CHAPTER VIII. VICTORY OF DRUMCLOG AND DEFEAT AT BOTHWELL BRIDGE.
I pass over in silence ten or a dozen years of continued oppression, which brought us little change save that our hearts grew ever sadder.
It had been declared a treasonable act to attend a conventicle, and troops were sent through the country with orders to suppress them at the point of the sword; therefore we no longer met in small bodies.
In May, 1679, a great conventicle was appointed to be held on a moor near Lanark. Steenie went up in company with many others from among us. No secret was made of the meeting, and most of the men went armed. Claverhouse with his dragoons was then in Glasgow. He marched directly to Loudoun Hill, or Drumclog, the place where our people had assembled for worship. He seized some who were on the way to the meeting and drove them before him. The service was scarcely commenced when the alarm was given. Our people flew to arms to defend themselves, and in the battle that ensued they were the victors. Elated with hope, the people flocked to our standard, and a large force was soon in the field.
My two older brothers and my nephew Jamie, now a grown man, thought of joining the army. They were weary of fines, robberies, and all the oppressions which they suffered. They felt that they could no longer submit to these things and lift up their heads as free-born Scots should do.
While they were weighing the matter tidings of our father's death reached us. He with others had been taken from the place of their imprisonment and driven like beasts before the merciless soldiers. My father, weak from age, long confinement, and insufficient nourishment, became exhausted, and lagged in the march. A brutal soldier pierced him with a spear, and he fell. His head and hands were cut off and exposed to public gaze at Edinburgh. The mangled body was left without proper burial. The enemy alleged, in justification of their conduct, that he was the most obstinate of all the "ranting rebels."
Ah, well we understood that charge! It meant that torture, keenest torture, had been his; and he had borne it uncomplainingly, sustained by God's grace.
And now when I think of the Heavenly City, and of the just made perfect who dwell there, I can almost see my father amid the throng of the redeemed; I can almost hear him sing praises to God and the Lamb with the tongue that never denied the faith while on earth.
My brothers and nephew no longer hesitated, as may well be supposed. Margaret, James' wife and the mother of Jamie, no longer "wee," freely gave her consent. "Alas!" she said, "war is a fearsome thing; but since it is your duty to go, go, and may God protect you both and bring you safe home."
Ellen could not feel the same resignation. She clung to Richie till the last moment, almost upbraiding him for leaving her. He turned on her a look in which pity was blent with reproach.
"Ellen," he said, "I cannot forget that I am a man, and not a dog. I can no longer patiently suffer these outrages."
With aching hearts they took leave of their weeping families, their own eyes filled with tears and their lips tremulous with unspoken anxieties. But they bravely endeavored to suppress their emotion, and, sustained by firmness of purpose and hopeful anticipation of righted wrongs, they tore themselves away.
Bessie McDougal, who could never forget her loss at Rullion Green, still, with patriotic piety, encouraged her only son Robert to devote himself to the cause of our kirk and country. She came with him as far as our house, for Robert was to go with Jamie and Richie. I very well remember how she looked at that time. Naturally cheerful, hale, and ruddy, she had borne up remarkably well under her afflictions. But her cheek had grown paler and her step less firm and elastic, so that she leaned a little heavily on the stout walking-stick she carried.
It was at our door that she took leave of Robert. Collecting all her strength, she took her son's hand and bravely spoke her farewells.
"Robert, my son, you are my only earthly prop and stay; but I will nae grudge ye to God and his ain cause. And if my auld e'en shall behold your face nae mair in the flesh, we shall meet again where troubles are nae mair. Should you fall in battle, you will but follow in the steps of him who has gane before you. Gie your mither a kiss, my bairn. Fare ye weel, fare ye weel!"
The bereaved mother turned to retrace her steps towards her now solitary home. We called after her to come in and stop a while. "I can neither gie nor tak comfort," said she, "and I would fain grieve in my ain hame."
Our own hearts were sore too, as any one may judge, seeing that all our loved ones who could bear the sword were away to face danger and death. But sorer yet would they have been if we could have foreseen the disastrous defeat of our army at Bothwell Bridge, a defeat chargeable in no small degree to the dissensions that nearly rent our people asunder.
Oh, that dreadful day! Even now the memory of it comes unbidden far oftener than the morning sun salutes the earth. My brother Jamie, my poor, sad mother's firstborn, was left on that fatal field cold in death—Jamie, the husband of the good, brave, patient Margaret, and father of six bonnie bairns. Oh, what a stroke was that! Then when we called to mind how many fathers, sons, and brothers, of the very flower of Scotland, shared a like fate, we cried out in bitterness of soul,
"O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself. Lift up thyself, thou Judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud. Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?"
But I have more to tell of that terrible battle. Richie was one of the twelve hundred who, when all was lost, threw down their arms and cried for quarter. They were taken prisoners to Edinburgh, and penned, half naked, in the same Grayfriars kirkyard in which the Covenant was signed in 1638. They were herded there for five months like so many brute beasts, without shelter by day or covering by night. At the end of that time, Richie and many others regained their freedom by signing a bond never again to take up arms against the king.
Steenie was thrice taken prisoner, and as many times made his escape. Just as he was leaving the field he stumbled over the dead body of Jamie. In regaining his feet his eye caught sight of the dear, familiar face, then rigid in death. Regardless of consequence he threw himself down beside his lifeless brother. Two soldiers rode that way in search of flying fugitives. Seeing a living man among the dead, they halted. Struck with the grief and affection that could lead to such a disregard of personal safety, some touch of humanity returned to their stony hearts.
"What hinders us to run you through, man?"
"It is all one to me," replied Steenie. "My brother is dead, and our cause is lost."
"Let us show pity to our fellow-mortal," said one to the other, "and when death comes to us, I warrant we shall not grieve at the mercy."
"Rise and take to your heels," said the first speaker, "and hide yourself as soon as you can. If your escape is seen it may cost us our lives."
Steenie afterwards told Robert McDougal, who also escaped, that he was so thoroughly weary of life under the tyranny of the oppressor that nothing but thoughts of the grief his death would cause our mother made him avail himself of the mercy shown by the two humane soldiers. "But," added he, "what, after all, signifies an escape that must eventually end in torture or death?" He knew that for those who would not renounce the Covenant life could be but a weary waiting and lurking in wild moors and caves.
From this time Steenie and Robert were inseparable. I scarcely could see one without the other. The truth came slowly to me that Robert was especially interested in me, and that Steenie was glad it was so. I never could see why he was glad, since in those troublous times no tie could be so binding as to secure to us the companionship of our friends.
My nephew Jamie was spared to us. A serious and lingering illness had suddenly prostrated him and prevented him from joining the Covenanters' army, according to his intention; and when news of his father's death and of our crushing defeat came, his mother was still watching by his bedside. As his strength slowly returned, she blessed God for the sickness that for the time had so increased her sorrow and her cares, but in which she now saw the divine hand in mercy holding her son back from death or capture on the field. And truly she needed Jamie, her other bairns being much younger than he, and all lasses but the youngest.
Richie's return was a source of thankfulness; yet Steenie would never have accepted liberty on such conditions. Ellen was overjoyed; she had no regrets that he was never again to fight for liberty of conscience. But his health was never again robust; he had suffered too much from exposure in his confinement at Edinburgh.
Margaret welcomed Richie with tears.
"I rejoice with you, dear Ellen, at the return of your husband," she said. "Mine will never come back to me. I do not even know where his body lies. But the trump of God will wake him; and we shall meet again in a better world, where are no wars nor rumors of wars, no more crushing by a tyrant's heel, no more heart-achings or heart-breakings. There the great King himself will bid his subjects be glad for evermore."