contrary to the law of God?"
+
+"I ne'er contended," said I, "that any sin was permitted by the law of
+God--far less murder, which is expressly forbidden in the Ten Commands."
+
+"Then ye acknowledge the murder of the Archbishop to have been murder?"
+
+"That's between those that did it and God."
+
+"Hooly, hooly, friend!" cried Murray; "that, Ringan, winna do; was it or
+was it not murder?"
+
+"Can I tell, who was not there?"
+
+"Then to satisfy your conscience on that score, Ringan, I would ask you,
+if a gang of ruffians slay a defenceless man, do or do they not commit
+murder?"
+
+"I can easily answer that."
+
+Lord Kelburne again bent eagerly forward, and rested his cheek again on
+his hand, placing his elbow on the table, while I continued,--
+
+"A gang of ruffians coming in wantonness, or for plunder, upon a
+defenceless man, and putting him to death, there can be no doubt is
+murder; but it has not yet been called murder to kill an enemy in
+battle; and therefore, if the captain of a host go to war without arms,
+and thereby be defenceless, it cannot be said that those of the adverse
+party, who may happen to slay him, do any murder."
+
+"Do you mean to justify the manner of the death of the Archbishop?"
+exclaimed the advocate, starting back and spreading out his arms in
+wonderment.
+
+"'Deed no, sir," replied I, a little nettled at the construction he
+would put upon what I said; "but I will say, even here, what Sir Davie
+Lindsay o' the Mount said on the similar event o' Cardinal Beaton's
+death,--
+
+   'As for this Cardinal, I grant
+   He was the man we might well want;
+             God will forgive it soon:
+   But of a truth, the sooth to say,
+   Although the loon be well away,
+             The fact was foully done.'"
+
+There was a rustle of gratification among all in the court as I said the
+rhyme, and Lord Kelburne smiled; but Murray, somewhat out of humour,
+said,--
+
+"I fancy, my Lord, we must consider this as an admission that the
+killing of the Archbishop was murder."
+
+"I fear," said his Lordship, "that neither of the two questions have
+been so directly put as to justify me to pronounce any decision, though
+I am willing to put the most favourable construction on what has
+passed." And then his Lordship, looking to me, added,--
+
+"Do you consider the late rebellion, being contrary to the King's
+authority, rebellion?"
+
+"Contrary to the King's right authority," replied I, "it was not
+rebellion; but contrary to an authority beyond the right taken by him,
+despite the law of God, it was rebellion."
+
+"Wherefore, honest man," rejoined his Lordship kindly, "would you make a
+distinction that may bring harm on your own head? Is not the King's
+authority instituted by law and prerogative, and knowing that, cannot ye
+say that those who rise in arms against it are rebels?"
+
+"My Lord," said I, "you have my answer; for in truth and in conscience I
+can give none other."
+
+There was a pause for a short space, and one of the clerks looking to
+Lord Kelburne, his Lordship said, with a plain reluctance, "It must even
+be so; write down that he is not clear the late rebellion should be
+called a rebellion;" and casting his eyes entreatingly towards me, he
+added, "But I think you acknowledge that the assassination of Archbishop
+Sharp was a murder?"
+
+"My Lord," said I, "your questions are propounded as tests and
+therefore, as an honest man, I cannot suffer that my answers should be
+scant, lest I might be thought to waver in faith and was backward in my
+testimony. No, my Lord, I will not call the killing of Sharp murder; for
+on my conscience, I do verily think he deserved the death: First,
+because of his apostacy; second, because of the laws of which he was the
+instigator, whereby the laws of God have been contravened; and, third,
+for the woes that those laws have brought upon the land, the which
+stirred the hearts of the people against him. Above all, I think his
+death was no murder, because he was so strong in his legalities, that he
+could not be brought to punishment by those to whom he had caused the
+greatest wrong;" and I thought, in saying these words, of my brother's
+desolated daughter--of his own sad death in the stormy seas of the
+Orkneys--and of my brave and gallant Michael, that was lying in his
+shroudless grave in the cold clay of Bothwell.
+
+Lord Kelburne was troubled at my answer, and was about to remonstrate;
+but seeing the tear start into my eye as those things came into my mind,
+he said nothing, but nodding to the clerk, he bade him write down that I
+would not acknowledge the killing of the Archbishop a murder. He then
+rose and adjourned the court, remanding me to prison, saying that he
+would send me word what would be the extent of my punishment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV
+
+
+The same night it was intimated to me that I was fined in five hundred
+marks, and that bonds were required to be given for the payment; upon
+the granting of which, in consideration of my ill-health, the Lord
+Kelburne had consented I should be set free.
+
+This was, in many respects, a more lenient sentence than I had expected;
+and in the hope that perhaps Sarah Lochrig might have been able to
+provide the money, so as to render the granting of the bonds and the
+procuring of cautioners unnecessary, I sent over a man on horseback to
+tell her the news, and the man in returning brought my son Joseph
+behind him, sent by his mother to urge me to give the bonds at once, as
+she had not been able to raise so much money; and the more to incite me,
+if there had been need for incitement, she had willed Joseph to tell me
+that a party of Claverhouse's dragoons had been quartered on the house
+that morning, to live there till the fine was paid.
+
+Of the character of those freebooters I needed no certificate. They had
+filled every other place wherever they had been quartered with shame and
+never-ceasing sorrow, and therefore I was indeed roused to hear that my
+defenceless daughters were in their power, so I lost no time in sending
+my son to entreat two of his mother's relations, who were bein merchants
+in Ayr, to join me in the bond,--a thing which they did in the most
+compassionate manner;--and, the better to expedite the business, I got
+it to be permitted by the Lord Kelburne that the bonds should be sent
+the same day to Irvine, where I hoped to be able next morning to
+discharge them. All this was happily concerted and brought to a pleasant
+issue before sunset;--at which time I was discharged from the tolbooth,
+carrying with me many pious wishes from those who were there, and who
+had not been so gently dealt by.
+
+It was my intent to have proceeded home the same night, but my son was
+very tired with the many errands he had run that day, and by his long
+ride in the morning; moreover, I was myself in need of repose, for my
+anxiety had brought on a disturbance in my blood, and my limbs shook,
+and I was altogether unable to undertake any journey. I was therefore
+too easily entreated of Archibald Lochrig, my wife's cousin, and one of
+my cautioners, to stop in his house that evening. But next morning,
+being much refreshed with a pleasant sleep and the fallacious cheering
+of happy dreams, I left Ayr, with my son, before the break of day, and
+we travelled with light feet, for our hearts were lifted up with hope.
+
+Though my youth was long past, and many things had happened to sadden my
+spirit, I yet felt on that occasion an unaccountable sense of kindliness
+and joy. The flame of life was as it were renewed, and brightened in the
+pure and breezy air of the morning, and a bounding gladness rose in my
+bosom as my eye expatiated around in the freedom of the spacious fields.
+On the left-hand the living sea seemed as if the pulses of its moving
+waters were in unison with the throbbings of my spirit; and, like jocund
+maidens disporting themselves in the flowing tide, the gentle waves,
+lifting their heads, and spreading out their arms and raising their
+white bosoms to the rising sun, came as it were happily to the smooth
+sands of the sparkling shore. The grace of enjoyment brightened and
+blithened all things. There was a cheerfulness in the songs of the
+little birds that enchanted the young heart of my blooming boy to break
+forth into singing, and his carol was gayer than the melody of the lark.
+But that morning was the last time that either of us could ever after
+know pleasure any more in this world.
+
+Eager to be home, and that I might share with Sarah Lochrig and our
+children the joy of thankfulness for my deliverance, I had resolved to
+call, in passing through Irvine, at the clerk's chamber, to inquire if
+the bonds had been sent from Ayr, that my cautioners might be as soon as
+possible discharged. But we had been so early a-foot that we reached the
+town while the inhabitants were yet all asleep, so that we thought it
+would be as well to go straight home; and accordingly we passed down the
+gait and through the town-end port without seeing any person in the
+street, save only the town-herd, as he was going with his horn to sound
+for the cows to be sent out to go with him to the moor.
+
+The sight of a town in the peacefulness of the morning slumbers, and of
+a simple man going forth to lead the quiet cattle to pasture filled my
+mind with softer thoughts than I had long known, and I said to my son,--
+
+"Surely those who would molest the peace of the poor hae ne'er rightly
+tasted the blessing of beholding the confidence with which they trust
+themselves in the watches of the night, and amidst the perils of their
+barren lot." And I felt my heart thaw again into charity with all men,
+and I was thankful for the delight.
+
+As I was thus tasting again the luxury of gentle thoughts, a band of
+five dragoons came along the road, and Joseph said to me that they were
+the same who had been quartered in our house. I looked at them as they
+passed by, but they turned their heads aside.
+
+"I wonder," said my son, "that they did na speak to me: I thought they
+had a black look."
+
+"No doubt, Joseph," was my answer, "the men are no lost to a' sense of
+shame. They canna but be rebuked at the sight of a man that, maybe
+against their will, poor fellows, they were sent to oppress."
+
+"I dinna like them the day, father, they're unco like ill-doers," said
+the thoughtful and observing stripling.
+
+But my spirit was at the time full of good-will towards all men, and I
+reasoned with him against giving way to unkind thoughts, expounding, to
+the best of my ability, the nature of Gospel-charity, and the
+heavenlyness of good-will, saying to him,--
+
+"The nature of charity's like the light o' the sun, by which all things
+are cherished. It is the brightness of the soul, and the glorious
+quality which proves our celestial descent. Our other feelings are
+common to a' creatures, but the feeling of charity is divine. It's the
+only thing in which man partakes of the nature of God."
+
+Discoursing in this scriptural manner, we reached the Gowan-brae. My
+heart beat high with gladness. My son bounded forward to tell his mother
+and sisters of my coming. On gaining the brow of the hill he leapt from
+the ground with a frantic cry and clasped his hands. I ran towards
+him--but I remember no more--though at times something crosses my mind,
+and I have wild visions of roofless walls, and a crowd of weeping women
+and silent men digging among ashes, and a beautiful body, all dropping
+wet, brought on a deal from the mill-dam, and of men, as it was carried
+by, seizing me by the arms and tying my hands,--and then I fancy myself
+in a house fastened to a chair;--and sometimes I think I was lifted out
+and placed to beek in the sun and to taste the fresh air. But what these
+things import I dare only guess, for no one has ever told me what became
+of my benign Sarah Lochrig and our two blooming daughters;--all is
+phantasma that I recollect of the day of my return home. I said my soul
+was iron, and my heart converted into stone. O that they were indeed so!
+But sorrowing is a vain thing, and my task must not stand still.
+
+When I left Ayr the leaves were green, and the fields gay, and the
+waters glad; and when the yellow leaf rustled on the ground, and the
+waters were drumly, and the river roaring, I was somehow, I know not by
+what means, in the kirk-yard, and a film fell from the eyes of my
+reason, and I looked around, and my little boy had hold of me by the
+hand, and I said to him, "Joseph, what's yon sae big and green in our
+lair?" and he gazed in my face, and the tears came into his eyes, and he
+replied,--
+
+"Father, they are a' in the same grave." I took my hand out of his;--I
+walked slowly to the green tomb;--I knelt down, and I caused my son to
+kneel beside me, and I vowed enmity for ever against Charles Stuart and
+all of his line; and I prayed, in the words of the Psalmist, that when
+he was judged he might be condemned. Then we rose; but my son said to
+me,--
+
+"Father, I canna wish his condemnation; but I'll fight by your side till
+we have harlt him down from his bloody throne."
+
+And I felt that I had forgotten I was a Christian, and I again knelt
+down and prayed, but it was for the sin I had done in the vengeance of
+the latter clause. "Nevertheless, Lord," I then cried, "as Thou Thyself
+didst take the sceptre from Saul, and gave the crown to David, make me
+an instrument to work out the purposes of Thy dreadful justice, which in
+time will come to be."
+
+Then I rose again, and went towards the place where my home had been;
+but when I saw the ruins I ran back to the kirk-yard, and threw myself
+on the grave, and cried to the earth to open and receive me.
+
+But the Lord had heard my prayer, and while I lay there he sent down his
+consoling angel, and the whirlwind of my spirit was calmed, and I
+remembered the promise of my son to fight by my side, and I rose to
+prepare myself for the warfare.
+
+While I was lying on the ground several of the neighbours had heard my
+wild cries, and came into the kirk-yard; but by that time the course of
+the tempest had been staid, and they stood apart with my son, who told
+them I was come again to myself, and they thought they ought not to
+disturb me; when, however, they saw me rise, they drew near and spoke
+kindly to me, and Zachariah Smylie invited me to go back with him to his
+house; for it was with him that I had been sheltered during the frenzy.
+But I said,--
+
+"No: I will neither taste meat nor drink, nor seek to rest myself, till
+I have again a sword." And I entreated him to give me a little money,
+that, with my son, we might go into Irvine and provide ourselves with
+weapons.
+
+The worthy man looked very sorrowful to hear me so speak, and some of
+the others, that were standing by, began to reason with me, and to
+represent the peril of any enterprise at that time. But I pointed to the
+grave, and said,--
+
+"Friens, do you ken what's in yon place, and do ye counsel me to peace?"
+At which words they turned aside and shook their heads; and Zachariah
+Smylie went and brought me a purse of money, which having put into my
+bosom, I took my son by the hand, and bidding them all farewell, we
+walked to the town silently together, and I thought of my brother's
+words in his grief, that the speed of lightning was slow to the wishes
+of revenge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI
+
+
+On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a
+dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without
+hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,--a method
+of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at
+that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the
+soldiers, ever from the time that Claverhouse came to disarm the people;
+and when I had bought the two blades we went to Bailie Girvan's shop,
+which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any
+questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm
+heart to the Covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and
+hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms
+to suspected persons.
+
+Being thus provided with two swords, we went into James Glassop's
+public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly
+sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that
+it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, I sent out
+my son to buy a Bible, and while he was absent I fell asleep.
+
+On awaking from my slumber I felt greatly composed and refreshed. I
+reflected on the events of the day, and the terrible truths that had
+broken in upon me, and I was not moved with the same stings of
+desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my
+brain; so I began to consider of the purpose whereon I was bowne, and
+that I had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt I should direct
+my steps. But I was not the less determined to proceed, and I said to my
+son, who was sitting very thoughtful with THE BOOK lying on the table
+before him,--
+
+"Open the Bible, and see what the Lord instructs us to do at this time."
+And he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the
+nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah,--
+
+"O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth,
+and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?"
+
+So I rose, and bidding my son close the Book, and bring it with him, we
+went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope
+about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long
+been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many
+persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought;
+but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the
+door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in Irvine was
+abiding.
+
+When he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned
+to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had
+assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one
+voice,--That Mr Cargill, and a numerous party of the Cameronians, had
+passed that afternoon through Galston, and it was thought they meditated
+some disturbance on the skirts of Kilmarnock, which made the commander
+of the King's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those
+then in Irvine.
+
+As soon as I heard the news, I resolved to go that night to Kilmarnock,
+and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother Jacob, by whose
+instrumentality I thought we might hear where the Cameronians then were.
+For, although I approved not of their separation from the general
+presbyterian kirk of Scotland, nor was altogether content with their
+declaration published at Sanquhar, there was yet one clause which, to
+my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that
+there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, I shall
+here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:--
+
+"Although we be for government and governors such as the Word of God and
+our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to
+us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning
+(or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these
+years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown
+of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years
+since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;"
+and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared,
+that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate,
+or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being
+under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do
+declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his
+practices, as enemies to our Lord."
+
+Accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of
+the Cameronians were so near, I resolved, on receiving the soldier's
+information, and on account of that recited clause of the Sanquhar
+declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging
+battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice,
+and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me,
+abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical Stuarts. With
+my son, therefore, I went toward Kilmarnock, in the hope and with the
+intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though I
+had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months
+before, than I have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in
+silence.
+
+The night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my
+thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's
+door, without the interchange of a word in all the way.
+
+"Wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the
+death of aunty."
+
+I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a
+stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long
+the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our
+friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in
+staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with
+my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me
+of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that
+the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any
+of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of
+the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.
+
+But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against
+us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it
+was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of
+promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light
+in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a
+public, and bespoke a bed for the night.
+
+While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me
+of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do
+us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the
+mistress said,--
+
+"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in
+upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in
+a change-house."
+
+So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we
+retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner;
+and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the
+worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not
+many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed,
+when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds,
+in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire.
+Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and
+blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them;
+and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they
+spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of
+the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful
+thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I
+could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons
+that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned.
+As for the Cameronians they were at war with the house of Stuart, and
+having disowned King Charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all
+of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. So I was none
+troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed
+into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all
+the Covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the
+hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of
+us in the depths of perdition, that I could no longer hear them without
+rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII
+
+
+"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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV
+
+
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV
+
+
+The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go
+forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with
+implements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with the
+remainder, joined together in prayer.
+
+By the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished,
+and then lots were cast to see whom the Lord would appoint to affix the
+declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of
+the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose me
+for one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back to
+the house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knew
+in the fit time would be prepared. Nor was it long till the same was
+brought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.
+
+Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother's
+house, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the Canongate,
+some six doors lower down than St Mary's Wynd, just after passing the
+flesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the court
+was at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to
+the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And it
+happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent
+forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had
+escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all
+who dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on the
+cheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring
+with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of
+town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause
+observance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for my
+health being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordial
+of fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk of
+the evening.
+
+He accordingly provided the apparel, and when clothed therewith, I made
+bold to go out in the broad daylight, and even ventured to mingle with
+the multitude in the garden of the palace, who went daily there in the
+afternoon to see the nobles and ladies of the court walking with their
+pageantries, while the Duke's musicants solaced them with melodious airs
+and the delights of sonorous harmony. And it happened on the third time
+I went thither, that a cry rose of the Duke coming from the garden to
+the palace, and all the onlookers pressed to see him.
+
+As he advanced, I saw several persons presenting petitions into his
+hands, which he gave, without then looking at, to the Lord Perth, whom I
+knew again by his voice; and I was directed, as by a thought of
+inspiration, to present, in like manner, a copy of our declaration,
+which I always carried about with me; so placing myself among a crowd of
+petitioners, onlookers and servants, that formed an avenue across the
+road leading from the Canongate to the Abbey kirk-yard, and between the
+garden yett and the yett that opened into the front court of the palace.
+As the Duke returned out of the garden, I gave him the paper; but
+instead of handing it to the Lord Perth, as I had hoped he would do, he
+held it in his own hand, by which I perceived that if he had noticed by
+whom it was presented, and looked at it before he went into the palace,
+I would speedily be seized on the spot, unless I could accomplish my
+escape.
+
+But how to effect that was no easy thing; for the multitude around was
+very great, and but three narrow yetts allowed of egress from the
+enclosure--one leading into the garden, one to the palace, and the other
+into the Canongate. I therefore calmly put my trust in Him who alone
+could save me, and remained, as it were, an indifferent spectator,
+following the Duke with an anxious eye.
+
+Having passed from the garden into the court, the multitude followed him
+with great eagerness, and I also went in with them, and walked very
+deliberately across the front of the palace to the south-east corner,
+where there was a postern door that opened into the road leading to the
+King's park from the Cowgate-port, along the outside of the town wall. I
+then mended my pace, but not to any remarkable degree, and so returned
+to the house of Mrs Brownlee.
+
+Scarcely was I well in, when Heron, her son, came flying to her with a
+report that a man was seized in the palace garden who had threatened the
+Duke's life, and he was fearful lest it had been me; and I was much
+grieved by these tidings, in case any honest man should be put to the
+torture on my account; but the Lord had mercifully ordained it
+otherwise.
+
+In the course of the night Heron Brownlee, after closing his shop, came
+again and told me that no one had been taken, but that some person in
+the multitude had given the Duke a dreadful paper, which had caused
+great consternation and panic; and that a council was sitting at that
+late hour with the Duke, expresses having arrived with accounts of the
+same paper having been seen on the doors of many churches, both in
+Nithsdale and the shire of Ayr. The alarm, indeed, raged to such a
+degree among all those who knew in their consciences how they merited
+the doom we had pronounced, that it was said the very looks of many were
+withered as with a pestilent vapour.
+
+Yet, though terrified at the vengeance declared against their guilt,
+neither the Duke nor the Privy Council were to be deterred from their
+malignant work. The curse of infatuation was upon them, and instead of
+changing the rule which had caused the desperation that they dreaded,
+they heated the furnace of persecution sevenfold; and voted, That
+whosoever owned or refused to disown the declaration should be put to
+death in the presence of two witnesses, though unarmed when taken; and
+the soldiers were not only ordered to enforce the test, but were
+instructed to put such as adhered to the declaration at once to the
+sword, and to slay those who refused to disown it; and women were
+ordered to be drowned. But my pen sickens with the recital of horrors,
+and I shall pass by the dreadful things that ensued, with only remarking
+that these bloody instructions consummated the doom of the Stuarts; for
+scarcely were they well published when the Duke hastened to London, and
+soon after his man-sworn brother, Charles, the great author of all our
+woes, was cut off by poison, as it was most currently believed, and the
+Duke proclaimed King in his stead. What change we obtained by the
+calamity of his accession will not require many sentences to unfold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI
+
+
+As soon as it was known abroad that Charles the Second was dead, the
+Covenanters who had taken refuge in Holland from the Persecution
+assembled to consult what ought then to be done; for the papist James
+Stuart, on the death of his brother, had caused himself to be proclaimed
+King of Scotland, without taking those oaths by which alone he could be
+entitled to assume the Scottish crown.
+
+At the head of this congregation was the Earl of Argyle, who, some years
+before, had incurred the aversion of the tyrant to such a degree that,
+by certain of those fit tools for any crime, then in dismal abundance
+about the court of Holyrood, he had procured his condemnation as a
+traitor, and would have brought him to the scaffold, had the Earl not
+fortunately effected his escape. And it was resolved by that
+congregation that the principal personages then present should form
+themselves into a Council, to concert the requisite measures for the
+deliverance of their native land; the immediate issue of which was,
+that a descent should be made by Argyle among his vassals, in order to
+draw together a sufficient host to enable them to wage war against the
+Usurper, for so they lawfully and rightly denominated James Stuart.
+
+The first hint that I gleaned of this design was through the means of
+Mrs Brownlee. She was invited one afternoon by the gentlewoman of the
+Lady Sophia Lindsay, the Earl's daughter-in-law, to view certain
+articles of female bravery which had been sent from Holland by his
+Lordship to her mistress; and, as her custom was, she, on her return
+home, descanted at large of all that she had seen and heard.
+
+The receipt, at that juncture, of such gear from the Earl of Argyle, by
+such a Judith of courage and wisdom as the Lady Sophia Lindsay, seemed
+to me very remarkable, and I could not but jealouse that there was some
+thing about it like the occultation of a graver correspondence. I
+therefore began to question Mrs Brownlee how the paraphernalia had come,
+and what the Earl, according to the last accounts, was doing; which led
+her to expatiate on many things, though vague and desultory, that were
+yet in concordance with what I had overheard the Lord Perth say to the
+Earl of Aberdeen in the Bishop's house. In the end, I gathered that the
+presents were brought over by the skipper of a sloop, one Roderick
+Macfarlane, whom I forthwith determined to see, in order to pick from
+him what intelligence I could, without being at the time well aware in
+what manner the same would prove useful; I felt myself, however, stirred
+from within to do so; and I had hitherto, in all that concerned my
+avenging vow, obeyed every instinctive impulse.
+
+Accordingly, next morning I went early to the shore of Leith, and soon
+found the vessel and Roderick Macfarlane, to whom I addressed myself,
+inquiring, as if I intended to go thither, when he was likely to depart
+again for Amsterdam.
+
+While I was speaking to him, I observed something in his mien above his
+condition; and that his hands were fair and delicate, unlike those of
+men inured to maritime labour. He perceived that I was particular in my
+inspection, and his countenance became troubled, and he looked as if he
+wist not what to do.
+
+"Fear no ill," said I to him; "I am one in the jaws of jeopardy; in
+sooth I have no intent to pass into Holland, but only to learn whether
+there be any hope that the Earl of Argyle and those with him will try to
+help their covenanted brethren at home."
+
+On hearing me speak so openly the countenance of the man brightened, and
+after eyeing me with a sharp scrutiny, he invited me to come down into
+the body of the bark, where we had some frank communion, his confidence
+being won by the plain tale of who I was and what I had endured. The
+Lord indeed was pleased, throughout that period of fears and
+tribulation, marvellously to endow the persecuted with a singular and
+sympathetic instinct, whereby they were enabled at once to discern their
+friends; for the dangers and difficulties, to which we were subject in
+our intercourse, afforded no time for those testimonies and experiences
+that in ordinary occasions are required to open the hearts of men to one
+another.
+
+After some general discourse, Roderick Macfarlane told me, that his
+vessel, though seemingly only for traffic, had been hired by a certain
+Madam Smith, in Amsterdam, and was manned by Highlanders of a degree
+above the common, for the purpose of opening a correspondence between
+Argyle and his friends in Scotland. Whereupon I proffered myself to
+assist in establishing a communication with the heads and leaders of the
+Covenanters in the West Country, and particularly with Mr Renwick and
+his associates, the Cameronians, who, though grievously scattered and
+hunted, were yet able to do great things in the way of conveying
+letters, or of intercepting the emissaries and agents of the Privy
+Council that might be employed to contravene the Earl's projects.
+
+Thus it was that I came to be concerned in Argyle's unfortunate
+expedition--if that can be called unfortunate, which, though in itself a
+failure, yet ministered to make the scattered children of the Covenant
+again co-operate for the achievement of their common freedom. Doubtless
+the expedition was undertaken before the persecuted were sufficiently
+ripened to be of any effective service. The Earl counted overmuch on the
+spirit which the Persecution had raised; he thought that the weight of
+the tyranny had compressed us all into one body. But, alas! it had been
+so great, that it had not only bruised, but broken us asunder into many
+pieces; and time, and care, and much persuasion, were all requisite to
+solder the fragments together.
+
+As the spring advanced, being, in the manner related, engaged in
+furthering the purposes of the exiled Covenanters, I prepared, through
+the instrumentality of divers friends, many in the West Country to be in
+readiness to join the Earl's standard of deliverance. It is not however
+to be disguised, that the work went on but slowly, and that the people
+heard of the intended descent with something like an actionless
+wonderment, in consequence of those by whom it had been planned not
+sending forth any declaration of their views and intents. And this
+indisposition, especially among the Cameronians, became a settled
+reluctance, when, after the Earl had reached Campbelton, he published
+that purposeless proclamation, wherein, though the wrongs and woes of
+the kingdom were pithily recited, the nature of the redress proposed was
+in no manner manifest. It was plain indeed, by many signs, that the
+Lord's time was not yet come for the work to thrive.
+
+The divisions in Argyle's councils were greater even than those among
+the different orders into which the Covenanters had been long split--the
+very Cameronians might have been sooner persuaded to refrain from
+insisting on points of doctrine and opinion, at least till the adversary
+was overthrown, than those who were with the ill-fated Earl to act with
+union among themselves. In a word, all about the expedition was
+confusion and perplexity, and the omens and auguries of ruin showed how
+much it wanted the favour that is better than the strength of numbers,
+or the wisdom of mighty men. But to proceed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII
+
+
+Sir John Cochrane, one of those who were with Argyle, had, by some
+espial of his own, a correspondence with divers of the Covenanters in
+the shire of Ayr; and he was so heartened by their representations of
+the spirit among them, that he urged, and overcame the Earl, to let him
+make a trial on that coast before waiting till the Highlanders were
+roused. Accordingly, with the three ships and the men they had brought
+from Holland, he went toward Largs, famed in old time for a great battle
+fought there; but, on arriving opposite to the shore, he found it
+guarded by the powers and forces of the government, in so much, that he
+was fain to direct his course farther up the river; and weighing anchor
+sailed for Greenock.
+
+It happened at this juncture, after conferring with several of weight
+among the Cameronians, that I went to Greenock for the purpose of taking
+shipping for any place where I was likely to find Argyle, in order to
+represent to him, that, unless there was a clear account of what he and
+others with him proposed to do, he could expect no cooperation from the
+societies; and I reached the town just as the three ships were coming in
+sight.
+
+I had not well alighted from my horse at Dugal M'Vicar the smith's
+public,--the best house it is in the town, and slated. It stands beside
+an oak-tree on the open shore, below the Mansion-house-brae, above the
+place where the mariners boil their tar-pots. As I was saying, I had not
+well alighted there, when a squadron of certain time-serving and
+prelatic-inclined inheritors of the shire of Renfrew, under the command
+of Houston of that Ilk, came galloping to the town as if they would have
+devoured Argyle, host, and ships and all; and they rode straight to the
+minister's glebe, where, behind the kirk-yard dyke, they set themselves
+in battle array with drawn swords, the vessels having in the meanwhile
+come to anchor fornent the kirk.
+
+Like the men of the town I went to be an onlooker, at a distance, of
+what might ensue; and a sore heart it was to me, to see and to hear that
+the Greenock folk stood so much in dread of their superior, Sir John
+Shaw, that they durst not, for fear of his black-hole, venture to say
+that day whether they were papists, prelates, or presbyterians, he
+himself not being in the way to direct them.
+
+Shortly after the ships had cast anchor, Major Fullarton, with a party
+of some ten or twelve men, landed at the burn-foot, near the kirk, and
+having shown a signal for parley, Houston and his men went to him, and
+began to chafe and chide him for invading the country.
+
+"We are no invaders," said the Major, "we have come to our native land
+to preserve the protestant religion; and I am grieved that such brave
+gentlemen, as ye appear to be, should be seen in the cause of a papist
+tyrant and usurper."
+
+"Ye lee," cried Houston, and fired his pistol at the Major, the like did
+his men; but they were so well and quickly answered in the same
+language, that they soon were obligated to flee like drift to the brow
+of a hill, called Kilblain-brae, where they again showed face.
+
+Those on board the ships seeing what was thus doing on the land, pointed
+their great guns to the airt where the cavaliers had rallied, and fired
+them with such effect, that the stoure and stones brattled about the
+lugs of the heritors, which so terrified them all that they scampered
+off; and, it is said, some drew not bridle till they were in Paisley
+with whole skins, though at some cost of leather.
+
+When these tyrant tools were thus discomfited, Sir John Cochrane came on
+shore, and tried in vain to prevail on the inhabitants to join in
+defence of religion and liberty. So he sent for the baron-bailie, who
+was the ruling power of the town in the absence of their great Sir John,
+and ordered him to provide forthwith two hundred bolls of meal for the
+ships. But the bailie, a shrewd and gausie man, made so many
+difficulties in the gathering of the meal, to waste time till help would
+come, that the knight was glad to content himself with little more than
+a fifth part of his demand.
+
+Meanwhile I had made my errand known to Sir John Cochrane, and when he
+went off with the meal-sacks to the ships I went with him, and we sailed
+the same night to the castle of Allengreg, where Argyle himself then
+was.
+
+Whatever doubts and fears I had of the success of the expedition, were
+all wofully confirmed, when I saw how things were about that unfortunate
+nobleman. The controversies in our councils at the Pentland raid were
+more than renewed among those who were around Argyle; and it was plain
+to me that the sense of ruin was upon his spirit; for, after I had told
+him the purport of my mission, he said to me in a mournful manner,--
+
+"I can discern no party in this country that desire to be relieved;
+there are some hidden ones, no doubt, but only my poor friends here in
+Argyle seem willing to be free. God hath so ordered it, and it must be
+for the best. I submit myself to His will."
+
+I felt the truth of what he said, that the tyranny had indeed bred
+distrust among us, and that the patience of men was so worn out that
+very many were inclined to submit from mere weariness of spirit;--but I
+added, to hearten him, if one of my condition may say so proud a thing
+of so great a person, That were the distinct ends of his intents made
+more clearly manifest, maybe the dispersed hearts of the Covenanters
+would yet be knit together. "Some think, my Lord, ye're for the Duke of
+Monmouth to be king, but that will ne'er do,--the rightful heirs canna
+be set aside. James Stuart may be, and should be put down; but,
+according to the customs registered, as I hae read in the ancient
+chronicles of this realm, when our nation in olden times cut off a king
+for his misdeeds, the next lawful heir was aye raised to the throne."
+
+To this the Earl made no answer, but continued some time thoughtful, and
+then said,--
+
+"It rests not all with me,--those who are with me, as you may well note,
+take over much upon them, and will not be controlled. They are like the
+waves, raised and driven wheresoever any blast of rumour wiseth them to
+go. I gave a letter of trust to one of their emissaries, and, like the
+raven, he has never returned. If, however, I could get to Inverary, I
+doubt not yet that something might be done; for I should then be in the
+midst of some that would reverence Argyle."
+
+But why need I dwell on these melancholious incidents? Next day the Earl
+resolved to make the attempt to reach Inverary, and I went with him; but
+after the castle of Arkinglass, in the way thither, had been taken, he
+was obligated, by the appearance of two English frigates which had been
+sent in pursuit of the expedition, to return to Allengreg; for the main
+stores and ammunition brought from Holland were lodged in that castle;
+the ships also were lying there; all which, in a manner, were at stake,
+and no garrison adequate to defend the same from so great a power.
+
+On returning to Allengreg, Argyle saw it would be a golden achievement
+if, in that juncture, he could master the frigates; so he ordered his
+force, which amounted to about a thousand men, to man the ships and four
+prizes which he had, together with about thirty cowan boats belonging to
+his vassals, and to attack the frigates. But in this also he was
+disappointed, for those who were with him, and wedded to the purpose of
+going to the Lowlands, mutinied against the scheme, as too hazardous,
+and obliged him to give up the attempt, and to leave the castle with a
+weak and incapable garrison.
+
+Accordingly, reluctant, but yielding to these blind counsels, after
+quitting Allengreg, we marched for the Lowlands, and at the head of the
+Gareloch, where we halted, the garrison which had been left at Allengreg
+joined us with the disastrous intelligence that, finding themselves
+unable to withstand the frigates, they had abandoned all.
+
+I was near to Argyle when the news of this was brought to him, and I
+observed that he said nothing; but his cheek faded, and he hastily wrung
+his hands.
+
+Having crossed the river Leven a short way above Dumbarton, without
+suffering any material molestation, we halted for the night; but as we
+were setting our watches a party of the government force appeared, so
+that, instead of getting any rest after our heavy march, we were
+obligated to think of again moving.
+
+The Earl would fain have fought with that force, his numbers being
+superior, but he was again overruled; so that all we could do was,
+during the night, leaving our camp-fires burning for a delusion, to make
+what haste we could toward Glasgow.
+
+In this the uncountenanced fortunes of the expedition were again seen.
+Our guides in the dark misled us; so that, instead of being taken to
+Glasgow, we were, after grievous traversing in the moors, landed on the
+banks of the Clyde near Kilpatrick, where the whole force broke up, Sir
+John Cochrane, being fey for the West Country, persuading many to go
+with him over the water, in order to make for the shire of Ayr.
+
+The Earl, seeing himself thus deserted, and but few besides those of his
+own kin left with him, rode about a mile on towards Glasgow, with the
+intent of taking some rest in the house of one who had been his servant;
+but on reaching the door it was shut in his face and barred, and
+admission peremptorily refused. He said nothing, but turned round to us
+with a smile of such resigned sadness that it brought tears into every
+eye.
+
+Seeing that his fate was come to such extremity, I proposed to exchange
+clothes with him, that he might the better escape, and to conduct him to
+the West Country, where, if any chance were yet left, it was to be found
+there, as Sir John Cochrane had represented. Whereupon he sent his
+kinsmen to make the best of their way back to the Highlands, to try what
+could be done among his clan; and, having accepted a portion of my
+apparel, he went to the ferry-boat with Major Fullarton, and we crossed
+the water together.
+
+On landing at the Renfrew side the Earl went forward alone, a little
+before the Major and me; but on reaching the ford at Inchinnan he was
+stopped by two soldiers, who laid hands upon him, one on each side, and
+in the grappling one of them, the Earl fell to the ground. In a moment,
+however, his Lordship started up, and got rid of them by presenting his
+pistols. But five others at the same instant came in sight, and fired
+and ran in at him, and knocked him down with their swords. "Alas!
+unfortunate Argyle," I heard him cry as he fell; and the soldiers were
+so astonished at having so rudely treated so great a man, that they
+stood still with awe and dropped their swords, and some of them shed
+tears of sorrow for his fate.
+
+Seeing what had thus happened, Major Fullarton and I fled and hid
+ourselves behind a hedge, for we saw another party of troopers coming
+towards the spot,--we heard afterwards that it was Sir John Shaw of
+Greenock, with some of the Renfrewshire heritors, by whom the Earl was
+conducted a prisoner to Glasgow. But of the dismal indignities, and the
+degradations to which he was subjected, and of his doleful martyrdom,
+the courteous reader may well spare me the sad recital, as they are
+recorded in all true British histories, and he will accept for the same
+those sweet but mournful lines which Argyle indited in the dungeon:--
+
+   Thou, passenger, that shalt have so much time
+   To view my grave, and ask what was my crime;
+   No stain of error, no black vice's brand,
+   Was that which chased me from my native land.
+   Love to my country--twice sentenced to die--
+   Constrain'd my hands forgotten arms to try.
+   More by friends' fraud my fall proceeded hath
+   Than foes, though now they thrice decreed my death.
+   On my attempt though Providence did frown,
+   His oppress'd people God at length shall own;
+   Another hand, by more successful speed,
+   Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head.
+   Though my head fall, that is no tragic story,
+   Since, going hence, I enter endless glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII
+
+
+The news of the fall of Argyle was as gladdening wine to the cruel
+spirit of James Stuart. It was treated by him as victory was of old
+among the conquering Romans, and he ordained medals of brass and of
+silver to be made, to commemorate, as a glorious triumph, the deed that
+was a crime. But he was not content with such harmless monuments of
+insensate exultation; he considered the blow as final to the
+presbyterian cause, and openly set himself to effect the
+re-establishment of the idolatrous abominations of the mass and monkrie.
+
+The Lord Perth and his brother, the Lord Melford, and a black catalogue
+of others, whose names, for the fame of Scotland, I would fain expunge
+with the waters of oblivion, considering Religion as a thing of royal
+regulation, professed themselves papists, and got, as the price of their
+apostacy and perdition, certain places of profit in the government.
+Clouds of the papistical locust were then allured into the land, to eat
+it up leaf and blade again. Schools to teach children the deceits, and
+the frauds, and the sins of the jesuits, were established even in the
+palace of Holyrood-house; and the chapel, which had been cleansed in the
+time of Queen Mary, was again defiled with the pageantries of idolatry.
+
+But the godly people of Edinburgh called to mind the pious bravery of
+their forefathers, and all that they had done in the Reformation; and
+they rose, as it were with one accord, and demolished the schools, and
+purified the chapel, even to desolation, and forced the papist priest to
+abjure his own idols. The old abhorrence of the abominations was
+revived; for now it was clearly seen what King Charles and his brother
+had been seeking, in the relentless persecution which they had so long
+sanctioned; and many in consequence, who had supported and obeyed the
+prelatic apostasy as a thing but of innocent forms, trembled at the
+share which they had taken in the guilt of that aggression, and their
+dismay was unspeakable.
+
+The tyrant, however, soon saw that he had over-counted the degree of the
+humiliation of the land; and being disturbed by the union which his open
+papistry was causing among all denominations of protestants, he changed
+his mood, and from force resorting to fraud, publishing a general
+toleration,--a device of policy which greatly disheartened the prelatic
+faction; for they saw that they had only laboured to strengthen a
+prerogative, the first effectual exercise of which was directed against
+themselves, every one discerning that the indulgence was framed to give
+head-rope to the papists. But the Covenanters made use of it to advance
+the cause of the Gospel, as I shall now proceed to rehearse, as well as
+how through it I was enabled to perform my avenging vow.
+
+Among the exiled Covenanters who returned with Argyle, and with whom I
+became acquainted while with him, was Thomas Ardmillan, when, after my
+escape at the time when the Earl was taken, I fell in again with at
+Kirkintilloch, as I was making the best of my way into the East Country,
+and we went together to Arbroath, where he embarked for Holland.
+
+Being then minded to return back to Edinburgh, and to abide again with
+Mrs Brownlee, in whose house I had found a safe asylum, and a convenient
+place of espial, after seeing him on board the vessel, I also took
+shipping, and returned to Leith under an assurance that I should hear of
+him from time to time. It was not, however, until the indulgence was
+proclaimed that I heard from him, about which era he wrote to me a most
+scriptural letter, by the reverend Mr Patrick Warner, who had received a
+call from the magistrates and inhabitants of the covenanted town of
+Irvine, to take upon him the ministry of their parish.
+
+Mr Warner having accepted the call, on arriving at Leith sent to Mrs
+Brownlee's this letter, with a request that, if I was alive and there,
+he would be glad to see me in his lodging before departing to the West
+Country.
+
+As the fragrance of Mr Warner's sufferings was sweet among all the true
+and faithful, I was much regaled with this invitation, and went
+forthwith to Leith, where I found him in a house that is clad with
+oyster-shells, in the Tod's-hole Close. He was sitting in a fair chamber
+therein, with that worthy bailie that afterwards was next year, at the
+time of the Revolution, Mr Cornelius Neilsone, and his no less excellent
+compeer on the same great occasion, Mr George Samsone, both persons of
+godly repute. Mr Cheyne, the town-clerk, was likewise present, a most
+discreet character, but being a lawyer by trade, and come of an
+episcopal stock, he was rather a thought, it was said, inclined to the
+prelatic sect. Divers others, douce and religious characters, were also
+there, especially Mr Jaddua Fyfe, a merchant of women's gear, then in
+much renown for his suavity. Mr Warner was relating to them many
+consolatory things of the worth and piety of the Prince and Princess of
+Orange, to whom the eyes of all the protestants, especially of the
+presbyterians, were at that time directed.
+
+"Aye, aye," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doot, nae doot, but the Prince is
+a man of a sweet-smelling odour,--that's in the way of character;--and
+the Princess; aye, aye, it is well known, that she's a pure snowdrop,
+and a lily o' the valley in the Lord's garden,--that's in the way of
+piety."
+
+"They're the heirs presumptive to the crown," subjoined Mr Cheyne.
+
+"They're weel entitled to the reverence and respect of us a'," added Mr
+Cornelius Neilsone.
+
+"When I first got the call from Irvine," resumed Mr Warner, "that
+excellent lady, and precious vessel of godliness, the Countess of
+Sutherland, being then at the Hague, sought my allowance to let the
+Princess know of my acceptance of the call, and to inquire if her
+Highness had any commands for Scotland; and the Princess in a most
+gracious manner signified to her that the best thing I, and those who
+were like me, could do for her, was to be earnest in praying that she
+might be kept firm and faithful in the reformed religion, adding many
+tender things of her sincere sympathy for the poor persecuted people of
+Scotland, and recommending that I should wait on the Prince before
+taking my departure. I was not, however, forward to thrust myself into
+such honour; but at last yielding to the exhortations of my friends, I
+went to the house of Mynheer Bentinck, and gave him my name for an
+audience; and one morning, about eight of the clock, his servant called
+for me and took me to his house, and he himself conveyed me into the
+presence of the Prince, where, leaving me with him, we had a most
+weighty and edifying conversation."
+
+"Aye, aye," interposed Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "it was a great thing to converse
+wi' a prince; and how did he behave himself,--that's in the way o'
+manners?"
+
+"Ye need na debate, Mr Fyfe, about that," replied Mr Samsone, "the
+Prince kens what it's to be civil, especially to his friends;" and I
+thought, in saying these words, that Mr Samsone looked particular
+towards me.
+
+"And what passed?" said the town-clerk, in a way as if he pawkily
+jealoused something. Mr Warner, however, in his placid and minister-like
+manner, responded,--
+
+"I told his Highness how I had received the call from Irvine, and
+thought it my duty to inquire if there was any thing wherein I could
+serve him in Scotland.
+
+"To this the Prince replied in a benign manner--"
+
+"Aye, aye," ejaculated Mr Jaddua Fyfe, "nae doubt it was in a benignant
+manner, and in a cordial manner. Aye, aye, he has nae his ill-wand to
+seek when a customer's afore the counter,--that's in the way o'
+business."
+
+"'I understand,' said his Highness," continued Mr Warner, "'you are
+called home upon the toleration lately granted; but I can assure you,
+that toleration is not granted for any kindness to your party, but to
+favour the papists, and to divide you among yourselves; yet I think you
+may be so wise as to take good of it, and prevent the evil designed,
+and, instead of dividing, come to a better harmony among yourselves when
+you have liberty to see and meet more freely.'
+
+"To which," said Mr Warner, "I answered, that I heartily wished it might
+prove so, and that nothing would be wanting on my part to make it so;
+and I added, the presbyterians in Scotland, Great Sir, are looked upon
+as a very despicable party; but those who do so measure them by the
+appearance at Pentland and Bothwell, as if the whole power of the
+presbyterians had been drawn out there; but I can assure your Highness
+that such are greatly mistaken; for many firm presbyterians were not
+satisfied as to the grounds and manner of those risings, and did not
+join; and others were borne down by the Persecution. In verity I am
+persuaded, that if Scotland were left free, of three parts of the people
+two would be found presbyterians. We are indeed a poor persecuted party,
+and have none under God to look to for our help and relief but your
+Highness, on account of that relation you and the Princess have to the
+crown."
+
+"That was going a great length, Mr Warner," said Mr Cheyne, the
+town-clerk.
+
+"No a bit, no a bit," cried I; and Mr Jaddua Fyfe gave me an approving
+gloom, while Mr Warner quietly continued,--
+
+"I then urged many things, hoping that the Lord would incline his
+Highness' heart to espouse His interest in Scotland, and befriend the
+persecuted presbyterians. To which the Prince replied--"
+
+"Aye, aye, I like to hear what his Highness said, that's in the way of
+counselling," said Mr Jaddua Fyfe.
+
+"The Prince," replied Mr Warner, "then spoke to me earnestly, saying,--
+
+"'I have been educated a presbyterian, and I hope so to continue; and I
+assure you, if ever it be in my power, I shall make the presbyterian
+church-government the established church-government of Scotland, and of
+this you may assure your friends, as in prudence you find it
+convenient.'"
+
+Discerning the weight and intimation that were in these words, I said,
+when Mr Warner had made an end, that it was a great thing to know the
+sentiment of the Prince; for by all signs the time could not be far off
+when we would maybe require to put his assurance and promise to the
+test. At which words of mine there were many exchanges of gathered brows
+and significant nods, and Mr Jaddua Fyfe, to whom I was sitting next,
+slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution,
+that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and I gave inward
+thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning to
+kithe among us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX
+
+
+Besides Mr Warner, many other ministers, who had taken refuge in foreign
+countries, were called home, and it began openly to be talked that King
+James would to a surety be set aside, on account of his malversations in
+the kingly office in England, and the even-down course he was pursuing
+there, as in Scotland, to abolish all property that the subjects had in
+the ancient laws and charters of the realm. But the thing came to no
+definite head till that jesuit-contrived device for cutting out the
+protestant heirs to the crown was brought to maturity, by palming a
+man-child upon the nation as the lawful son of the Tyrant and his
+papistical wife.
+
+In the meantime, I had not been idle in disseminating throughout the
+land, by the means of the Cameronians, a faithful account of what Mr
+Warner had related of the pious character and presbyterian dispositions
+of the Prince of Orange; and through a correspondence that I opened with
+Thomas Ardmillan, Mynheer Bentinck was kept so informed of the growing
+affection for his master in Scotland, as soon emboldened the Prince,
+with what he heard of the inclinations of the English people, to prepare
+a great host and navy for the deliverance of the kingdoms. In the midst
+of these human means and stratagems, the bright right hand of Providence
+was shiningly visible; for, by the news of the Prince's preparations, it
+smote the councils of King James with confusion and a fatal distraction.
+
+Though he had so alienated the Scottish lieges, that none but the basest
+of men among us acknowledged his authority, yet he summoned all his
+forces into England, leaving his power to be upheld here by those only
+who were vile enough to wish for the continuance of slavery. Thus was
+the way cleared for the advent of the deliverer; and the faithful nobles
+and gentry of Scotland, as the army was removed, came flocking into
+Edinburgh, and the Privy Council, which had been so little slack in any
+crime, durst not molest them, though the purpose of their being there
+was a treason which the members could not but all well know. Every
+thing, in a word, was now moving onward to a great event; all in the
+land was as when the thaw comes, and the ice is breaking, and the snows
+melting, and the waters flowing, and the rivers are bursting their
+frozen fetters, and the sceptre of winter is broken, and the wreck of
+his domination is drifting and perishing away.
+
+To keep the Privy Council in the confusion of the darkness of ignorance,
+I concerted with many of the Cameronians that they should spread
+themselves along the highways, and intercept the government expresses
+and emissaries, to the end that neither the King's faction in England
+nor in Scotland might know aught of the undertakings of each other; and
+when Thomas Ardmillan sent me, from Mynheer Bentinck, the Prince's
+declaration for Scotland, I hastened into the West Country, that I might
+exhort the covenanted there to be in readiness, and from the tolbooth
+stair of Irvine, yea, on the very step where my heart was so pierced by
+the cries of my son, I was the first in Scotland to publish that
+glorious pledge of our deliverance. On the same day, at the same hour,
+the like was done by others of our friends at Glasgow and at Ayr; and
+there was shouting, and joy, and thanksgiving, and the magnificent voice
+of freedom resounded throughout the land, and ennobled all hearts again
+with bravery.
+
+When the news of the Prince's landing at Torbay arrived, we felt that
+liberty was come; but long oppression had made many distrustful, and
+from day to day rumours were spread by the despairing members of the
+prelatic sect, the breathings of their wishes, that made us doubt
+whether we ought to band ourselves into any array for warfare. In this
+state of swithering and incertitude we continued for some time, till I
+began to grow fearful lest the zeal which had been so rekindled would
+sink and go out if not stirred again in some effectual manner; so I
+conferred with Quintin Fullarton, who in all these providences had been
+art and part with me, from the day of the meeting with Mr Renwick near
+Laswade; and as the Privy Council, when it was known the Prince had been
+invited over, had directed beacons to be raised on the tops of many
+mountains, to be fired as signals of alarm for the King's party when the
+Dutch fleet should be seen approaching the coast, we devised, as a mean
+for calling forth the strength and spirit of the Covenanters, that we
+should avail ourselves of their preparations.
+
+Accordingly we instructed four alert young men, of the Cameronian
+societies, severally and unknown to each other, to be in attendance on
+the night of the tenth of December, at the beacons on the hills of
+Knockdolian, Lowthers, Blacklarg, and Bencairn, that they might fire the
+same if need or signal should so require, Quintin Fullarton having
+undertaken to kindle the one on Mistylaw himself.
+
+The night was dark, but it was ordained that the air should be moist and
+heavy, and in that state when the light of flame spreads farthest.
+Meanwhile fearful reports from Ireland of papistical intents to maintain
+the cause of King James made the fancies of men awake and full of
+anxieties. The prelatic curates were also so heartened by those rumours
+and tidings, that they began to recover from the dismay with which the
+news of the Prince's landing had overwhelmed them, and to shoot out
+again the horns of antichristian arrogance. But when, about three hours
+after sunset, the beacon on the Mistylaw was fired, and when hill after
+hill was lighted up, the whole country was filled with such
+consternation and panic, that I was myself smitten with the dread of
+some terrible consequences. Horsemen passed furiously in all
+directions--bells were rung, and drums beat--mothers were seen flying
+with their children they knew not whither--cries and lamentations echoed
+on every side. The skies were kindled with a red glare, and none could
+tell where the signal was first shown. Some said the Irish had landed
+and were burning the towns in the south, and no one knew where to flee
+from the unknown and invisible enemy.
+
+In the meantime, our Covenanters of the West assembled at their
+trysting-place, to the number of more than six thousand armed men, ready
+and girded for battle; and this appearance was an assurance that no
+power was then in all the Lowlands able to gainsay such a force; and
+next day, when it was discovered that the alarm had no real cause, it
+was determined that the prelatic priests should be openly discarded from
+their parishes. Our vengeance, however, was not meted upon them by the
+measure of our sufferings, but by the treatment which our own pastors
+had borne; and, considering how many of them had acted as spies and
+accusers against us, it is surprising, that of two hundred, who were
+banished from the parishes, few received any cause of complaint; even
+the poor feckless thing, Andrew Dornock, was decently expelled from the
+manse of Quharist, on promising he would never return.
+
+This riddance of the malignants was the first fruit of the expulsion of
+James Stuart from the throne; but it was not long till we were menaced
+with new and even greater sufferings than we had yet endured. For though
+the tyrant had fled, he had left Claverhouse, under the title of
+Viscount Dundee, behind him; and in the fearless activity of that proud
+and cruel warrior, there was an engine sufficient to have restored him
+to his absolute throne, as I shall now proceed to rehearse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC
+
+
+The true and faithful of the West, by the event recorded in the
+foregoing chapter, being so instructed with respect to their own power
+and numbers, stood in no reverence of any force that the remnants of the
+Tyrant's sect and faction could afford to send against them. I therefore
+resolved to return to Edinburgh; for the longing of my grandfather's
+spirit to see the current and course of public events flowing from their
+fountain-head, was upon me, and I had not yet so satisfied the yearnings
+of justice as to be able to look again on the ashes of my house and the
+tomb of Sarah Lochrig and her daughters. Accordingly, soon after the
+turn of the year I went thither, where I found all things in uncertainty
+and commotion.
+
+Claverhouse, or, as he was now titled, Lord Dundee, with that scorn of
+public opinion and defect of all principle, save only a canine fidelity,
+a dog's love, to his papistical master, domineered with his dragoons, as
+if he himself had been regnant monarch of Scotland; and it was plain and
+probable, that unless he was soon bridled, he would speedily act upon
+the wider stage of the kingdom the same Mahound-like part that he had
+played in the prenticeship of his cruelties of the shire of Ayr. The
+peril, indeed, from his courage and activity, was made to me very
+evident, by a conversation that I had with one David Middleton, who had
+come from England on some business of the Jacobites there, in connection
+with Dundee.
+
+Providence led me to fall in with this person one morning, as we were
+standing among a crowd of other onlookers, seeing Claverhouse reviewing
+his men in the front court of Holyrood-house. I happened to remark, for
+in sooth it must be so owned, that the Viscount had a brave though a
+proud look, and that his voice had the manliness of one ordained to
+command.
+
+"Yes," replied David Middleton, "he is a born soldier, and if the King
+is to be restored, he is the man that will do it. When his Majesty was
+at Rochester, before going to France, I was there with my master, and
+being called in to mend the fire, I heard Dundee and my Lord, then with
+the King, discoursing concerning the royal affairs.
+
+"'The question,' said Lord Dundee to his Majesty, 'is, whether you shall
+stay in England or go to France? My opinion, sir, is, that you should
+stay in England, make your stand here, and summon your subjects to your
+allegiance. 'Tis true, you have disbanded your army, but give me leave,
+and I will undertake to get ten thousand men of it together, and march
+through all England with your standard at their head, and drive the
+Dutch before you;' and," added David Middleton, "let him have time, and
+I doubt not, that, even without the King's leave, he will do as much."
+
+Whether the man in this did brag of a knowledge that he had not, the
+story seemed so likely, that it could scarcely be questioned; so I
+consulted with my faithful friend and companion, Quintin Fullarton, and
+other men of weight among the Cameronians; and we agreed, that those of
+the societies who were scattered along the borders to intercept the
+correspondence between the English and Scottish Jacobites, should be
+called into Edinburgh to daunt the rampageous insolence of Claverhouse.
+
+This was done accordingly; and from the day that they began to appear in
+the streets, the bravery of those who were with him seemed to slacken.
+But still he carried himself as boldly as ever, and persuaded the Duke
+of Gordon, then governor of the castle, not to surrender, nor obey any
+mandate from the Convention of the States, by whom, in that interregnum,
+the rule of the kingdom was exercised. Still, however, the Cameronians
+were coming in, and their numbers became so manifest, that the dragoons
+were backward to show themselves. But their commander affected not to
+value us, till one day a singular thing took place, which, in its
+issues, ended the overawing influence of his presence in Edinburgh.
+
+I happened to be standing with Quintin Fullarton, and some four or five
+other Cameronians, at an entry-mouth forenent the Canongate-cross, when
+Claverhouse, and that tool of tyranny, Sir George Mackenzie the
+advocate, were coming up from the palace; and as they passed, the
+Viscount looked hard at me, and said to Sir George,--
+
+"I have somewhere seen that doure cur before."
+
+Sir George turned round also to look, and I said,--
+
+"It's true, Claverhouse--we met at Drumclog;" and I touched my arm that
+he had wounded there, adding, "and the blood shed that day has not yet
+been paid for."
+
+At these words he made a rush upon me with his sword, but my friends
+were nimbler with theirs; and Sir George Mackenzie interposing, drew him
+off, and they went away together.
+
+The affair, however, ended not here. Sir George, with the subtlety of a
+lawyer, tried to turn it to some account, and making a great ado of it,
+as a design to assassinate Lord Dundee and himself, tried to get the
+Convention to order all strangers to remove from the town. This,
+however, was refused; so that Claverhouse, seeing how the spirit of the
+times was going among the members, and the boldness with which the
+presbyterians and the Covenanters were daily bearding his arrogance,
+withdrew with his dragoons from the city and made for Stirling.
+
+In this retreat from Edinburgh he blew the trumpet of civil war; but in
+less than two hours from the signal, a regiment of eight hundred
+Cameronians was arrayed in the High-street. The son of Argyle, who had
+taken his seat in the Convention as a peer, soon after gathered three
+hundred of the Campbells, and the safety of Scotland now seemed to be
+secured by the arrival of Mackay with three Scotch regiments, then in
+the Dutch service, and which the Prince of Orange had brought with him
+to Torbay.
+
+By the retreat of Claverhouse the Jacobite party in Edinburgh were so
+disheartened, and any endeavour which they afterwards made to rally was
+so crazed with consternation, that it was plain the sceptre had departed
+from their master. The capacity as well as the power for any effectual
+action was indeed evidently taken from them, and the ploughshare was
+driven over the ruins of their cause on the ever-memorable eleventh day
+of April, when William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen.
+
+But though thus the oppressor was cast down from his throne, and though
+thus, in Scotland, the chief agents in the work of deliverance were the
+outlawed Cameronians, as instructed by me, the victory could not be
+complete, nor the trophies hung up in the hall, while the Tyrant
+possessed an instrument of such edge and temper as Claverhouse. As for
+myself, I felt that while the homicide lived the debt of justice and of
+blood due to my martyred family could never be satisfied; and I heard of
+his passing from Stirling into the Highlands, and the wonders he was
+working for the Jacobite cause there, as if nothing had yet been
+achieved toward the fulfilment of my avenging vow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI
+
+
+When Claverhouse left Stirling, he had but sixty horse. In little more
+than a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. He obtained
+reinforcements from Ireland. The Macdonalds, and the Camerons, and the
+Gordons, were all his. A vassal of the Marquis of Athol had declared for
+him even in the castle of Blair, and defended it against the clan of his
+master. An event still more strange was produced by the spell of his
+presence,--the clansmen of Athol deserted their chief, and joined his
+standard. He kindled the hills in his cause, and all the life of the
+North was gathering around him.
+
+Mackay, with the Covenanters, the regiments from Holland, and the
+Cameronians, went from Perth to oppose his entrance into the Lowlands.
+The minds of men were suspended. Should he defeat Mackay, it was plain
+that the crown would soon be restored to James Stuart, and the woes of
+Scotland come again.
+
+In that dismal juncture I was alone; for Quintin Fullarton, with all the
+Cameronians, was with Mackay.
+
+I was an old man, verging on threescore.
+
+I went to and fro in the streets of Edinburgh all day long, inquiring of
+every stranger the news; and every answer that I got was some new
+triumph of Dundee.
+
+No sleep came to my burning pillow, or if indeed my eyelids for very
+weariness fell down, it was only that I might suffer the stings of
+anxiety in some sharper form; for my dreams were of flames kindling
+around me, through which I saw behind the proud and exulting visage of
+Dundee.
+
+Sometimes in the depths of the night I rushed into the street, and I
+listened with greedy ears, thinking I heard the trampling of dragoons
+and the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when I saw three
+or four persons speaking together, I ran towards them, and broke in upon
+their discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer me
+with pity.
+
+But the haste and frenzy of this alarm suddenly changed: I felt that I
+was a chosen instrument; I thought that the ruin which had fallen on me
+and mine was assuredly some great mystery of Providence: I remembered
+the prophecy of my grandfather, that a task was in store for me, though
+I knew not what it was; I forgot my old age and my infirmities; I
+hastened to my chamber; I put money in my purse; I spoke to no one; I
+bought a carabine; and I set out alone to reinforce Mackay.
+
+As I passed down the street, and out at the West-port, I saw the people
+stop and look at me with silence and wonder. As I went along the road,
+several that were passing inquired where I was going so fast? but I
+waived my hand and hurried by.
+
+I reached the Queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. I
+embarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side I had fallen
+asleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumber
+unmolested. When I awoke I felt myself refreshed. I leapt on shore, and
+went again impatiently on.
+
+But my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when I reached Kinross I
+bought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped it
+in the water, and it was a savoury repast.
+
+As I approached the Brigg of Earn I felt age in my limbs, and though the
+spirit was willing, the body could not; and I sat down, and I mourned
+that I was so frail and so feeble. But a marvellous vigour was soon
+again given to me, and I rose refreshed from my resting-place on the
+wall of the bridge, and the same night I reached Perth. I stopped in a
+stabler's till the morning. At break of day, having hired a horse from
+him, I hastened forward to Dunkeld, where he told me Mackay had encamped
+the day before, on his way to defend the Pass of Killicrankie.
+
+The road was thronged with women and children flocking into Perth in
+terror of the Highlanders, but I heeded them not. I had but one thought,
+and that was to reach the scene of war and Claverhouse.
+
+On arriving at the ferry of Inver, the field in front of the Bishop of
+Dunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. Mackay had
+marched towards Blair-Athol, to drive Dundee and the Highlanders, if
+possible, back into the glens and mosses of the North; for he had learnt
+that his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's.
+
+On hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, I halted at the
+ferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that I
+should be able to overtake the army long before it could reach the
+meeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came to
+that turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into the
+Tay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soon
+after saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink,
+slowly and heavily, as the chariots of Pharaoh laboured through the
+sands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as the
+many-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn.
+
+On the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins of
+the ramparts of some ancient world; and I thought of the epochs when the
+days of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants were
+on the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and I felt as if I
+beheld the hand of the Lord in the cloud weighing the things of time in
+His scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again so
+great as that the cause of Claverhouse should be suffered to prevail.
+For my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughts
+as the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with a
+glorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII
+
+
+General Mackay halted the host on a spacious green plain which lies at
+the meeting of the Tummel and the Gary, and which the Highlanders call
+Fascali, because, as the name in their tongue signifies, no trees are
+growing thereon. This place is the threshold of the Pass of
+Killicrankie, through the dark and woody chasms of which the impatient
+waters of the Gary come with hoarse and wrathful mutterings and murmurs.
+The hills and mountains around are built up in more olden and antic
+forms than those of our Lowland parts, and a wild and strange solemnity
+is mingled there with much fantastical beauty, as if, according to the
+minstrelsy of ancient times, sullen wizards and gamesome fairies had
+joined their arts and spells to make a common dwelling-place.
+
+As the soldiers spread themselves over the green bosom of Fascali, and
+piled their arms and furled their banners, and laid their drums on the
+ground, and led their horses to the river, the General sent forward a
+scout through the Pass to discover the movements of Claverhouse, having
+heard that he was coming from the castle of Blair-Athol, to prevent his
+entrance into the Highlands.
+
+The officer sent to make the espial had not been gone above half an hour
+when he came back in great haste to tell that the Highlanders were on
+the brow of a hill above the house of Rinrorie, and that unless the Pass
+was immediately taken possession of, it would be mastered by Claverhouse
+that night.
+
+Mackay, at this news, ordered the trumpets to sound, and as the echoes
+multiplied and repeated the alarm, it was as if all the spirits of the
+hills called the men to arms. The soldiers looked around as they formed
+their ranks, listening with delight and wonder at the universal bravery,
+and I thought of the sight, which Elisha the prophet gave to the young
+man at Dothan, of the mountains covered with horses and chariots of fire
+for his defence against the host of the King of Syria; and I went
+forward with the confidence of assured victory.
+
+As we issued forth from the Pass into the wide country, extending
+towards Lude and Blair-Athol, we saw, as the officer had reported, the
+Highland hosts of Claverhouse arrayed along the lofty brow of the
+mountain, above the house of Rinrorie, their plaids waving in the breeze
+on the hill and their arms glittering to the sun.
+
+Mackay directed the troops, at crossing a raging brook called the
+Girnaig, to keep along a flat of land above the house of Rinrorie, and
+to form, in order of battle, on the field beyond the garden, and under
+the hill where the Highlanders were posted; the baggage and camp
+equipages he at the same time ordered down into a plain that lies
+between the bank on the crown of which the house stands and the river
+Gary. An ancient monumental stone in the middle of the lower plain
+shows, that in some elder age a battle had been fought there, and that
+some warrior of might and fame had fallen.
+
+In taking his ground on that elevated shelf of land, Mackay was minded
+to stretch his left wing to intercept the return of the Highlanders
+towards Blair, and, if possible, oblige them to enter the Pass of
+Killicrankie, by which he would have cut them off from their resources
+in the North, and so perhaps mastered them without any great slaughter.
+
+But Claverhouse discerned the intent of his movement, and before our
+covenanted host had formed their array, it was evident that he was
+preparing to descend; and as a foretaste of the vehemence wherewith the
+Highlanders were coming, we saw them rolling large stones to the brow of
+the hill.
+
+In the meantime the house of Rinrorie having been deserted by the
+family, the lady, with her children and maidens, had fled to Lude or
+Struan, Mackay ordered a party to take possession of it, and to post
+themselves at the windows which look up the hill. I was among those who
+went into the house, and my station was at the easternmost window, in a
+small chamber which is entered by two doors,--the one opening from the
+stair-head, and the other from the drawing-room. In this situation we
+could see but little of the distribution of the army or the positions
+that Mackay was taking, for our view was confined to the face of the
+hill whereon the Highlanders were busily preparing for their descent.
+But I saw Claverhouse on horseback riding to and fro, and plainly
+inflaming their valour with many a courageous gesture; and as he turned
+and winded his prancing war-horse, his breast-plate blazed to the
+setting sun like a beacon on the hill.
+
+When he had seemingly concluded his exhortation, the Highlanders stooped
+forward and hurled down the rocks which they had gathered for their
+forerunners; and while the stones came leaping and bounding with a noise
+like thunder, the men followed in thick and separate bands, and Mackay
+gave the signal to commence firing.
+
+We saw from the windows many of the Highlanders, at the first volley,
+stagger and fall, but the others came furiously down; and before the
+soldiers had time to stick their bayonets into their guns, the broad
+swords of the Clansmen hewed hundreds to the ground.
+
+Within a few minutes the battle was general between the two armies; but
+the smoke of the firing involved all the field, and we could see nothing
+from the windows. The echoes of the mountains raged with the din, and
+the sounds were multiplied by them in so many different places, that we
+could not tell where the fight was hottest. The whole country around
+resounded as with the uproar of a universal battle.
+
+I felt the passion of my spirit return; I could no longer restrain
+myself, nor remain where I was. Snatching up my carabine, I left my
+actionless post at the window, and hurried down stairs, and out of the
+house. I saw by the flashes through the smoke, that the firing was
+spreading down into the plain where the baggage was stationed, and by
+this I knew that there was some movement in the battle; but whether the
+Highlanders or the Covenanters were shifting their ground, I could not
+discover, for the valley was filled with smoke, and it was only at times
+that a sword, like a glance of lightning, could be seen in the cloud
+wherein the thunders and tempest of the conflict were raging.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII
+
+
+As I stood on the brow of the bank in front of Rinrorie-house, a gentle
+breathing of the evening air turned the smoke like the travelling mist
+of the hills, and opening it here and there, I had glimpses of the
+fighting. Sometimes I saw the Highlanders driving the Covenanters down
+the steep, and sometimes I beheld them in their turn on the ground
+endeavouring to protect their unbonneted heads with their targets, but
+to whom the victory was to be given I could discern no sign; and I said
+to myself the prize at hazard is the liberty of the land and the Lord;
+surely it shall not be permitted to the champion of bondage to prevail.
+
+A stronger breathing of the gale came rushing along, and the skirts of
+the smoke where the baggage stood were blown aside, and I beheld many of
+the Highlanders among the wagons plundering and tearing. Then I heard a
+great shouting on the right, and looking that way, I saw the children of
+the Covenant fleeing in remnants across the lower plain, and making
+toward the river. Presently I also saw Mackay with two regiments, all
+that kept the order of discipline, also in the plain. He had lost the
+battle. Claverhouse had won; and the scattered firing, which was
+continued by a few, was to my ears as the riveting of the shackles on
+the arms of poor Scotland for ever. My grief was unspeakable.
+
+I ran to and fro on the brow of the hill--and I stampt with my feet--and
+I beat my breast--and I rubbed my hands with the frenzy of despair--and
+I threw myself on the ground--and all the sufferings of which I have
+written returned upon me--and I started up and I cried aloud the
+blasphemy of the fool, "There is no God."
+
+But scarcely had the dreadful words escaped my profane lips, when I
+heard, as it were, thunders in the heavens, and the voice of an oracle
+crying in the ears of my soul, "The victory of this day is given into
+thy hands!" and strange wonder and awe fell upon me, and a mighty spirit
+entered into mine, and I felt as if I was in that moment clothed with
+the armour of divine might.
+
+I took up my carabine, which in these transports had fallen from my
+hand, and I went round the gable of the house into the garden--and I saw
+Claverhouse with several of his officers coming along the ground by
+which our hosts had marched to their position--and ever and anon turning
+round and exhorting his men to follow him. It was evident he was making
+for the Pass to intercept our scattered fugitives from escaping that
+way.
+
+The garden in which I then stood was surrounded by a low wall. A small
+goose-pool lay on the outside, between which and the garden I perceived
+that Claverhouse would pass.
+
+I prepared my flint and examined my fire-lock, and I walked towards the
+top of the garden with a firm step. The ground was buoyant to my tread,
+and the vigour of youth was renewed in my aged limbs: I thought that
+those for whom I had so mourned walked before me--that they smiled and
+beckoned me to come on, and that a glorious light shone around me.
+
+Claverhouse was coming forward--several officers were near him, but his
+men were still a little behind, and seemed inclined to go down the hill,
+and he chided at their reluctance. I rested my carabine on the
+garden-wall. I bent my knee and knelt upon the ground. I aimed and
+fired,--but when the smoke cleared away I beheld the oppressor still
+proudly on his war-horse.
+
+I loaded again, again I knelt, and again rested my carabine upon the
+wall, and fired a second time, and was again disappointed.
+
+Then I remembered that I had not implored the help of Heaven, and I
+prepared for the third time, and when all was ready, and Claverhouse was
+coming forward, I took off my bonnet, and kneeling with the gun in my
+hand, cried, "Lord, remember David and all his afflictions;" and having
+so prayed, I took aim as I knelt, and Claverhouse raising his arm in
+command, I fired. In the same moment I looked up, and there was a vision
+in the air as if all the angels of brightness, and the martyrs in their
+vestments of glory, were assembled on the walls and battlements of
+Heaven to witness the event,--and I started up and cried, "I have
+delivered my native land!" But in the same instant I remembered to whom
+the glory was due, and falling again on my knees, I raised my hands and
+bowed my head as I said, "Not mine, O Lord, but thine is the victory!"
+
+When the smoke rolled away I beheld Claverhouse in the arms of his
+officers, sinking from his horse, and the blood flowing from a wound
+between the breast-plate and the armpit. The same night he was summoned
+to the audit of his crimes.
+
+It was not observed by the officers from what quarter the summoning bolt
+of justice came, but thinking it was from the house, every window was
+instantly attacked, while I deliberately retired from the spot,--and,
+till the protection of the darkness enabled me to make my escape across
+the Gary, and over the hills in the direction I saw Mackay and the
+remnants of the flock taking, I concealed myself among the bushes and
+rocks that overhung the violent stream of the Girnaig.
+
+Thus was my avenging vow fulfilled,--and thus was my native land
+delivered from bondage. For a time yet there may be rumours and
+bloodshed, but they will prove as the wreck which the waves roll to the
+shore after a tempest. The fortunes of the papistical Stuarts are
+foundered for ever. Never again in this land shall any king, of his own
+caprice and prerogative, dare to violate the conscience of the people.
+
+QUHARIST, _5th November 1696._
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY
+
+
+   _Airt_, direction, point of the compass.
+
+   _almous_, alms.
+
+   _atwish_, betwixt.
+
+   _aught_, possession.
+
+   _aumrie_, store-cupboard.
+
+
+   _Bakie_, a large square wooden vessel.
+
+   _beek_, _v._ bathe; here, bask.
+
+   _bein_, well-to-do, comfortable.
+
+   _ben_, within.
+
+   _benweed_, ragwort.
+
+   _bield_, shelter.
+
+   _big_, _v._ build.
+
+   _bilf_, a blunt stroke (Jamieson).
+
+   _bir_, impetuosity.
+
+   _blate_, bashful.
+
+   _blether_, _v._ talk foolishly.
+
+   _blithemeat gift_, gift made to those present at a child's birth.
+
+   _bout-gait_, roundabout.
+
+   _bow_, arch, gateway.
+
+   _boyne_, tub.
+
+   _braird_, the first sprouting of grain.
+
+   _brattle_, _v._ clatter.
+
+   _brechan_, bracken.
+
+   _buirdly_, burly.
+
+   _bunker_, bench.
+
+   _busk_, adorn.
+
+   _but_, _but the house_, toward the outer apartment of a house.
+
+   _by ordinare_, out of the common.
+
+
+   _Ca'_, _v._ drive.
+
+   _callan_, _callant_, boy.
+
+   _camstrarie_, unmanageable, perverse.
+
+   _cantrip_, magical device.
+
+   _canty_, lively.
+
+   _cap_, a wooden bowl.
+
+   _carl_, fellow (_fem._) _carlin_.
+
+   _carry_, motion of the clouds.
+
+   _carse_, low-lying fertile land, generally adjacent to a river.
+
+   _causey_, street or paved road;
+     _crown of the causey_, middle of the street.
+
+   _change-house_, a small inn or ale-house.
+
+   _chap_, _v._ strike.
+
+   _chappin_, a quart measure.
+
+   _chimla_, _chumla_, chimney;
+     _chimla-lug_, fireside.
+
+   _churme_, murmur.
+
+   _clachan_, hamlet.
+
+   _clamper_, to make a noise with the feet in walking.
+
+   _claught_, snatched (_pret._ of _v._ _clatch_).
+
+   _clishmaclavers_, idle discourse.
+
+   _clok_, beetle.
+
+   _clout_, ragged cloth.
+
+   _Cluty_, _fam._ the "Old One."
+
+   _cod_, pillow, cushion.
+
+   _couthiness_, kindness.
+
+   _cowan-boat_, a fishing-boat.
+
+   _cranreuch_, hoar-frost.
+
+   _creel_, basket.
+
+   _crouse_, confident, _crack crouse_, to "talk big."
+
+   _cruisie_, _crusie_, a small iron lamp.
+
+   _cuif_ simpleton.
+
+   _cushy-doo_, cushat, dove.
+
+
+   _Dark_, _darg_, task.
+
+   _dauner_, _daunder_, stroll.
+
+   _dauty_, pet.
+
+   _dinle_, thrill.
+
+   _dirl_, _v._ clatter, thrill.
+
+   _doless_, void of energy.
+
+   _dominie_, schoolmaster.
+
+   _donsie_, unfortunate.
+
+   _door-cheek_, door-post.
+
+   _doure_, hard, harsh.
+
+   _dow_, _v._ can compass.
+
+   _dowie_, dull.
+
+   _dreich_, tedious.
+
+   _drumly_, turbid, troubled.
+
+   _duds_, rags.
+
+   _dunt_, to knock out by repeated blows.
+
+   _dwam_, seizure (sickness).
+
+   _dyke_, boundary wall.
+
+
+   _Ellwand_, yard-measure.
+
+   _erles_, _arles_, an earnest.
+
+   _ettle_, _v._ aim.
+
+   _excambio_, exchange ratified by law.
+
+   _eydent_, zealous, industrious.
+
+
+   _Fash_, _v._ vex.
+
+   _fek_, "_o' ony fek_," of any effect.
+
+   _fey_, infatuated.
+
+   _fisle_, _v._ rustle.
+
+   _flesher_, butcher.
+
+   _flit_, _v._ word in general use in Scotland for changing residence.
+
+   _flyte_, _v._ scold.
+
+   _foregather_, _v._ get into company together.
+
+   _fornent_, in front of.
+
+   _fyke_, bustle.
+
+
+   _Gait_, _gate_, way.
+
+   _gar_, compel.
+
+   _gardevine_, cellaret.
+
+   _garnel_, granary.
+
+   _gaud_, a bar of metal.
+
+   _gauntrees_, _gantrees_, a stand for a barrel.
+
+   _gawsie_, _gaucy_, jolly.
+
+   _geizen't_, drought-cracked.
+
+   _gett_, contemptuous term for progeny.
+
+   _gif_, if.
+
+   _gir_, _gird_, hoop.
+
+   _girn_, a snare.
+
+   _glaikit_, foolish.
+
+   _glebe_, land held _ex officio_ by a parish minister.
+
+   _gled_, hawk.
+
+   _gleg_, eager.
+
+   _glower_, _v._ glare.
+
+   _gludder_, the sound caused by a body falling among mire (Jamieson).
+
+   _gowk_, fool, _lit._ cuckoo.
+
+   _greet_, weep.
+
+   _grew_, _v._ shudder.
+
+   _grouff_, belly.
+
+   _gude-mother_, mother-in-law.
+
+   _gurl_, _n._ growl.
+
+   _gurly_, surly.
+
+
+   _Hack_, a rack for horses or cattle.
+
+   _haffet_, side-lock.
+
+   _Hallowe'en_, the eve of All Saints' Day.
+
+   _hap_, wrap.
+
+   _harl_, _v._ drag.
+
+   _hass_, throat.
+
+   _havers_, foolish or incoherent talk.
+
+   _hempy_, rogue.
+
+   _herry_, harry.
+
+   _hirkos_ (_Lat._ hircus), a he-goat.
+
+   _hirple_, limp.
+
+   _hirstle_, to shove oneself along by the hands in a seated posture.
+
+   _hobbleshow_, a difficulty.
+
+   _Hogmanae_, the last day of the year.
+
+   _holm_, _howm_, low-lying level ground on the banks of a river.
+
+   _hooly_, cautiously.
+
+   _horse-setter_, job-master.
+
+   _howdy_, midwife.
+
+   _howf_, _n._ haunt.
+
+   _howk_, dig, burrow.
+
+   _hyte and fykie_, anxious and irritable.
+
+
+   _Jawp_, _v._ dash and rebound as water (Jamieson).
+
+   _jealouse_, suspect.
+
+   _jelly-flowers_, gilliflowers.
+
+   _jimp_, scarcely.
+
+   _jink_, chink (_corruption_).
+
+   _jo_, sweetheart.
+
+   _jow_, _v._ toll.
+
+
+   _Kail_, cabbage; soup made with the same.
+
+   _kell_, scurf on a child's head (Jamieson).
+
+   _kep_, catch.
+
+   _kist_, chest.
+
+   _kithe_, show, appear.
+
+
+   _Laigh_, low.
+
+   _lair_, lore.
+
+   _lanerly_, _alanerly_, alone, lonely.
+
+   _laverock_, lark.
+
+   _lawing_, reckoning.
+
+   _lift_, firmament.
+
+   _limmer_, "baggage" (term of depreciation).
+
+   _linn_, waterfall.
+
+   _lippy_, a bumper.
+
+   _litherly_, lazily.
+
+   _lone_, _loaning_, lane.
+
+   _loun_, serene.
+
+   _lounder_, swinging stroke (Jamieson).
+
+   _low_, _n._ flame.
+
+   _lum_, chimney.
+
+   _lug_, ear.
+
+   _luggie_, a small wooden vessel made of staves.
+
+
+   _Mailing_, farm.
+
+   _manse_, residence of a minister of the Gospel.
+
+   _midden_, refuse-heap.
+
+   _morphosings_, metamorphoses.
+
+   _moss_, a place where peat may be dug (Jamieson).
+
+   _mutchkin_, a measure equal to a pint.
+
+
+   _Napery_, household linen.
+
+   _neb_, beak of a bird.
+
+   _nieve_, fist.
+
+   _notour_, notorious.
+
+
+   _O'ercome_, burden of a song or discourse.
+
+   _outstropolous_, obstreperous.
+
+   _oxter_, arm-pit, also arm.
+
+
+   _Pawkie_, sly; _pawkrie_, slyness.
+
+   _peeseweep_, lapwing.
+
+   _pen-gun_, pop-gun;
+     _a pen-gun at a crack_, a "wunner to talk."
+
+   _pet-day_, term applied to a fair day when the weather is generally
+foul.
+
+   _pig_, earthenware vessel.
+
+   _plack_, small copper coin.
+
+   _play-marrow_, playmate.
+
+   _prin_, pin.
+
+   _puddock_, toad;
+     _puddock-stool bonnet_, toadstool or Tam o' Shanter cap.
+
+
+   _Rackses_, andirons.
+
+   _raised_, delirious.
+
+   _ree_, half-drunk.
+
+   _reek_, smoke.
+
+   _redde_, rede, counsel.
+
+   _rig_, ridge (of ploughed land).
+
+   _rones_, external waterducts of a building.
+
+   _rug_, _v._ pull roughly.
+
+   _runkle_, crumple.
+
+
+   _Scad_, gleam, reflection.
+
+   _schore_, a man of high rank.
+
+   _scog_, _v._ hide.
+
+   _scomfisht_, discomfited.
+
+   _scowther_, scorch.
+
+   _scrog_, a stunted shrub.
+
+   _shavling-gabbit_, shavling mouthed, a shavling being a carpenter's tool
+of the plane order. Having a mouth which emits sounds like those made in
+planing.
+
+   _sicker_, certain.
+
+   _siver_, sewer.
+
+   _skail_, _skayl_, disperse.
+
+   _skelf_, shelf.
+
+   _skirr_, scour.
+
+   _sklinter_, _v._ splinter.
+
+   _skreigh_, cry.
+
+   _sleekit_, deceitful.
+
+   _slocken_, slake.
+
+   _smeddam_, spirit.
+
+   _sneck_, bolt.
+
+   _snell_, keen.
+
+   _snod_, trim.
+
+   _snool_, subjugate by tyrannical means.
+
+   _sole_, sill.
+
+   _sorn_, to "sponge" upon;
+     used by Galt for to loiter.
+
+   _sosherie_, social intercourse.
+
+   _sough_, murmur.
+
+   _spae_, _v._ forecast.
+
+   _spean_, _v._ wean.
+
+   _speat_, flood.
+
+   _speer_, _speir_, inquire.
+
+   _spunk_, spark.
+
+   _staincher_, stanchion.
+
+   _stang_, a pole;
+     to "ride the stang" was to be subjected to a form of mob justice by
+which the patient was borne shoulder-high astride a pole.
+
+   _steek_, stitch, fasten.
+
+   _stock_ (bed-stock), the fore-part of a bed.
+
+   _stoure_, dust in motion.
+
+   _straemash_, disturbance.
+
+   _stravaig_, _v._ stroll.
+
+   _swanky_, strapping young countryman (Brockett).
+
+   _swatch_, sample.
+
+   _swee_, a chimney crane for suspending a pot over the fire (Jamieson).
+
+   _swither_, _v._ to be reluctant, hesitate;
+     _n_. reluctance, hesitation, indecision.
+
+   _syne_, then.
+
+
+   _Tack_, lease.
+
+   _taigle_, hinder, delay.
+
+   _tawnle_, bonfire.
+
+   _temming_, a coarse thin woollen cloth.
+
+   _tent_, heed.
+
+   _thacket_, thatched.
+
+   _thole_, endure.
+
+   _throng_, _adj._ busy.
+
+   _thumbikins_, thumbscrews.
+
+   _tirl at the pin_, old-fashioned mode of intimating desire of admission
+to a house.
+
+   _tod_, _tod lowrie_, fox.
+
+   _tolbooth_, a municipal building including a jail.
+
+   _toom_, empty.
+
+   _toop_, a ram.
+
+   _toupie_ (French), toupet.
+
+   _trance_, paved passage.
+
+   _trintle_, _v._ roll.
+
+   _trone_, a public weighing-machine standing in a market-place.
+
+
+   _Unco_, _adj._ extraordinary, remarkable;
+     _n._ remarkable object.
+
+
+   _Virl_, ring (as those which bind a fishing-rod);
+     frill.
+
+   _vivers_, provisions.
+
+   _vogie_, vain, complacent.
+
+
+   _Wae_, grieved.
+
+   _waff_, feeble, worn out.
+
+   _warrandice_, warrant.
+
+   _warsle_, wrestle.
+
+   _wastage_, a place of desolation (J.).
+
+   _wastrie_, waste.
+
+   _waught_, a large draught.
+
+   _wean_, child.
+
+   _whin_, furze.
+
+   _Whigamore_, sometimes derived from "whig," a word used in the West for
+urging on horses, and hence applied as a nickname to a political party.
+The expedition of the Covenanters under Eglinton to Edinburgh was known
+as the Whigamore Raid.
+
+   _whumple_, overturn, reverse.
+
+   _willease_, valise.
+
+   _willy-wa_, palaver, wheedle.
+
+   _wise, v._ entice, incline.
+
+   _wud_, wild.
+
+   _wuddy_, "gallows-looking";
+     widdy is the gallows.
+
+   _wyte_, blame.
+
+
+   _Yett_, gate.
+
+   _yird_, _n._ earth;
+     _v. a._ run to earth.
+
+
+
+_Colston & Coy. Limited, Printers, Edinburgh._
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS WORTH READING
+
+   BEING A LIST OF THE
+   New and Forthcoming Publications
+
+   OF
+
+   GREENING & CO., LTD.
+   20 Cecil Court
+   Charing Cross Road
+
+   _OCTOBER 1899_    LONDON, W.C.
+
+
+GENERAL LITERATURE, CRITICISM, POETRY, ETC.
+
+     =_English Writers of To-Day:_= Being a Series of Monographs on living
+     Authors. Each volume is written by a competent authority, and each
+     subject is treated in an appreciative, yet critical, manner. The
+     following are the first volumes in the Series:--
+
+     =_Rudyard Kipling_=. The Man and His Work. Being an attempt at an
+     "Appreciation." By G. F. MONKSHOOD, Author of "Woman and The Wits,"
+     "My Lady Ruby," etc. Containing a portrait of Mr Kipling and an
+     autograph letter to the author in facsimile. Second Impression.
+     Crown 8vo, buckram, gilt lettered, top edge gilt, 5s. nett.
+
+=Daily Telegraph=.--"He writes fluently, and he has genuine enthusiasm for
+his subject, and an intimate acquaintance with his work. Moreover, the
+book has been submitted to Mr Kipling, whose characteristic letter to
+the author is set forth on the preface.... Of Kipling's heroes Mr
+Monkshood has a thorough understanding, and his remarks on them are
+worth quoting" (extract follows).
+
+=Globe=--"It has at the basis of it both knowledge and
+enthusiasm--knowledge of the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.
+This book may be accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's
+merits as a writer. We can well believe that it will have many
+interested and approving readers."
+
+=Scotsman=.--"This well-informed volume is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style. One way
+and another his book is full of interest, and those who wish to talk
+about Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted enthusiasm."
+
+
+VOLUMES OF E.W.O.T. (In preparation.)
+
+=_Thomas Hardy_=. By W. L. COURTNEY.
+
+=_George Meredith_=. By WALTER JERROLD.
+
+=_Bret Harte_=. By T. EDGAR PEMBERTON.
+
+=_Richard Le Gallienne_=. By C. RANGER GULL.
+
+=_Arthur Wing Pinero_=. By HAMILTON FYFFE.
+
+=_W. E. Henley_=, and the "NATIONAL OBSERVER" Group. By GEORGE GAMBLE.
+
+=_The Parnassian School in English_= POETRY. (ANDREW LANG, EDMUND GOSSE
+and ROBERT BRIDGES.) By Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS.
+
+=_Algernon Charles Swinburne_=. By G. F. MONKSHOOD.
+
+=_Realistic Writers of To-day_=. By JUSTIN HANNAFORD.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     =_The Wheel of Life_=. A Few Memories and Recollections (de omnibus
+     rebus). By CLEMENT SCOTT, Author of "Madonna Mia," "Poppyland,"
+     etc. With Portrait of the Author from the celebrated Painting by J.
+     MORDECAI. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt lettered,
+     gilt top, 2s.
+
+=Weekly Sun= (T. P. O'Connor) says:--A Book of the Week--"I have found
+this slight and unpretentious little volume bright, interesting reading.
+I have read nearly every line with pleasure."
+
+=Illustrated London News=.--"The story Mr Scott has to tell is full of
+varied interest, and is presented with warmth and buoyancy."
+
+=Punch=.--"What pleasant memories does not Clement Scott's little book,
+'The Wheel of Life,'revive! The writer's memory is good, his style easy,
+and above all, which is a great thing for reminiscences, chatty."
+
+=Referee=.--GEORGE R. SIMS (Dagonet) says:--"Deeply interesting are these
+last memories and recollections of the last days of Bohemia.... I picked
+up 'The Wheel of Life' at one in the morning, after a hard night's work,
+and flung myself, weary and worn, into an easy-chair, to glance at it
+while I smoked my last pipe. As I read, all my weariness departed, for I
+was young and light-hearted once again, and the friends of my young
+manhood had come trooping back from the shadows to make a merry night of
+it once more in London town. And when I put the book down, having read
+it from cover to cover, it was 'past three o'clock and a windy
+morning.'"
+
+     =_A Trip to Paradoxia_=, and other Humours of the Hour. Being
+     Contemporary Pictures of Social Fact and Political Fiction. By T.
+     H. S. ESCOTT, Author of "Personal Forces of the Period," "Social
+     Transformation of the Victorian Age," "Platform, Press, Politics,
+     and Play," Etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth. Gilt, 5s. nett.
+
+=Standard.=--"A book which is amusing from cover to cover. Bright epigrams
+abound in Mr Escott's satirical pictures of the modern world.... Those
+who know the inner aspects of politics and society will, undoubtedly, be
+the first to recognise the skill and adroitness with which he strikes at
+the weak places in a world of intrigue and fashion.... There is a great
+deal of very clever sword-play in Mr Escott's description of Dum-Dum
+(London), the capital of Paradoxia (England).
+
+=Court Circular.=--"It is brilliantly written, and will afford keen
+enjoyment to the discriminating taste. Its satire is keen-edged, but
+good-humoured enough to hurt no one; and its wit and (may we say?) its
+impudence should cause a run on it at the libraries."
+
+=M. A. P.=--"A sparkling piece of political and social satire. Mr Escott
+besprinkles his pages with biting epigram and humorous innuendo. It is a
+most amusing book."
+
+=Athenaeum.=--"He constantly suggests real episodes and real persons. There
+are a good many rather pretty epigrams scattered through Mr Escott's
+pages."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A bright, witty, and amusing volume, which will entertain
+everybody who takes it up."
+
+=Newcastle Leader.=--"Messrs Greening are fortunate in being the
+publishers of a volume so humorous, so dexterous, written with such
+knowledge of men and affairs, and with such solidity and power of style
+as Mr T. H. S. Escott's 'A Trip to Paradoxia.'"
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"Mr T. H. S. Escott throws abundant humour blended with
+pungent sarcasm into his work, making his pictures very agreeable
+reading to all but the victim he has selected, and whose weaknesses he
+so skilfully lays bare. But the very clever manner in which the writer
+hits the foibles and follies of his fellows must create admiration and
+respect even from those who view his satire with a wintry smile. We like
+his writing, his power of discernment, and his high literary style."
+
+     =_People, Plays, and Places._= Being the Second Series of "The Wheel
+     of Life," Memories and Recollections of "People" I have met,
+     "Plays" I have seen, and "Places" I have visited. By CLEMENT SCOTT,
+     Author of "The Stage of Yesterday and The Stage of To-day,"
+     "Pictures of the World," "Thirty Years at the Play." Crown 8vo,
+     cloth gilt. (In preparation.) 5s.
+
+     =_"Sisters by the Sea."_= Seaside and Country Sketches. By CLEMENT
+     SCOTT, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+     Frontispiece and Vignette designed by GEORGE POWNALL. Long 12mo,
+     attractively bound in cloth, 1s.
+
+=Observer.=--"The little book is bright and readable, and will come like a
+breath of country air to many unfortunates who are tied by the leg to
+chair, stool, or counter."
+
+=Sheffield Telegraph.=--"Bright, breezy, and altogether readable.... East
+Anglia, Nelson's Land, etc., etc., are all dealt with, and touched
+lightly and daintily, as becomes a booklet meant to be slipped in the
+pocket and read easily to the pleasing accompaniment of the waves lazily
+lapping on the shingle by the shore."
+
+=Dundee Advertiser.=--"It is all delightful, and almost as good as a
+holiday. The city clerk, the jaded shopman, the weary milliner, the
+pessimistic dyspeptic, should each read the book. It will bring a
+suggestion of sea breezes, the plash of waves, and all the accessories
+of a holiday by the sea."
+
+     =_Some Famous Hamlets._= (SARAH BERNHARDT, HENRY IRVING, BEERBOHM
+     TREE, WILSON BARRETT and FORBES ROBERTSON.) By CLEMENT SCOTT.
+     Illustrated with portraits. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_Some Bible Stories Retold._= By "A CHURCHMAN." Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     3s. 6d.
+
+     =_Bye-Ways of Crime._= With some Stories from the Black Museum. By R.
+     J. POWER-BERREY. Profusely Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"Decidedly you should read Mr Power-Berrey's interesting book,
+taking laugh and shudder as they come."
+
+=Sheffield Independent.=--"We do not remember to have ever seen a more
+popularly-written summary of the methods of thieves than this bright and
+chatty volume. It is the work of a writer who evidently has a most
+intimate knowledge of the criminal classes, and who can carry on a plain
+narrative briskly and forcibly. The book fascinates by its freshness and
+unusualness."
+
+=Literature.=--"It contains many interesting stories and new observations
+on the _modus operandi_ of swindlers."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A most interesting account of the dodges adopted by various
+criminals in effecting their purposes. The reader will find much that is
+instructive within its pages."
+
+=Liverpool Review.=--"This is no fanciful production, but a clear,
+dispassionate revelation of the dodges of the professional criminal.
+Illustrated by numerous pen and ink sketches, Mr Power-Berrey's
+excellent work is useful as well as interesting, for it will certainly
+not assist the common pilferer to have all his little tricks made public
+property in this lucid and easily rememberable style."
+
+     =_The Art of Elocution_= and Public Speaking. By ROSS FERGUSON. With
+     an Introduction by GEO. ALEXANDER. Dedicated by permission to Miss
+     ELLEN TERRY. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, strongly bound in cloth,
+     1s.
+
+=Australian Mail.=--"A useful little book. We can strongly recommend it to
+the chairmen of public companies."
+
+=Stage.=--"A carefully composed treatise, obviously written by one as
+having authority. Students will find it of great service."
+
+=People's Friend.=--"Contains many valuable hints, and deals with every
+branch of the elocutionist's art in a lucid and intelligible manner."
+
+=Literary World.=--"The essentials of elocution are dealt with in a
+thoroughly capable and practical way. The chapter on public speaking is
+particularly satisfactory."
+
+=Madame.=--"The work is pleasingly thorough. The instructions are most
+interesting, and are lucidly expressed, physiological details are
+carefully, yet not redundantly, dwelt on, so that the intending student
+may have some very real and definite idea of what he is learning about,
+and many valuable hints may be gleaned from the chapters on
+'Articulation and Modulation.' Not only for actors and orators will this
+little book be found of great service, but everyone may find pleasure
+and profit in reading it."
+
+     =_The Path of the Soul._= Being Essays on Continental Art and
+     Literature. By S. C. de SOISSONS, Author of "A Parisian in
+     America," etc. Illustrated with portraits, etc. Crown 8vo, cloth
+     gilt, 10s. 6d.
+
+     =_A History of Nursery Rhymes._= By PERCY B. GREEN. This interesting
+     Book is the result of many years research among nursery folklore of
+     all nations, and traces the origin of nursery rhymes from the
+     earliest times. Crown 8vo, cloth, 4s.
+
+     =_The Year Book of the Stage._= Being an annual record of criticisms
+     of all the important productions of the English Stage, with copious
+     Index and complete Caste of each Play recorded. A useful
+     compilation for students of the Drama. About 260 pages, strongly
+     bound in cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_In Quaint East Anglia._= Descriptive Sketches. By T. WEST CARNIE.
+     Illustrated by W. S. ROGERS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Observer.=--"That East Anglia exercises a very potent spell over those
+who once come under its influence is proved by the case of George
+Borrow, and all who share in the fascination will delight in this
+brightly written, companionable little volume."
+
+=Birmingham Argus.=--"Interesting matter entertainingly told."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"Mr Carnie's book is thoroughly charming."
+
+=Literature.=--"An aesthetic volume as pleasant to read as to look at."
+
+=Guardian.=--"Just the kind of book that would help a tourist in Norfolk
+and Suffolk to see what ought to be seen with the proper measure of
+enjoyment."
+
+=Graphic.=--"It is a prettily got up and readable little book."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"Will be welcomed by all who have come under the charm
+of East Anglia."
+
+     =_A Man Adrift._= Being Leaves from a Nomad's Portfolio. By BART
+     KENNEDY, Author of "Darab's Wine-Cup," "The Wandering Romanoff,"
+     etc. This very entertaining book is a narrative of adventures in
+     all parts of the world. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Woman and the Wits._= Epigrams on Woman, Love, and Beauty.
+     Collected and edited by G. F. MONKSHOOD, Author of "Rudyard
+     Kipling: The Man and His Work," "Lady Ruby," etc. Small 8vo, cloth
+     gilt extra, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. nett. Paper boards, rough edges,
+     2s. 6d. nett.
+
+     =_Weeds and Flowers._= Poems by WILLIAM LUTHER LONGSTAFF, Author of
+     "Passion and Reflection." Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt extra, gilt
+     top, 2s. 6d. nett.
+
+=Sun.=--"Mr Longstaff has real fire and passion in all of his work. He has
+a graceful touch and a tuneful ear. There is exquisite melody in his
+metre."
+
+=Echo.=--"The poetry of passion is no rarity to-day, yet scarcely since
+the date of Philip Bourke Marston's 'Song Tide' has such an arresting
+and whole-hearted example of this class of poetry been issued by any
+English author as the volume which Mr William Luther Longstaff entitles
+'Weeds and Flowers.' Passion, tumultuous and unabashed, sensuous rapture
+openly flaunting its shame, love in maddest surrender risking all,
+daring all, these are the dominant motives of Mr Longstaff's muse. So
+wild is the rush of his emotion--all storm and fire and blood--to such
+white heat does he forge his burning phrases, so subtly varied are the
+constantly recurring expressions of love's ecstasy, its despair, its
+bereavement, its appetite, its scorn, so happy sometimes are the
+unexpected metrical changes and experiments herein adopted, that the
+younger poet might suggest discreet comparisons with the earlier
+Swinburne."
+
+=Morning Herald.=--"The book contains _real_ poetry. There is always
+thought and force in the work. 'At the Gate' is not merely Swinburnian
+in metre; in all things it might well have come from that poet's pen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Greening's Masterpiece Library
+
+     =_Vathek._= An Eastern Romance. By GEO. BECKFORD. Edited with an
+     Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Full-page illustrations by W. S.
+     ROGERS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s 6d. A superb edition of this
+     most interesting and fascinating story.
+
+     =_Asmodeus_=; or, The Devil on Two Sticks. An Illustrated Edition of
+     the Celebrated Novel by LE SAGE, Author of "Gil Blas." Edited by
+     JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_Ringan Gilhaize._= A Tale of the Covenanters. By JOHN GALT. Edited
+     with an Introduction by Sir GEORGE DOUGLAS. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_Rasselas_=, Prince of Abyssinia. A Tale of Adventure. By Dr
+     JOHNSON. Edited with an Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Full-page
+     illustrations by W. S. ROGERS. Crown 8vo, 5s.
+
+     =_The Epicurean._= A Tale of Mystery and Adventure. By THOMAS MOORE.
+     Edited with an Introduction by JUSTIN HANNAFORD. Illustrated. 8vo,
+     art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     _Several well known and popular works by great writers are in
+     active preparation for this artistic series of masterpieces._
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+NOVELS AT SIX SHILLINGS
+
+     =_An Obscure Apostle._= A Powerful and Dramatic Tale, translated from
+     the Polish of Mdme. ORZESZKO by S. C. de SOISSONS. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Son of Africa._= A Tale of Marvellous Adventures. By ANNA,
+     COMTESSE DE BREMONT, Author of "The Gentleman Digger," etc. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Mora_=: One Woman's History. An interesting novel by T. W. SPEIGHT,
+     Author of "The Crime in the Wood," "The Mysteries of Heron Dyke,"
+     etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Girl of the North._= A Tale of London and Canada. By HELEN
+     MILICITE. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Ashes Tell no Tales._= A Novel. By Mrs ALBERT S. BRADSHAW, Author
+     of "The Gates of Temptation," "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc.
+     Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_Such is the Law._= An Interesting Story by MARIE M. SADLEIR, Author
+     of "An Uncanny Girl," "In Lightest London," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     6s.
+
+     =_Fetters of Fire._= A Dramatic Tale. By COMPTON READE, Author of
+     "Hard Lines," "Under which King," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Virtue of Necessity._= A Powerful Novel. By HERBERT ADAMS. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Cry in the Night._= An exciting Detective Story. By ARNOLD
+     GOLSWORTHY, Author of "Death and the Woman," "Hands in the
+     Darkness," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+     =_A Social Upheaval._= An Unconventional Dramatic Satirical Tale. By
+     ISIDORE G. ASCHER, Author of "An Odd Man's Story," "The Doom of
+     Destiny," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6s.
+
+=Scotsman.=--"The plot is bold, even to audacity; its development is
+always interesting, picturesque, and, towards the close, deeply
+pathetic; and the purpose and method of the writer are alike admirable."
+
+=Eastern Morning News.=--"It is a clever book, splendidly written, and
+striking in its wonderful power, and keeping the reader interested....
+The author has not failed in his effort to prove the case. The awful
+truth of its pages is borne home upon us as we read chapter after
+chapter. The book should have a good effect in certain quarters. One of
+the best features is the dividing line drawn most plainly between
+Socialism and Anarchism. To its author we tender our thanks, and predict
+a large sale."
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"The hero is an interesting dreamer, absorbed in his
+schemes, which are his one weakness. To women, save when they can
+further the good of his cause, he is obdurate; in business, strong,
+energetic, and powerful. He is shown to us as the man with a master mind
+and one absorbing delusion, and as such is a pathetic figure. No one can
+dispute the prodigality and liveliness of the author's imagination; his
+plot teems with striking incidents."
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The story tells itself very clearly in three hundred
+pages of very pleasant and entertaining reading. The men and women we
+meet are not the men and women we really come across in this world. So
+much the better for us. But we are delighted to read about them, for all
+that; and we prophesy success for Mr Ascher's book, particularly as he
+has taken the precaution of telling us that he is 'only in fun.'"
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"A story in which there is not a dull page, nay,
+not even a dull line. The characters are well drawn, the incidents are
+novel and often astounding, and the language has a terseness and
+briskness that gives a character of vivacity to the story, so that the
+reader is never tired going on unravelling the tangled meshes of the
+intricate plot until he comes to the end. 'A Social Upheaval' is,
+indeed, a rattling good book."
+
+     =_A New Tale of the Terror._= A Powerful and Dramatic Story of the
+     French Revolution. By the Author of "The Hypocrite" and "Miss
+     Malevolent." (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+NOVELS AT THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE
+
+     =_Shams!_= A Social Satire. By----? This is a remarkable and
+     interesting story of Modern Life in London Society. It is a
+     powerful work, written with striking vividness. The plot is
+     fascinating, the incidents exciting, and the dialogue epigrammatic
+     and brilliant. "Shams" is written by one of the most popular
+     novelists of the day. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_Miss Malevolent._= A Realistic Study. By the Author of "The
+     Hypocrite." Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_A Comedy of Temptation_;= or, The Amateur Fiend. A Tale by TRISTRAM
+     COUTTS, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+     6d.
+
+     =_The Weird Well._= A Tale of To-day. By Mrs ALEC M'MILLAN, Author of
+     "The Evolution of Daphne," "So Runs my Dream," etc. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 3s, 6d.
+
+     =_Zoroastro._= An Historical Romance. By CRESWICK J. THOMPSON, Author
+     of "Poison Romance and Poison Mysteries," "The Mystery and Romance
+     of Alchemy and Pharmacy," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Temptation of Edith Watson._= By SYDNEY HALL. Crown 8vo, cloth,
+     3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Gentleman Digger._= Realistic Pictures of Life in Johannesburg.
+     By ANNA, COMTESSE de BREMONT, Author of "A Son of Africa," etc. New
+     Edition, revised to date, with a new Preface. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s.
+     6d.
+
+     _The Sword of Fate._ An Interesting Novel. By HENRY HERMAN, Author
+     of "Eagle Joe," "Scarlet Fortune," etc., and Joint Author of the
+     "Silver King," "Claudian." Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The hand that wrote the 'Silver King' has by no means
+lost its cunning in painting broad effects of light and shadow. The
+description of life in Broadmoor is, we fancy, done from actual
+observation. It is quite new." And the critic of =Black and White= sums it
+up pithily as "a story which holds our attention and interests us right
+from the first chapter. The book is as exciting as even a story of
+sensation has any need to be." Speaking of the scene of Mr Herman's
+drama, the beautiful county of Devonshire, where the greater part of the
+story takes place, the =Manchester Courier= says: "The author's
+descriptive powers vividly portray the lovely spots by the winding
+Tamar, while the rich dialect of the district is so faithfully
+reproduced as to become not the least feature of an exciting tale."
+
+=The Weekly Mercury.=--"Mr Henry Herman has carefully studied the little
+weaknesses of the great army of readers. Like a celebrated and much
+advertised medicine, he invariably 'touches the spot,' and hence the
+popularity of his works. His latest novel, 'The Sword of Fate,' contains
+all the essentials of a popular story. It is well written, sufficiently
+dramatic, full of life and incident, and above all, right triumphs over
+wrong. We must, too, congratulate the author upon the omission of all
+that is disagreeable or likely to offend the susceptibilities of the
+most delicate minded. It is a clean and healthy novel, a credit to the
+writer, and a pleasure to the reader.... These are quite capable of
+affording anyone a pleasant evening's reading, a remark which does not
+apply to the great majority of the modern novels."
+
+     =_Seven Nights with Satan._= A Novel. By J. L. OWEN, Author of "The
+     Great Jekyll Diamond." Cover designed by W. S. ROGERS. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=St James's Gazette.=--"We have read the book from start to finish with
+unflagging interest--an interest, by the way, which derives nothing from
+the 'spice,' for though its title may be suggestive of Zolaism, there is
+not a single passage which is open to objection. The literary style is
+good."
+
+=Truth.=--"I much prefer the ghastly story 'Seven Nights with Satan,' a
+very clever study of degeneration."
+
+=London Morning.=--"The story told is a powerful one, evidently based upon
+close personal knowledge of the events, places, and persons which figure
+in it. A tragic note pervades it, but still there is lightness and wit
+in its manner which makes the book a very fascinating as well as
+eventful volume."
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"Mr J. L. Owen has given a title to his work which will
+cause many conjectures as to the nature of the story. Now, if we
+divulged what were the seven nights, we should be doing the author
+anything but a service--in fact, we should be giving the whole thing
+away; therefore, we will only state that the work is cleverly conceived,
+and carried out with great literary ability. There are numerous flashes
+of originality that lift the author above ordinary commonplace."
+
+     =_The Green Passion._= The Study of a Jealous Soul. A Powerful Novel.
+     By ANTHONY P. VERT. Cover designed by ALFRED PRAGA. Crown 8vo, art
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+Mr DOUGLAS SLADEN in =The Queen=.--"A remarkably clever book.... There is
+no disputing the ability with which the writer handles her subject. I
+say _her_ subject, because the minuteness of the touches, and the odd,
+forcible style in which this book is written, point to it being the work
+of a female hand. The book is an eminently readable one, and it is never
+dull for a minute."
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"It is a study of one of the worst passions which can
+ruin a lifetime and mar all human happiness--one of the worst, not
+because it is necessarily the strongest, but because of its singular
+effect in altering the complexion of things, transforming love into
+suspicion, and filling its victim with a petulant and unreasonable
+madness. All this Anthony Vert understands, and can describe with very
+uncommon power. The soul of a jealous woman is analysed with artistic
+completeness, and proved to be the petty, intolerant, half-insane thing
+it really is.... The plot is well conceived, and well carried out.
+Anthony Vert may be congratulated on having written a very clever
+novel."
+
+=The Monitor.=--"A wonderful piece of writing. The only modern parallel we
+can find is supplied in Mr F. C. Philip's 'As in a Looking Glass.'"
+
+=World.=--"As the study of a jealous soul, 'The Green Passion' is a
+success, and psychological students will be delighted with it.... The
+tragedy which forms the _denouement_ to this story is of such a nature
+as to preclude our doing more than remotely alluding to it, for he (or
+is it she?) has portrayed an 'exceedingly risky situation.'"
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"In 'The Green Passion' the author traces with much
+ability, and not a little analytical insight, the progress of jealousy
+in the breast of a woman who is born with a very 'intense,' although not
+a very deep, nature.... There is in Mr Vert's work a certain tendency
+towards realism which has its due effect in making his characters real.
+They are no loosely-built fancies of the journalistic brain, but
+portraits--almost snapshot portraits--of men and women of to-day."
+
+     =_Outrageous Fortune._= Being the Confessions of Evelyn Gray,
+     Hospital Nurse. A story founded on fact, proving that truth is
+     stranger than fiction. (In preparation.) Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Dolomite Cavern._= An Exciting Tale of Adventure. By W. PATRICK
+     KELLY, Author of "Schoolboys Three," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"Lovers of the sensational in fiction will find
+abundance of congenial entertainment in Mr W. P. Kelly's new story. In
+the way of accessories to startling situations all is fish that comes to
+this ingenious author's net. The wonders of primitive nature, the
+marvels of latter-day science, the extravagances of human passion--all
+these he dexterously uses for the purpose of involving his hero in
+perilous scrapes from which he no less dexterously extricates him by
+expedients which, however far-fetched they may appear to the
+unimaginative, are certainly not lacking in originality of device, or
+cleverness of construction.... This is a specimen incident--those which
+succeed it derive their special interest from the action of Rontgen
+rays, subterranean torrents, and devastating inundations. The book is
+very readable throughout, and ends happily. What more can the average
+novel reader wish for in holiday time?"
+
+=Observer.=--"A story full of exciting adventure."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"The plot is ingenious, and the style pleasant."
+
+=Literature.=--"'The Dolomite Cavern' has the great merit of being very
+well written. The plot is sensational and improbable enough, but with
+the aid of the author's bright literary manner it carries us on
+agreeably until the last chapter."
+
+=Critic.=--"It is a sensational novel with a dash of pseudo-scientific
+interest about it which is well calculated to attract the public. It is,
+moreover, well written and vigorous."
+
+=Manchester Guardian.=--"Mr Kelly's fluent, rapid style makes his story of
+mysteries readable and amusing. His Irish servant, one of the principal
+characters, speaks a genuine Irish dialect--almost as rare in fiction as
+the imitation is common."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"Truly thrilling and dramatic, Mr Kelly's book is a
+cleverly written and absorbing romance. It concludes with a tremendous
+scene, in which a life-and-death struggle with a madman in the midst of
+a raging flood is the leading feature."
+
+     =_Madonna Mia_=, and other Stories. By CLEMENT SCOTT, Author of
+     "Poppyland," "The Wheel of Life," "The Fate of Fenella,"
+     "Blossomland," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Punch.=--"'Madonna Mia' is genuinely interesting. All the stories are
+good; you are 'Scott free' to pick 'em where you like." (The Baron de B.
+W.)
+
+=Weekly Sun.=--"Shows Mr Scott's sturdy character painting and love of
+picturesque adventure."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"The book is characteristic of the work of its
+author--bright, brilliant, informing, and entertaining, and without a
+dull sentence in it."
+
+=St James's Gazette.=--"Full of grace and sentiment. The tales have each
+their individuality and interest, and we can recommend the whole as
+healthy refreshment for the idle or weary brain."
+
+=Pelican.=--"Full of living, breathing, human interest. Few writers
+possess the gift of bringing actual existence to their characters as
+does Mr Scott, and in the pages of his newest book you shall find tears
+and smiles, and all the emotions skilfully arranged and put in true
+literary fashion."
+
+=World.=--"Clement Scott is nothing if not sympathetic, and every one of
+the ten stories is not only thoroughly readable, but is instinct with
+sentiment; for Mr Scott still retains a wonderful enthusiasm, usually
+the attribute of youth. 'Drifting' is a very fresh and convincing
+narrative, founded, we understand, upon truth, and containing within a
+small compass the materials for a very stirring drama. 'A Cross of
+Heather,' too, is a charming romance, told with real pathos and
+feeling."
+
+     =_The Shadow on The Manse._= A Tale of Religion and the Stage. By
+     CAMPBELL RAE-BROWN, Author of "The Resurrection of His Grace,"
+     "Kissing-Cup's Race," etc. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Lady of the Leopard._= A Powerful and Fascinating Novel. By
+     CHAS. L'EPINE, Author of "The Devil in a Domino." Crown 8vo, art
+     cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"A remarkable book.... We are plunged into a delicious
+and tantalising romance; incident follows incident like a panorama of
+exciting pictures. Fertility of imagination is everywhere apparent, and
+the _denouement_ is artfully concealed till it bursts upon the reader
+with a suddenness that fairly takes away his breath."
+
+=Liverpool Mercury.=--"Lovers of the marvellous will enjoy it, for it is
+cleverly and dramatically written."
+
+=Dundee Advertiser.=--"Written with dramatic force and vigour."
+
+=North British Advertiser.=--"This is a weird and strange story that
+interests and fascinates the reader, with its occult fancies and
+marvellous experiences.... It may be added, in conclusion, that it is a
+book well worth reading, and will easily bear a second perusal."
+
+=Liverpool Post.=--"A very skilfully constructed story, mysterious and
+strange, with a natural explanation suggested of all the mystery which
+does not spoil one's enjoyment (here follows analysis of plot). This is
+the bare outline of the story up to a certain point; it is impossible to
+convey adequately an idea of the awe-inspiring characteristics of the
+story. Readers can safely be recommended to turn to the book itself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+POPULAR FICTION
+
+HALF-CROWN NOVELS
+
+     =_In Monte Carlo._= A Tale by HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ, Author of "Quo
+     Vadis," "With Fire and Sword," etc., etc. Translated by S. C. de
+     SOISSONS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, with a new Portrait of the Author,
+     2s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Tragedy of The Lady Palmist._= By W. LUTHER LONGSTAFF, Author
+     of "Weeds and Flowers," etc. An exciting tale, descriptive of the
+     "Behind-the-Scenes of the Palmist's Bohemia." Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s.
+     6d.
+
+     =_My Lady Ruby, and Basileon, Chief of Police._= Two stories by G. F.
+     MONKSHOOD, Author of "Nightshades," "Rudyard Kipling: The Man and
+     His Work," "Woman and The Wits," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Hypocrite._= A Modern Realistic Novel of Oxford and London
+     Life. Fourth Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+_This book has been "boycotted" by Messrs Mudie and Messrs W. H. Smith &
+Son as being "unfit to circulate in their libraries," yet it has been
+praised by the press at being "a powerful sermon and a moral book."_
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--"A book by an anonymous author always arouses a
+certain inquiry, and when the book is clever and original the interest
+becomes keen; and conjecture is rife, endowing the most unlikely people
+with authorship.... It is very brilliant, very forcible, very sad.... It
+is perfect in its way, in style clear, sharp and forcible, the dialogue
+epigrammatic and sparkling.... Enough has been said to show that 'The
+Hypocrite' is a striking and powerful piece of work, and that its author
+has established his claim to be considered a writer of originality and
+brilliance."
+
+=Daily Graphic.=--"A very moral book."
+
+=Court Circular.=--"The work is decidedly clever, full of ready wit,
+sparkling epigram, and cutting sarcasm."
+
+=Echo.=--"The story is thoroughly interesting, the wit and epigram of the
+writing are not to be denied, and altogether 'The Hypocrite' is so
+brilliant that it can only be fittingly compared with 'The Green
+Carnation' or 'The Babe B.A.'"
+
+=Liverpool Courier.=--"A genuinely clever book. Furthermore, it is a book
+with a wholesome moral vividly enforced."
+
+=Lady.=--"Whoever the author may be, he has the right literary method, his
+work is absolutely realistic, his style is fluent and distinctive, and
+he has the rare faculty of gripping the reader's attention at the outset
+and retaining it to the very last.... 'The Hypocrite' is something more
+than a remarkable novel--it is, in effect, a sermon, conveying a
+definite message to those who have the wit to understand it."
+
+=Morning Post.=--"It is entitled to be regarded as one of the clever books
+of the day. The writer shows artistic perception. He maintains
+throughout an atmosphere perfectly in harmony with the idea that has
+suggested his work."
+
+     =_The Wandering Romanoff._= A Romance. By BART KENNEDY, Author of "A
+     Man Adrift," "Darab's Wine-Cup," etc. New and Cheaper Edition,
+     crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+     =_Dona Rufina._= A Nineteenth Century Romance. Being a Story of
+     Carlist Conspiracy. By HEBER DANIELS, Author of "Our Tenants."
+     Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Bookman.=--"A highly emotional, cleverly written story."
+
+=Lady.=--"A thrilling romance with a mediaeval atmosphere, although the
+scene is laid in the Cotswolds in the year of grace 1898. The story is
+well constructed, and is a good example of the widely imaginative type
+of fiction that is so eagerly devoured by young people nowadays."
+
+=Lloyd's.=--"The author has woven a clever story out of strange
+materials.... The interest of the book only ceases when the end is
+reached."
+
+=Society.=--"Altogether a very intelligible and interesting story of
+intrigue and love. The author has put some excellent work into the
+book."
+
+=Eastern Morning News.=--"Readers will be fascinated by the stirring
+scenes, the swiftly moving panorama, the enacted tragedies, the wild,
+passionate, lawless loves depicted in the most sensational manner in
+this volume."
+
+=Englishman= (Calcutta).--"It is a lurid tale of Spanish plotters....
+Around this central figure the author weaves an effective story with
+more than considerable skill. He has achieved a brilliant success with
+the character of Rufina; it is a masterpiece in its own way, and
+invested with freshness, grace, and a magnetic personality."
+
+     =_Lord Jimmy._= A Story of Music-Hall Life. By GEORGE MARTYN. Crown
+     8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"The book is both humorous and dramatic."
+
+=Pelican.=--"It is amusing and interesting--two very good qualities for a
+novel to possess."
+
+=Sheffield Telegraph.=--"The book is vivaciously written, several of the
+characters being human enough to look like studies from life."
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"The characters are skilfully depicted, and the
+whole book is amusing and interesting."
+
+=Glasgow Citizen.=--"'Decidedly clever' will be the verdict of the reader
+on closing this book."
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"The author has a peculiar knowledge of the 'Halls' and
+those who frequent them; and especially, as it seems to us, of those
+Jewish persons who sometimes run them. And he has made good use of his
+knowledge here. But there is more than this in the book; for 'George
+Martyn' has considerable descriptive talent. His account, for instance,
+of the fight between the hero and the butcher is quite good. The story
+is straightforward, convincing, and full of human nature and promise."
+
+     =_The Lady of Criswold._= A Sensational Story. By LEONARD OUTRAM.
+     Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=North British Advertiser.=--"A thrilling tale of love and madness."
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"No one can complain of lack of sensation, it is full
+of startling episodes. The characters are drawn with a rapid and
+vigorous touch. The interest is well maintained."
+
+=Court Circular.=--"It reminds us forcibly of a story in real life that
+engrossed public attention many years ago. Whether this was in the
+author's mind we cannot say, but the book is deeply interesting, the
+characters well and strongly drawn, and we doubt not this tale will
+fascinate many a reader."
+
+=London Morning.=--"The story is cleverly constructed, is full of incident
+with more than a dash of tragedy, and holds the attention of the reader
+to the close. Dealing with modern life of the higher class, Mr Outram's
+story is consistent, and though it aims at romantic effect, is not
+strained or overdrawn."
+
+=Church Gazette.=--"We can heartily recommend 'The Lady of Criswold.' One
+likes to meet now and again a book which forsakes the eternal sex
+question, or the hairsplitting discussion of ethical or psychological
+problems, and treats us to simpler and more satisfying fare.... There
+are several good hours' reading in the book, and plenty of excitement of
+the dramatic order. Another good point is that it is healthy in tone."
+
+     =_The Gates of Temptation._= A Natural Novel by Mrs ALBERT S.
+     BRADSHAW, Author of "False Gods," "Wife or Slave," etc. Crown 8vo,
+     cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"This is a story full of power and pathos, the strong
+dramatic interest of which is sustained from the opening chapter to the
+close."
+
+=Midland Mail.=--"The characters are vividly drawn. There are many
+pleasant and painful incidents in the book, which is interesting from
+beginning to end."
+
+=London Morning.=--"Mrs Albert Bradshaw has done such uniformly good work
+that we have grown to expect much from her. Her latest book is one which
+will enhance her reputation, and equally please new and old readers of
+her novels. It is called 'The Gates of Temptation,' and professes to be
+a natural novel. The story told is one of deep interest. There is no
+veneer in its presentation, no artificiality about it."
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"Mrs Bradshaw has written several good novels, and
+the outstanding feature of all of them has been her skilful development
+of plot, and her tasteful, pleasing style. In connection with the
+present story we are able to amply reiterate those praises. The plot
+again is well developed and logically carried out, while the language
+used by the authoress is always happy and well chosen, and never
+commonplace.... The story is a very powerful one indeed, and may be
+highly commended as a piece of painstaking fiction of the very highest
+kind."
+
+     =_The Resurrection of His Grace._= Being the very candid Confessions
+     of the Honourable BERTIE BEAUCLERC. A Sporting Novel. By CAMPBELL
+     RAE-BROWN, Author of "Richard Barlow," "Kissing Cup's Race," etc.
+     Second Impression. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Gentlewoman.=--"Fantastic and impossible, but at the same time
+amusing.... The whole story is strongly dramatic."
+
+=Saturday Review.=--"A grotesquely improbable story, but readers of
+sporting novels will find much amusement in it."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"The book is lightly and briskly written throughout. Its
+pleasant cynicism is always entertaining."
+
+=Star.=--"An ingeniously horrible story with a diabolically clever plot."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"A sporting romance which is indisputably cleverly
+written.... The book is full of interesting items of sporting life which
+are fascinating to lovers of the turf."
+
+=Edinburgh Evening News.=--"It has certainly an audacious idea for its
+central motive.... This bright idea is handled with no little skill, and
+the interest is kept up breathlessly until the tragic end of the
+experiment. The whole story has a racy flavour of the turf."
+
+=Sporting Life.=--"The character of the heartless _roue_, who tells his
+story, is very well sustained, and the rich _parvenu_, Peter Drewitt,
+the owner of the favourite that is very nearly nobbled by the
+unscrupulous Beauclerc, is cleverly drawn. Altogether it is an exciting
+and an uncommon tale, and is quite correct in all the sporting details."
+
+     _Anna Marsden's Experiment._ An interesting Novel. By ELLEN
+     WILLIAMS. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Outlook.=--"A good story cleverly told and worked out."
+
+=Echo.=--"A very natural and interesting tale is carefully set forth in
+Ellen Williams' clever little book."
+
+=Western Morning News.=--"It is a smartly written and deeply interesting
+story, well out of the beaten track of novelists."
+
+=Literary World.=--"The story is well told.... Four racy chapters take us
+thus far, and seven lively ones follow."
+
+=Public Opinion.=--"From this point the interest in the story is such that
+there is no putting the book down till the _denouement_ is reached. The
+writing is smart, clever, and telling."
+
+=Critic.=--"A powerful story, unconventional as regards both subject and
+treatment. [Here the reviewer analyses the plot.] This situation is
+handled with extraordinary delicacy and skill, and the book is an
+admirable study of repressed emotions."
+
+=Monitor.=--"Miss Williams has here seized on an original concept, and
+given it fitting presentation. The 'experiment' is a novel one, and its
+working out is a deft piece of writing. The psychology of the work is
+faultless, and this study of a beautiful temperament, in a crude frame,
+has with it the verity of deep observation and acute insight.... We
+await with considerable confidence Miss Williams' next venture."
+
+=Sheffield Independent.=--"The writer has treated a delicate and unusual
+situation with delicacy and originality. The heroine's character is
+drawn with firmness and clearness, and the whole story is vivid and
+picturesque.... The history of the experiment is exceedingly well told.
+Keen insight into character, and cleverness in its delineation, as well
+as shrewd observation and intense sympathy, mark the writer's work,
+while the style is terse and clear, and the management of trying scenes
+extremely good."
+
+     =_Darab's Wine-Cup_=, and other Powerful and Vividly-Written Stories.
+     By BART KENNEDY, Author of "The Wandering Romanoff," etc. New and
+     cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=Aberdeen Free Press.=--"Will be welcomed as something fresh in the world
+of fiction."
+
+=St James's Budget.=--"A volume characteristic of the author's splendid
+powers."
+
+=M. A. P.=--"Mr Kennedy writes powerfully, and can grip the reader's
+imagination, or whirl it off into the strangest domains of glamour and
+romance at will.... There is a future for this clever young man from
+Tipperary. He will do great things."
+
+=Outlook.=--"Mr Bart Kennedy is a young writer of singular imaginative
+gifts, and a style as individual as Mr Kipling's."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"The author has exceptional gifts, a strong and
+powerful individuality, a facile pen, rich imagination, and constructive
+ability of a high order. This volume ought to find a place on every
+library shelf."
+
+=Critic.=--"Of a highly imaginative order, and distinctly out of the
+ordinary run.... The author has a remarkable talent for imaginative and
+dramatic presentation. He sets before himself a higher standard of
+achievement than most young writers of fiction."
+
+=Cork Herald.=--"Gracefully written, easy and attractive in diction and
+style, the stories are as choice a collection as we have happened on for
+a long time. They are clever; they are varied; they are fascinating. We
+admit them into the sacred circle of the most beautiful that have been
+told by the most sympathetic and skilled writers.... Mr Kennedy has a
+style, and that is rare enough nowadays--as refreshing as it is rare."
+
+     ="_Fame, the Fiddler._"= A Story of Literary and Theatrical Life. By
+     S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD. Crown 8vo, cloth, new and cheaper edition,
+     2s. 6d.
+
+=Graphic.=--"The volume will please and amuse numberless people."
+
+=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"A pleasant, cheery story. Displays a rich vein of
+robust imagination."
+
+=Sun.=--"Interesting all through, and the inclination is towards finishing
+it at one sitting."
+
+=Scotsman.=--"An amusing and entertaining story of Bohemian life in
+London."
+
+=Standard.=--"There are many pleasant pages in 'Fame, the Fiddler,' which
+reminds us of 'Trilby,' with its pictures of Bohemian life, and its
+happy-go-lucky group of good-hearted, generous scribblers, artists, and
+playwrights. Some of the characters are so true to life that it is
+impossible not to recognise them. Among the best incidents in the volume
+must be mentioned the production of Pryor's play, and the account of
+poor Jimmy Lambert's death, which is as moving an incident as we have
+read for a long time. Altogether, 'Fame, the Fiddler' is a very human
+book, and an amusing one as well."
+
+=Catholic Times.=--"We read the volume through, and at the conclusion
+marvelled at the wonderful knowledge of life the author displays. For
+although the whole work is written In a light, humorous vein, underneath
+this current of humour there is really an astonishing amount of wisdom,
+and wisdom that is not displayed every day.... It is a vivid description
+of times gay and melancholy, that occur in many lives. Mr Fitz-Gerald
+has done his work well, so well that we loitered on many pages, and
+closed the book finally with a feeling that it is a faithful history of
+the journalist, the author, the theatrical individual, and the man who
+ekes out a living by playing the _role_ of all three."
+
+
+CHEAPER FICTION
+
+     =_Pelican Tails._= A Collection of smart, up-to-date Tales of Modern
+     Life, written, edited and selected by FRANK M. BOYD (Editor of "The
+     Pelican.") One of the most popular and entertaining volumes of
+     short stories that has ever been published. An ideal companion for
+     a railway journey or a spare hour or two. Crown 8vo, picture
+     wrapper designed and drawn by W. S. ROGERS, 1s. (In active
+     preparation.)
+
+     =_The Devil in a Domino._= A Psychological Mystery. By CHAS. L'EPINE,
+     Author of "The Lady of the Leopard," "Miracle Plays," etc. Cover
+     designed by C H. BEAUVAIS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Truth.=--"The story is written with remarkable literary skill, and,
+notwithstanding its gruesomeness, is undeniably fascinating."
+
+=Sketch.=--"It is a well-written story. An admirable literary style,
+natural and concise construction, succeed in compelling the reader's
+attention through every line. We hope to welcome the author again,
+working on a larger scene."
+
+=Star.=--"May be guaranteed to disturb your night's rest. It is a
+gruesome, ghastly, blood-curdling, hair-erecting, sleep-murdering piece
+of work, with a thrill on every page. Read it."
+
+=Sunday Chronicle.=--"A very clever study by 'Charles L'Epine,' who should
+by his style be an accomplished author not unknown in other ranks of
+literature. Beyond comparison it is the strongest shilling shocker we
+have read for many a day. The author has succeeded in heaping horror
+upon horror until one's blood is curdled."
+
+     =_That Fascinating Widow_=, and other Frivolous and Fantastic Tales,
+     for River, Road and Rail. By S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD. Long 12mo,
+     cloth, 1s.
+
+=The Scotsman.=--"The widow is a charmingly wicked person. The stories are
+well written, with a pleasant humour of a farcical sort; they are never
+dull."
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"Written with all the dash and ease which Mr
+Fitz-Gerald has accustomed us to in his journalistic work. There is a
+breezy, invigorating style about this little book which will make it a
+favourite on the bookstalls."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"Nonsense, genial harmless nonsense, to which the most
+captious and morose of readers will find it difficult to refuse the
+tribute of a broad smile, even if he can so far restrain himself as not
+to burst out into genuine laughter."
+
+=The Referee.=--"Another little humorous book is 'That Fascinating Widow,'
+by Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, who can be very funny when he tries. The
+story which gives the title to the book would make a capital farce. 'The
+Blue-blooded Coster' is an amusing piece of buffoonery."
+
+=The Globe.=--"The author, Mr S. J. Adair Fitz-Gerald, has already shown
+himself to be the possessor of a store of humour, on which he has again
+drawn for the furnishing of the little volume he has just put together.
+Among the tales included are several which might be suitable for reading
+or recitation, and none which are dull. Mr Fitz-Gerald frankly addresses
+himself to that portion of the public which desires nothing so much as
+to be amused, and likes even its amusements in small doses. Such a
+public will entertain itself very pleasantly with Mr Fitz-Gerald's
+lively tales, and will probably name as its favourites those titled
+'Pure Cussedness,' 'Splidgings' First Baby,' and 'The Blue-blooded
+Coster.'"
+
+     =_Shadows._= A Series of Side Lights on Modern Society. By ERNEST
+     MARTIN. (Dedicated to Sir Henry Irving.) Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt
+     tops, 2s.
+
+=Phoenix.=--"'Shadows' is a very clever work."
+
+=Western Mercury.=--"Clever sketches, intensely dramatic, original and
+forceful, based on scenes from actual life, and narrated with much
+skill."
+
+=Weekly Times.=--"A series of pictures sketched with considerable power.
+The last one, 'Hell in Paradise,' is terrible in the probable truth of
+conception."
+
+=Northern Figaro.=--"Mr Martin's descriptive paragraphs are couched in
+trenchant, convincing language, without a superfluous word sandwiched in
+anywhere.... 'Shadows' may be read with much profit, and will give more
+than a superficial insight into various phases of society life and
+manners."
+
+     =_Death and the Woman._= A Powerful Tale. By ARNOLD GOLSWORTHY.
+     Picture cover drawn by SYDNEY H. SYME. Crown 8vo, 1s.
+
+=Scotsman.=--"A cleverly constructed story about a murder and a gang of
+diamond robbers.... The tale never has to go far without a strong
+situation. It is a capital book for a railway journey."
+
+=Star.=--"A good shilling's worth of highly coloured sensationalism. Those
+readers who want a good melodramatic story smartly told, Mr Golsworthy's
+latest effort will suit down to the ground."
+
+=Literary World.=--"We do not remember having read a book that possessed
+the quality of _grip_ in a greater degree than is the case with 'Death
+and the Woman.' ... Every page of every chapter develops the interest,
+which culminates in one of the most sensational _denouements_ it has
+been our lot to read. The flavour of actuality is not destroyed by any
+incredible incident; it is the inevitable thing that always happens.
+'Death and the Woman' will supply to the brim the need of those in
+search of a holding drama of modern London life."
+
+     =_The Fellow-Passengers._= A Mystery and its Solution. A Detective
+     Story. By RIVINGTON PYKE, Author of "The Man who Disappeared." Long
+     12mo, cloth, 1s.
+
+=Whitehall Review.=--"Those who love a mystery with plenty of 'go,' and a
+story which is not devoid of a certain amount of realism, cannot do
+better than pick up 'Fellow-Passengers.' The characters are real men and
+women, and not the sentimental and artificial puppets to which we have
+been so long accustomed by our sensationalists. The book is brightly
+written, and of detective stories it is the best I have read lately."
+
+=Weekly Dispatch.=--"If you want a diverting story of realism, bordering
+upon actuality, you cannot do better than take up this bright,
+vivacious, dramatic volume. It will interest you from first page to
+last."
+
+=Catholic Times.=--"This is a well-written story, with a good plot and
+plenty of incident. From cover to cover there is not a dull page, and
+the interest keeps up to the end."
+
+=Glasgow News.=--"It is a thriller.... The sort of book one cannot help
+finishing at a sitting, not merely because it is short, but because it
+rivets.... The author uses his materials with great ingenuity, his plot
+is cleverly devised, and he very effectively works up to a striking
+_denouement_.
+
+
+Illustrated Books for Children
+
+     =_Nonsense Numbers and Jocular Jingles_= FOR FUNNY LITTLE FOLK.
+     Written by DRUID GRAYL, with full-page Illustrations by WALTER J.
+     MORGAN. 4to, cloth boards, 5s.
+
+     =_The Grand Panjandrum_=, and other fanciful Fairy Tales for the
+     youthful of all Ages, Climes and Times. By S. J. ADAIR FITZ-GERALD,
+     Author of "The Zankiwank and the Bletherwitch," "The Wonders of the
+     Secret Cavern," "The Mighty Toltec," etc. Many full-page and
+     smaller Illustrations by GUSTAVE DARRE. Second Edition. Square 8vo,
+     art cloth, gilt, 3s. 6d.
+
+=Truth.=--"A decided acquisition to the children's library."
+
+=Ladies' Pictorial.=--"Quite one of the brightest of the season's gift
+books."
+
+=Spectator.=--"Well provided with fun and fancy."
+
+=Morning Post.=--"Bright and thoroughly amusing. It will please all
+children. The pictures are excellent."
+
+=Echo.=--"Of the pile (of children's books) before us, Mr Adair
+Fitz-Gerald's 'Grand Panjandrum' is the cleverest. Mr Fitz-Gerald needs
+no introduction to the nursery of these days."
+
+=Times.=--"Very fanciful."
+
+=Church News.=--"This is one of the most delightful books of nonsense we
+have read since we welcomed 'The Wallypug of Why.'"
+
+=Scotsman.=--"Will make the eyes of readers open wide with wonder and
+delight."
+
+=Lloyd's.=--"Will amuse all children lucky enough to get this neat and
+pretty volume."
+
+=Pall Mall Gazette.=--"A charming little book. Simply written, and
+therefore to be comprehended of the youthful mind. It will be popular,
+for the writer has a power of pleasing which is rare."
+
+=Literary World.=--"A handsomely bound, mouth-watering, in every way
+up-to-date volume, written especially for and on behalf of the toddler
+or the newly breeched."
+
+=People.=--"A delightful story for children, something in the style of
+'Alice in Wonderland,' but also having some flavour of Kingley's 'Water
+Babies.'"
+
+=Sun.=--"Good fairy stories are a source of everlasting joy and delight.
+Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald breaks fresh ground and writes pleasantly.... The
+book has the added advantage of being charmingly illustrated in colour
+by Gustave Darre."
+
+=Nottingham Guardian.=--"It is a merry book, and should keep the nursery
+in a good humour for hours. It is artistically got up, the illustrations
+by Mr Gustave Darre being of a high order of merit."
+
+=Manchester Courier.=--"It should prove a great favourite with young
+people, being written by one who evidently takes the utmost interest in
+them and their ways. The full-page illustrations are very pretty."
+
+=Weekly Sun.=--"Mr Adair Fitz-Gerald is a well-known writer of fairy
+stories and humorous books for the young. 'The Grand Panjandrum' is just
+the sort of book to please youngsters of all ages, being full of
+pleasant imaginings, and introducing its readers to a host of curious
+people."
+
+
+Greening's Humorous Books
+
+     =_The Pillypingle Pastorals._= A Series of Amusing Rustic Tales and
+     Sketches. By DRUID GRAYL. Profusely Illustrated by WALTER J.
+     MORGAN. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Pottle Papers._= Written by TRISTRAM COUTTS, Author of "A
+     Comedy of Temptation." Illustrated by L. RAVEN HILL. Fourth
+     Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
+
+=THE POTTLE PAPERS=, the fourth edition of which is just ready, is a
+really funny book written by Saul Smiff, and illustrated by Mr L. Raven
+Hill. "Anyone who wants a good laugh should get 'The Pottle Papers,'"
+says the =Sheffield Daily Telegraph.= "They are very droll reading for an
+idle afternoon, or picking up at any time when 'down in the dumps.' They
+are very brief and very bright, and it is impossible for anyone with the
+slightest sense of humour to read the book without bursting into 'the
+loud guffaw' which does not always 'bespeak the empty mind.'" =The Pall
+Mall Gazette= says it contains "Plenty of boisterous humour of the Max
+Adeler kind ... humour that is genuine and spontaneous. The author, for
+all his antics, has a good deal more in him than the average buffoon.
+There is, for example, a very clever and subtle strain of feeling
+running through the comedy in 'The Love that Burned'--a rather striking
+bit of work. Mr Raven Hill's illustrations are as amusing as they always
+are." The =St. James's Budget= accorded this book a very long notice, and
+reproduced some of the pictures. The reviewer said: "Who says the sense
+of humour is dead when we have 'The Pottle Papers'? We can put the book
+down with the feeling that we have spent a very enjoyable hour and
+laughed immoderately. 'The Pottle Papers' will be in everybody's hands
+before long." H.R.H. the Prince of Wales honoured the author by
+accepting a copy of his book; and the =Court Circular= remarked: "The
+Prince of Wales has accepted a copy of Saul Smiff's delightfully merry
+book, 'The Pottle Papers.' The Prince is sure to enjoy Raven Hill's
+clever sketches." This funniest of funny books is published at 2s. 6d.,
+strongly bound in cloth.
+
+     =_Dan Leno, Hys Booke._= A Volume of Frivolities: Autobiographical,
+     Historical, Philosophical, Anecdotal and Nonsensical. Written by
+     DAN LENO. Profusely illustrated by Sidney H. Sime, Frank Chesworth,
+     W. S. Rogers, Gustave Darre, Alfred Bryan and Dan Leno. Fifth
+     Edition, containing a New Chapter, and an Appreciation of Dan Leno,
+     written by Clement Scott. Crown 8vo, art cloth, gilt edges, 2s.
+     Popular Edition, sewed, picture cover, 1s.
+
+=DAN LENO, HYS BOOKE=, is, says the =Liverpool Review=, "the funniest
+publication since 'Three Men in a Boat.' In this autobiographical
+masterpiece the inimitable King of Comedians tells his life story in a
+style that would make a shrimp laugh." This enormously successful book
+of genuine and spontaneous humour has been received with a complete
+chorus of complimentary criticisms and pleasing "Press" praise and
+approval. Here are a few reviewers' remarks: "Bombshells of
+fun."--=Scotsman.= "One long laugh from start to finish."--=Lloyd's.= "Full
+of exuberant and harmless fun."--=Globe.= "A deliciously humorous
+volume."--=English Illustrated Magazine.= "The fun is fast and
+furious."--=Catholic Times.= "It is very funny."--=St Paul's.= These are a
+few opinions taken at random from hundreds of notices. Says the =Daily
+News= (Hull): "The funniest book we have read for some time. You must
+perforce scream with huge delight at the dry sayings and writings of the
+funny little man who has actually killed people with his patter and his
+antics. Page after page of genuine fun is reeled off by the great little
+man."
+
+     =_Bachelor Ballads_= and other Lazy Lyrics. By HARRY A. SPURR, Author
+     of "A Cockney in Arcadia." With Fifty Illustrations by JOHN
+     HASSALL. Crown 8vo, art cloth, 3s. 6d.
+
+     =_The Pottle's Progress._= Being the Further Adventures of Mr and Mrs
+     Pottle. By TRISTRAM COUTTS, Author of "The Pottle Papers," etc.
+     Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. (In preparation.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Guides, Etc.
+
+     =_London._= A Handy Guide for the Visitor, Sportsman and Naturalist.
+     By J. W. CUNDALL. Including an Article on "Literary Restaurants,"
+     by CLEMENT SCOTT. Numerous Illustrations. Second Year of
+     Publication. Long 12mo, cloth, 6d.
+
+=Vanity Fair.=--"A capital little guide book. No bulky volume this, but a
+handy booklet full of pithy information on all the most important
+subjects connected with our great city."
+
+=Outlook.=--"A handy booklet, more tasteful than one is accustomed to."
+
+=Pelican.=--"As full of useful and entertaining information as is an egg
+of meat."
+
+=Bookman.=--"A very lively and readable little guide."
+
+=To-day.=--"One of the best guide books for visitors to London. It is a
+model of lucidity and informativeness, and the profuse illustrations are
+admirably executed."
+
+=Glasgow Herald.=--"A useful little work for those who have no desire to
+wade through many pages of information before getting what they want."
+
+     =_America Abroad._= A Handy Guide for Americans in England. Edited by
+     J. W. CUNDALL. With numerous Illustrations. Ninth Year of
+     Publication. 6d.
+
+     =_In Quaint East Anglia._= Descriptive Sketches. By T. WEST CARNIE.
+     Illustrated by W. S. ROGERS. Long 12mo, cloth, 1s. (_See page 5._)
+
+     ="_Sisters by the Sea._"= Seaside and Country Sketches. By CLEMENT
+     SCOTT, Author of "Blossom Land," "Amongst the Apple Orchards," Etc.
+     Frontispiece and Vignette designed by GEORGE POWNALL. Long 12mo,
+     attractively bound in cloth, 1s. (_See page 3._)
+
+
+     A BOOK OF GREAT INTEREST.
+
+     AT ALL BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIES. SECOND EDITION.
+
+     =RUDYARD KIPLING:=
+
+     =THE MAN AND HIS WORK.=
+
+     Being an Attempt at Appreciation. By =G. F. MONKSHOOD=. With a
+     Portrait of Mr Kipling, and an Autograph Letter to the Author in
+     facsimile.
+
+     _Crown 8vo, crimson buckram, gilt top, 5/= nett._ */
+
+=A FEW OF MANY PRESS OPINIONS=
+
+=Daily Telegraph.=--(Mr W. L. COURTNEY in "Books of the Day.")--"He writes
+fluently, and has genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and an intimate
+acquaintance with his work. Moreover, his book has been submitted to Mr
+Kipling, whose characteristic letter to the author is set forth in the
+Preface.... Of Mr Kipling's heroes Mr Monkshood has a thorough
+understanding, and his remarks on them are worth quoting." (Here follows
+a long extract.)
+
+=Scotsman.=--"This well-informed volume ... is plainly sincere. It is
+thoroughly well studied, and takes pains to answer all the questions
+that are usually put about Mr Kipling. The writer's enthusiasm carries
+both himself and his reader along in the most agreeable style.... One
+way and another, his book is full of interest; those who wish to talk
+about Mr Kipling will find it invaluable, while the thousands of his
+admirers will read it through with delighted sympathy."
+
+=Western Daily Press.=--"A very praiseworthy attempt, and by a writer
+imbued with a fervent esteem for his subject.... This valuation of the
+work of our most virile Empire author should hold the attention of those
+who have well studied the subject and can appreciate accordingly."
+
+=Sun.=--"The author has carefully compiled a lot of most interesting
+matter, which he has edited with care and conscientiousness, and the
+result is a volume which every lover of Kipling can read with pleasure."
+
+=Spectator.=--"It is very readable. It tells us some things which we might
+not otherwise have known, and puts together in a convenient form many
+things which are of common knowledge."
+
+=Outlook.=--"SOMETHING MORE than an attempt at appreciation.... Mr
+Monkshood has written what all the young men at home and abroad who
+treasure Mr Kipling's writings think, but have not expressed. The volume
+is a striking testimony to the hold which work that is clean and sane
+and virile has upon the rising generation. And for this we cannot be
+sufficiently thankful."
+
+=Globe.=--"It has at the basis both knowledge and enthusiasm--knowledge of
+the works estimated and enthusiasm for them.... This book may be
+accepted as a generous exposition of Mr Kipling's merits as a writer. We
+can well believe that it will have many interested and approving
+readers."
+
+=Irish Times.=--"A well-thought-out and earnest appreciation of the great
+writer and his works."
+
+=Academy.=--"The book should give its subject pleasure, for Mr Monkshood
+is very keen and cordial. His criticisms have some shrewdness too. Here
+is a passage ..." (Long quotation follows.)
+
+=Sunday Times.=--"Sure to attract much attention. In it we are given a
+sketch of Mr Kipling's career and the story of his various works, along
+with some sane and balanced criticism.... The book is written brightly,
+thoughtfully, and informingly."
+
+=Bookseller.=--"It is acute in perception, and sympathetic to the verge of
+worship, with just as much criticism as will allow that the hero has his
+limitations.... Mr Monkshood's well-informed and well-written critique
+possesses undoubted ability and attraction."
+
+=Yorkshire Herald.=--"This work, which is highly appreciative, will be
+received with enthusiasm.... From this point the biography becomes even
+more interesting.... The author deals at length with Kipling's works,
+and with sufficient forcefulness and originality to hold the reader's
+attention throughout. The biography has undoubted merit and will be
+largely read."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+   A
+
+   ADAMS, Herbert--
+     A Virtue of Necessity                                            7
+
+   ALEXANDER, Geo.--
+     Introduction to "Art of Elocution"                               4
+
+   America Abroad (J. W. Cundall)                                    21
+
+   Anna Marsden's Experiment (Ellen Williams)                        15
+
+   Asmodeus (edited by Justin Hannaford)                              6
+
+   Ashes Tell no Tales (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)                           7
+
+   ASCHER, Isidore G.--
+     A Social Upheaval                                                8
+
+
+   B
+
+   Bachelor Ballads (H. A. Spurr)                                    21
+
+   BECKFORD, Geo.--
+     Vathek                                                           6
+
+   Bible Stories Retold                                               4
+
+   BRADSHAW, Mrs Albert S.--
+     Ashes Tell no Tales                                              7
+     Gates of Temptation                                             14
+
+   Bye-ways of Crime (R. J. Power-Berrey)                             4
+
+
+   C
+
+   CARNIE, T. West--
+     In Quaint East Anglia                                            5
+
+   Comedy of Temptation (T. Coutts)                                   9
+
+   COUTTS, Tristram--
+     Pottle Papers                                                   20
+     Comedy of Temptation                                             9
+     Pottle's Progress                                               21
+
+   CUNDALL, J. W.--
+     London                                                          21
+     America Abroad                                                  21
+
+   Cry in the Night (A. Golsworthy)                                   7
+
+
+   D
+
+   DANIELS, Heber--
+     Dona Rufina                                                     13
+
+   Darab's Wine-Cup (B. Kennedy)                                     16
+
+   Dan Leno, Hys Booke (Dan Leno)                                    20
+
+   Death and the Woman (A. Golsworthy)                               18
+
+   Devil in a Domino (C. L'Epine)                                    17
+
+   Devil on Two Sticks (Le Sage)                                      6
+
+   DE BREMONT, Comtesse--
+     A Son of Africa                                                  7
+     The Gentleman Digger                                             9
+
+   DE SOISSON--
+     The Path of the Soul                                             5
+
+   Dolomite Cavern (W. P. Kelly)                                     11
+
+   Dona Rufina (Heber Daniels)                                       13
+
+
+   E
+
+   East Anglia, In Quaint (T. W. Carnie)                             21
+
+   "ENGLISH WRITERS OF TO-DAY" Series--
+     Rudyard Kipling (G. F. Monkshood)                                1
+     Thomas Hardy (W. L. Courtney)                                    2
+     Geo. Meredith (Walter Jerrold)                                   2
+     Bret Harte (T. E. Pemberton)                                     2
+     Richard Le Gallienne (C. R. Gull)                                2
+     Arthur Wing Pinero (H. Fyffe)                                    2
+     W. E. Henley (G. Gamble)                                         2
+     English Parnassian School (Sir G. Douglas)                       2
+     Realistic Writers (J. Hannaford)                                 2
+
+   ESCOTT, T. H. S.--
+     A Trip to Paradoxia                                              3
+
+   Elocution, The Art of (Ross Ferguson)                              4
+
+   Epicurean, The (edited by Justin Hannaford)                        6
+
+
+   F
+
+   Fame, the Fiddler (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                          16
+
+   Famous Hamlets (C. Scott)                                          4
+
+   FERGUSON, Ross--
+     The Art of Elocution                                             4
+
+   Fetters of Fire (Compton Reade)                                    7
+
+   Fellow-Passengers (R. Pyke)                                       18
+
+   FITZ-GERALD, S. J. Adair--
+     Fame, the Fiddler                                               16
+     That Fascinating Widow                                          17
+     The Grand Panjandrum                                            19
+
+
+   G
+
+   GALT, John--
+     Ringan Gilhaize                                                  6
+
+   Gates of Temptation, The (Mrs A. S. Bradshaw)                     14
+
+   Gentleman Digger, The (Comtesse de Bremont)                        9
+
+   Girl of the North, A (H. Milicite)                                 7
+
+   GOLSWORTHY, Arnold--
+     A Cry in the Night                                               7
+     Death and the Woman                                             18
+
+   GRAYL, Druid--
+     Nonsense Numbers, etc.                                          19
+     Pillypingle Pastorals                                           20
+
+   Grand Panjandrum, The (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                      19
+
+   GREEN, Percy B.--
+     A History of Nursery Rhymes                                      5
+
+   Green Passion (A. P. Vert)                                        10
+
+   Guides, etc.                                                      21
+
+
+   H
+
+   HALL, Sydney--
+     Temptation of Edith Watson                                       9
+
+   Hamlets, Some Famous (C. Scott)                                    4
+
+   HERMAN, Henry--
+     The Sword of Fate                                                9
+
+   Hypocrite, The (Anonymous)                                        13
+
+
+   I
+
+   In Monte Carlo (H. Sienkiewicz)                                   12
+
+   In Quaint East Anglia (T. W. Carnie)                              21
+
+
+   J
+
+   Jocular Jingles (Druid Grayl)                                     19
+
+   JOHNSON, Dr--
+     Rasselas                                                         6
+
+
+   K
+
+   KELLY, W. Patrick--
+     The Dolomite Cavern                                             11
+
+   KENNEDY, Bart--
+     A Man Adrift                                                     5
+     Darab's Wine-Cup                                                16
+     The Wandering Romanoff                                          13
+
+
+   L
+
+   Lady of the Leopard, The (C. L'Epine)                             12
+
+   Lady of Criswold, The (L. Outram)                                 14
+
+   LE SAGE--
+     Asmodeus; or, The Devil on Two Sticks                            6
+
+   L'EPINE, Charles--
+     The Devil in a Domino                                           17
+     The Lady of the Leopard                                         12
+
+   LENO, Dan--
+     Dan Leno, Hys Booke                                             20
+
+   LONGSTAFF, W. Luther--
+     Weeds and Flowers                                                6
+     The Tragedy of the Lady Palmist                                 12
+
+   Lord Jimmy (G. Martyn)                                            14
+
+   London (J. W. Cundall)                                            21
+
+
+   M
+
+   Man Adrift, A (B. Kennedy)                                         5
+
+   Madonna Mia (C. Scott)                                            11
+
+   MARTYN, Geo.--
+     Lord Jimmy                                                      14
+
+   MARTIN, Ernest--
+     Shadows                                                         18
+
+   M'MILLAN, Mrs Alec--
+     The Weird Well                                                   9
+
+   Miss Malevolent (Author of "The Hypocrite")                        9
+
+   MILICITE, Helen--
+     A Girl of the North                                              7
+
+   MONKSHOOD, G. F.--
+     Woman and the Wits                                               5
+     Rudyard Kipling                                                  1
+     My Lady Ruby                                                    12
+
+   MOORE, Thomas--
+     The Epicurean                                                    6
+
+   Mora (T. W. Speight)                                               7
+
+   My Lady Ruby (G. F. Monkshood)                                    12
+
+
+   N
+
+   New Tale of the Terror, A (Author of "The Hypocrite")              8
+
+   Nonsense Numbers (D. Grayl)                                       19
+
+   Nursery Rhymes, A History of (P. B. Green)                         5
+
+
+   O
+
+   Obscure Apostle (Orzeszko)                                         7
+
+   Outrageous Fortune (Anonymous)                                    10
+
+   OUTRAM, Leonard--
+     The Lady of Criswold                                            14
+
+   OWEN, J. L.--
+     Seven Nights with Satan                                         10
+
+
+   P
+
+   Path of the Soul (C. S. de Soisson)                                5
+
+   People, Plays, and Places (C. Scott)                               3
+
+   Pelican Tails (F. M. Boyd, etc.)                                  17
+
+   Pillypingle Pastorals (D. Grayl)                                  20
+
+   Pootle Papers, The (T. Coutts)                                    21
+
+   Pootle's Progress, The (T. Coutts)                                21
+
+   POWER-BERREY, R. J.--
+     Bye-Ways of Crime                                                4
+
+   PYKE, Rivington--
+     The Fellow-Passengers                                           18
+
+
+   R
+
+   RAE-BROWN, Campbell--
+     The Shadow on the Manse                                         12
+     The Resurrection of His Grace                                   15
+
+   Rasselas (Edited by Justin Hannaford)                              6
+
+   READE, Compton--
+     Fetters of Fire                                                  7
+
+   Resurrection of His Grace (C. Rae-Brown)                          15
+
+   Ringan Gilhaize (Edited by Sir G. Douglas)                         6
+
+
+   S
+
+   SADLEIR, Mrs Maria M.--
+     Such is the Law                                                  7
+
+   SCOTT, Clement--
+     The Wheel of Life                                                2
+     Madonna Mia                                                     11
+     People, Plays, and Places                                        3
+     Sisters by the Sea                                               3
+     Famous Hamlets                                                   4
+
+   Seven Nights with Satan (J. L. Owen)                              10
+
+   Shadows (E. Martin)                                               18
+
+   Shams (Anonymous)                                                  8
+
+   Shadow on The Manse (C. Rae-Brown)                                12
+
+   SIENKIEWICZ, Henryk--
+     In Monte Carlo                                                  12
+
+   Sisters by the Sea (C. Scott)                                      3
+
+   Son of Africa, A (Comtesse de Bremont)                             7
+
+   Social Upheaval, A (I. G. Ascher)                                  8
+
+   SPEIGHT, T. W.--
+     Mora; One Woman's History                                        7
+
+   SPURR, Harry A.--
+     Bachelor Ballads                                                21
+
+   Stage, Year Book of (Greening and Hannaford)                       5
+
+   Such is the Law (M. M. Sadleir)                                    7
+
+   Sword of Fate, The (H. Herman)                                     9
+
+
+   T
+
+   Temptation of Edith Watson (S. Hall)                               9
+
+   That Fascinating Widow (S. J. A. Fitz-Gerald)                     17
+
+   THOMPSON, Creswick J.--
+     Zoroastro                                                        9
+
+   Tragedy of the Lady Palmist, The (W. L. Longstaff)                12
+
+   Trip to Paradoxia, A (T. H. S. Escott)                             3
+
+
+   V
+
+   Vathek (Edited by Justin Hannaford)                                6
+
+   VERT, Anthony P.--
+     The Green Passion                                               10
+
+   Virtue of Necessity, A (H. Adams)                                  7
+
+
+   W
+
+   Wandering Romanoff, The (B. Kennedy)                              13
+
+   Weeds and Flowers (W. L. Longstaff)                                6
+
+   Weird Well, The (A. M'Millan)                                      9
+
+   Wheel of Life, The (C. Scott)                                      2
+
+   WILLIAMS, Ellen--
+     Anna Marsden's Experiment                                       15
+
+   Woman and the Wits (G. F. Monkshood)                               5
+
+
+   Y
+
+   Year Book of the Stage (Greening and Hannaford)                    5
+
+
+   Z
+
+   Zoroastro (C. J. S. Thompson)                                      9
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+The following changes have been made to the text:
+
+Page 13: "chishmaclavers" changed to "clishmaclavers".
+
+Page 15: "laid his land" changed to "laid his hand".
+
+Page 17: "necessary hyprocrisy" changed to "necessary hypocrisy".
+
+Page 52: "they they well gone" changed to "they well gone".
+
+Page 59: "peebles" changed to "pebbles".
+
+Page 67: "paper was drwan" changed to "paper was drawn".
+
+Page 67: "umlimited domination" changed to "unlimited domination".
+
+Page 71: "mindet to pass" changed to "minded to pass".
+
+Page 80: "therefere" changed to "therefore".
+
+Page 84: "idolaltry" changed to "idolatry".
+
+Page 89: "Eslpa Ruet" changed to "Elspa Ruet".
+
+Page 89: "Elpsa made" changed to "Elspa made".
+
+Page 142: "progenitrex" changed to "progenitrix".
+
+Page 188: "is his discourses" changed to "in his discourses".
+
+Page 201: "acquaintaces" changed to "acquaintances".
+
+Page 220: "No, my friens" changed to "No, my friends".
+
+Page 226: "pursuer and the persecuted" changed to the "pursuer and the
+persecutor".
+
+Page 250: "imprisoment" changed to "imprisonment".
+
+Page 252: "soldiery" changed to "soldierly".
+
+Page 261: "riotors" changed to "rioters".
+
+Page 264: "ordered come" changed to "ordered some".
+
+Page 269: "Cumraes" changed to "Cumbrae".
+
+Page 361: "Pharoah" changed to "Pharaoh".
+
+Page 365: "unbonnetted" changed to "unbonneted".
+
+Page 370: "Hogmanae" changed to "Hogmanae".
+
+Page 3 of ads: "may me say" changed to "may we say".
+
+Page 5 of ads: "asthetic" changed to "aesthetic".
+
+Page 22 of ads: "attact" changed to attract".
+
+Page 1 and 2 of Index: "Asmodens" changed to "Asmodeus".
+
+Page 1 of Index: "((H. Sienkiewicz) 1" changed to
+"((H. Sienkiewicz)  12".
+
+Page 1 of Index: "((T. W. Carnie) 25" changed to "((T. W. Carnie)  21".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ringan Gilhaize, by John Galt
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RINGAN GILHAIZE ***
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