XIV. —JAMES RENWICK.
In the times in which we live, party spirit is carried very far. Many honest tradesmen, merchants, and shopkeepers, are ruined by their votes at elections. The ordinary intercourse of social life is obstructed and deranged. Friends go up to the polling station with friends, but separate there, and become, it may be, the most inveterate enemies. This, our later reformation of 1832, has cost us much; but our sufferings are nothing to those which marked the two previous reformations from Popery and Prelacy. In the one instance, fire and faggot were the ordinary means adopted for defending political arrangements; in the other, the gallows and the maiden did the same work, and the boots and the thumbikins acted as ministering engines of torture. The whole of society was convulsed; men's blood boiled in their veins at the revolting sights which were almost daily obtruding upon their attention; and their judgments being greatly influenced by their feelings, it is not to be wondered at that they should, in a few instances, have overshot, as it were, the mark—have sacrificed their lives to the support of opinions which appear now not materially different from those which their enemies pressed upon their acceptance. It is a sad mistake to suppose that the friends of Presbytery, during the fearful twenty-eight years' persecution of Charles and James, died in the support of certain doctrines and forms of church government merely. With these were, unhappily, or rather, as things have turned out, fortunately, combined, political or civil liberty, the establishment and support of a supreme power, vested in King, Lords, and Commons—instead of being vested, by usurpation, merely in the King alone. By avoiding to call Parliaments, and by obtaining supplies of money from France and otherwise, the two last of the Stuart Despots had, in fact, broken the compact of Government, and had exposed themselves all along, through the twenty-eight years of persecution, to dethronement for high treason. This was the strong view taken by those who fought and who fell at Bothwell Bridge, and this was the view taken by nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Scotland—of the descendants and admirers of Bruce and Wallace—of Knox and Carstairs. James Renwick, the last of the martyrs in the cause of religion and liberty, was executed in Edinburgh in his twenty-sixth year. He was a young man of liberal education, conducted both at the college of Edinburgh, and Groningen, abroad—of the most amiable disposition, and the most unblemished moral character—yet, simply because he avowed, and supported, and publicly preached doctrines on which, in twelve months after his execution, the British Government was based, he was adjudged to the death, and ignominiously executed in the presence of his poor mother and other relatives, as well as of the Edinburgh public. Mr Woodrow, in his history of this man's life, alludes to some papers which he had seen, containing notices of Mr Renwick's trials and hair-breadth escapes; prior to his capture and execution—which, however, he refrains from giving to the public. It so happens that, from my acquaintance with a lineal descendent of the last of the Martyrs, I have it in my power, in some measure, to supply the deficiency; his own note, or memorandum-book, being still in existence, though it never has been, nor ever will, probably, be published.
It was in the month of January 1688, that Mr Renwick was preaching, after nightfall, to a few followers, at Braid Craigs, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The night was stormy—a cold east wind, with occasional blasts of snow—whilst the moon, in her second quarter, looked out, at intervals, on plaids and bonnets nestled to the leeward of rocks and furze. It was a piteous sight to view rational and immortal creatures reduced to a state upon the level with the hares and the foxes. Renwick discoursed to them from the point of a rock which protruded over the lee side of the Craigieknowe. His manner was solemn and impressive. He was a young man of about twenty-five years of age; and his mother, Elspeth Carson, sat immediately before him—an old woman of threescore and upwards—in her tartan plaid and velvet hood. Her son had been born to a larger promise, and had enjoyed an excellent academic education; and much it had originally grieved the old woman's heart to find all her hopes of seeing him minister of her native parish of Glencairn, blasted; but his conscience would not allow him to conform; and she had followed him in his wanderings and field-preachings, through Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and all along by the Pentland Hills, to Edinburgh, where a sister of hers was married, and lived in a respectable way on the Castle Hill. This evening, after psalm-singing and prayer, Mr. Renwick had chosen for his text these words, in the fourth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Revelation—"Come out of her, my people." The kindly phrase, "my people," was beautifully insisted upon.
"There ye are," said Renwick, stretching out his hand to the darkening sleet; "there ye are, a poor, shivering, fainting, despised, persecuted remnant, whom the great ones despise, and the men of might, and of war, and of blood, cut down with their swords, and rack with their tortures. Ye are, like ye'r great Master, despised and rejected of men; but the Master whom ye serve, and whom angels serve with veiled faces, and even He who created and supports the sun, the moon, and the stars, He—blessed be His name!—is not ashamed to acknowledge ye, under all your humiliation, as His people. 'Come out of her,' says He, 'my people.' O, sirs, this is a sweet and a loving invitation. Ye are 'His people,' the sheep of His pasture, after all; and who would have thought it, that heard ye, but yesterday, denounced at the cross of Edinburgh as traitors, and rebels, and non-conformists, as the offscourings of the earth, the filth and the abomination in the eyes and in the nostrils of the great and the mighty? 'Come out!' says the text, and out ye have come—'done ere ye bade, guid Lord!' Ye may truly and reverentially say—Here we are, guid Lord; we have come out from the West Port, and from the Grassmarket, and from the Nether Bow, and from the Canongate—out we have come, because we are thy people. We know thy voice, and thy servants' voice, and a stranger and a hireling, with his stipend and his worldly rewards, will we not follow; but we will listen to him whose reward is with him; whose stipend is Thy divine approbation; whose manse is the wilderness; and whose glebe land is the barren rock and the shelterless knowe. Come out of her. There she sits," (pointing towards Edinburgh, now visible in the scattered rays of the moon,) "there she sits, like a lady, in her delicacies, and her drawing-rooms, and her ball-rooms, and her closetings, and her abominations. Ye can almost hear the hum of her many voices on the wings of the tempest. There she sits in her easy chair, stretching her feet downwards, from west to east, from castle to palace! But she has lost her first love, and has deserted her covenanted husband. She hath gone astray—she hath gone astray!—and He who made her hath denounced her—He whose she was in the day of her betrothment, hath said—She is no longer mine; 'come out of her, my people'—be not misled by her witcheries, and her dalliance, and her smiles—be not terrified by her threats, and cruelties, and her murderings—she is drunk, she is drunk—and with the most dangerous and intoxicating beverage, too—she is drunk with the blood of the saints. When shipwrecked and famishing sailors kill each other, and drink the blood, it is written that they immediately become mad, and, uttering all manner of blasphemies, expire! Thus it is with the 'Lady of the rock'—she is now in her terrible blasphemies, and will, by and by, expire in her frenzy. And who sits upon her throne?—even the bloody Papist, who misrules these unhappy lands—he, the usurper of a throne from which by law he is debarred—even the cruel and Papistical Duke, whom men, in their folly or in their fears, denominate 'King'—he, too, is doomed—the decree hath gone forth, and he will perish with her, because he would not come out."
"Will he, indeed, Mr Bletherwell? But there are some here who must perish first." So said the wily and infuriated Claverhouse, as he poured in his men by a signal from the adjoining glen, (where the lonely hermitage now stands in its silent beauty,) and in an instant had made Renwick, and about ten of his followers—the old woman, his mother, included—prisoners. This was done in an instant, for the arrangements had been made prior to the hour of meeting, and Claverhouse, attired in plaid and bonnet, had actually sat during the whole discourse, listening to the speaker till once he should utter something treasonable, when, by rising on a rock, and shaking the corners of his plaid, he brought the troop up from their hiding-places, amidst the whins and the broom by which the glen was at that time covered. Renwick, seeing all resistance useless, and indeed forbidding his followers, who were not unprovided for the occasion, to fire upon the military, marched onwards, in silence, towards Edinburgh. As they passed along by the land now denominated "Canaan," they halted at a small public-house kept by a woman well known at the time by the nickname of "Red-herrings," on account of her making frequent use of these viands to stimulate a desire for her strong drink. Over her door-way, indeed, a red-herring and a foaming tankard were rudely sketched on a sign-board, (like cause and effect, or mere sequence!) in loving unity. The prisoners were accommodated with standing-room in Tibby's kitchen; while the soldiers, with their leader, occupied the ben-room and the only doorway—thus securing their prisoners from all possibility of escape. Refreshments, such as Tibby could muster, consisting principally of brandy and ale, mixed up in about equal proportions of each, were distributed amongst the soldiers—who were, in fact, from their long exposure in the open air, in need of some such stimulants; whilst the poor prisoners were only watched, and made a subject of great merriment by the soldiers. The halt, however, was very temporary; but, temporary as it was, it enabled several of the members of the field-meeting to reach Edinburgh, and to apprise their friends, and what is termed the mob of the streets, of the doings at "Braid Craigs." Onwards advanced the party—soldiers before and behind, and their captives in the middle—till they reached the West Port, at the foot of the Grassmarket. It was near about ten o'clock, and the streets were in a buz with idle 'prentices, bakers' boys, shoemakers' lads, &c. The march along the Grassmarket seemed to alarm Clavers, for he halted his men, made them examine their firelocks, spread themselves all around the prisoners, and, advancing himself in front, and on his famous black horse, with drawn sword and holster pistols, seemed to set all opposition at defiance. The party had already gained the middle of that narrow and winding pass, the West Bow, when a waggon, heavily loaded with stones, was hurled downwards upon the party, with irresistible force and rapidity—Clavers's horse shied, and escaped the moving destruction; but it came full force into the very midst of the soldiers, who, from a natural instinct, turned off into open doors and side closes; in this they were imitated by the poor prisoners, who were better acquainted with the localities of the West Bow than the soldiery. In an instant afterwards, a dense and armed mob rushed headlong down the street, carrying all before them, and shouting aloud, "Renwick for ever! Renwick for ever!" This was taken as a hint by the prisoners, who, in an instant, had mixed with the mob; or sunk, as it were, through the earth, into dark passages and cellars. "Fire!" was Claverhouse's immediate order, so soon as the human torrent had reached him; and fire some of the soldiers did, but not to the injury of any of the prisoners, but to that of a person—a bride, as it turned out—who, in her curiosity or fear, had looked from a window above; she was shot through the head, and died instantly. But, in the meantime, the rescue was complete—Claverhouse, afraid manifestly of being shot from a window, galloped up the brae, and made the best of his way to the Castle, there to demand fresh troops to quell what he called an insurrection: whilst, in the meantime, the men, after a very temporary search or pursuit, marched onwards, with their muskets presented to the open windows, in case any head should protrude. But no heads were to be seen; and the soldiers escaped to the guard-house (to the Heart of Midlothian) in safety. Here, however, a scene ensued of a most heart-rending nature. Scarcely had the men grounded their muskets in the guard-house, when a seeming maniac rushed upon them with an open knife, and cut right and left like a fury. He was immediately secured, but not till after many of the soldiers were bleeding profusely. They thrust him immediately, bound hand and foot, into the black-hole, to await the decision of next morning; but next morning death had decided his fate—he had manifestly died of apoplexy, brought on by extreme excitement. His mother, who had followed her son when he issued forth deprived seemingly of reason, having lost sight of him in the darkness, had learned next morning of his fate and situation. She came, therefore, with the return of light, to the prison door, and had been waiting hours before it was opened. At last Clavers arrived, and ordered the maniac to be brought into his presence, and that of the Court, for examination. But it was all over; and the distorted limbs and features of a young and handsome man were all the mark by which a fond mother could certify the identity of an only son. From this poor woman's examination, it turned out that her son was to have been married on that very day to a young woman whom he had long loved; but that he had been called to see her corpse, after she was shot by the soldiery, and had rushed out in the frantic and armed manner already described. The poor woman, from that hour, became melancholy; refused to take food; and, always calling upon the names of her "bonny murdered bairns," was found dead one morning in her bed.
In the meantime, James Renwick had made the best of his way down the Cowgate, and across, by a narrow wynd, into the Canongate, where a friend of his kept a small public-house. He had gone to bed; but his wife was still at the bar, and two men sat drinking in a small side apartment. He asked immediately for her husband, and was recognised, but with a wink and a look which but too plainly spoke her suspicion of the persons who were witnesses of his entrance. Hereupon he called for some refreshment, as if he had been a perfect stranger, and, seating himself at a small table, began to read in a little note-book which he took from his side pocket—"four, five, six, seven—yes, seven," said he—"and it has cost me seven pounds my journey to Edinburgh." This he said so audibly as to be heard by the persons who were sitting in the adjoining box, that they might regard him as a stranger, and unconnected with Edinburgh. But, as he afterwards expressed it, he deeply repented of the attempt to mislead. The Lord, he said, had justly punished him for distrusting his power to extricate him, as he had already done, from his troubles. The men, after one had accosted him in a friendly tone about the weather, or some indifferent subject, took their departure; and Mrs Chalmers and he, now joined by the husband, enjoyed one hour's canny crack ere bedtime, over some warm repast. The whole truth was made known to them; but, though perfectly trustworthy themselves, they expressed a doubt of their customers, who were known to be little better than hired informers, who went about to public-houses, at the expense of the Government, listening and prying if they could find any evidence against the poor Covenanters. Next day, even before daylight, the house was surrounded by armed men, and Renwick was demanded by name. Mr Chalmers did not deny that he was in the house, but said that he came to him as to a distant relation, and that he was no way connected with his doctrines or opinions. In the meantime, Renwick was aroused, and had resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. He was a young and an active man, and trusted, as he owned with great regret afterwards, to his strength and activity, rather than to the mercy and the wisdom of his Maker. So, rushing suddenly down stairs, and throwing himself, whilst discharging a pistol, (which, however, did no harm), into the street, he was out of sight in a twinkling; but, in passing along, his hat fell off; and this circumstance drew the attention and suspicion of every one whom he passed, to his appearance. One foot, in particular, pressed hard upon him from behind, and a voice kept constantly crying, "Stop thief!—stop thief!" He ran down a blind alley, on the other side of the Canongate, and was at last taken, without resistance, by three men, one of whom—and it was the one who had all along pursued him—was the person who had accosted him last night in the public-house, respecting the weather. He was immediately carried to prison, where he remained—visited indeed by his mother—till next assizes, when he was tried, condemned, and afterwards executed—the Last of the Martyrs!
The conversation which he had with his mother, his public confessions of faith, and adherence to the covenanted cause, as well as his last address, drowned at the time in the sound of drums—all these are given at full length in Woodrow, (the edition of Dr Burns of Paisley), to which I must refer the reader who is curious upon such subjects. In this valuable work will likewise be found the inscription placed upon a very handsome cippus, or monument of stone, erected to his memory. We give it to the reader. There is another, if we mistake not, in the Greyfriars of Edinburgh, somewhat in the same style. They are both equally simple and touching.
In memory of the late
REVEREND JAMES RENWICK,
the last who suffered to the death for attachment to the
Covenanted Cause of Christ
in Scotland.
Born near this spot, 15th February, 1662,
and executed at the
Grassmarket, Edinburgh,
1688.
"The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
Ps. cxli. and 6.
Erected by subscription, 1828.
The late James Hastings, Esq. gave a donation of the ground. The subscriptions, amounting to about £100, were collected at large from Christians of all denominations; and the gentleman who took the most active part in suggesting and carrying through the undertaking, was the Rev. Gavin Mowat, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation at Whithorn, and formerly at Scar-brig, in Penpont, Dumfries-shire. The monument is placed upon the farm of Knees, at no great distance from the farm-house where the martyr was born. It stands upon an eminence, from which it may be seen at the distance of several miles down the glen, in which the village of Monyaive is situated. It was visited last summer by the author of this narrative; when the resolution, which has now been very imperfectly fulfilled, was taken.
XV. —OLD ISBEL KIRK.
Isbel Kirk lived in Pothouse, Closeburn, in that very house where that distinguished scholar, the late Professor Hunter of St Andrew's, was born. She had never been married, and lived in a small lonely cottage, with no companions but her cat and cricket, which chirped occasionally from beneath the hudstone, against which her peat-fire was built. There sat old, and now nearly blind, Isbel Kirk, spinning or carding wool, crooning occasionally an old Scotch song, or, it might be, one of David's psalms, and enjoying at intervals her pipe, a visit from her next neighbour, Nancy Nivison, or her champit-potatoes—a luxury which the west country, and that alone, has hitherto enjoyed. Two old Irish women had settled some time before this on the skirts of the opposite brae, where they had built a small turf cabin, and lived nobody could well tell how. They were generally understood to make a kind of precarious living, by going about the country periodically, giving pigs or crockery-ware in exchange for wool. Isbel Kirk was a most simple, honest creature, living on little, but procuring that little by her industry in spinning sale yarn, weaving garters, and using her needle occasionally, to assist the guidwife of Gilchristland in shirt-making for a large family. But the M'Dermots were the aversion of everybody, and seldom visited even by the guidman of Barmoor, on whose farm, or rather on the debatable skirts of it, they had sat down, almost in spite of his teeth. He was a humane man; and, though he loved not such visitors, yet he tolerated the nuisance, as his wife reckoned them skilled in curing children's diseases, and in spaeing the young women's fortunes. John Watson pastured sheep, where corn harvests now wave in abundance; and his flocks spread about to the doors of the M'Dermots and Isbel Kirk. These flocks gradually decreased, and much suspicion was attached to his Irish and heathenish neighbours, for they attended no place of worship, not even the conformed Curate's; but there was no proof against them. At last, a search was suddenly and secretly instituted under the authority of the Laird of Closeburn; and, although much wool was found, still there were no entire fleeces, nor any means left of bringing it home to the M'Dermots.
"Na, na, guidman," said the elder of the two harridans. "Na—ye needna stir aboot the kail-pot in that way—ye'll find naething there but a fine bit o' the dead braxy I gat frae the guidman o' Gilchristland, for helping the mistress wi' her kirn, that wadna mak butter; but there are folks that ye dinna suspect, and that are maybe no that far off either, wha could very weel tell ye gin they liked whar yer braw gimmer yows gang till."
Being pushed to be more particular, they were seemingly compelled at last to intimate that auld Isbel Kirk, she and her friend, Nanny Nivison, could give an account of the stolen sheep, if they liked. The guidman would not credit such allegations; but the old women persisted in their averment, and even offered to give the guidman of Barmoor occular demonstration of the guilt of the twa saunts, as they called them. A few days passed, and still a lamb or an old sheep would disappear—they melted away gradually, and the guidman began to think that his flocks must be bewitched, and that the devil himself must keep a kitchen somewhere about the Chaise Craig, over which Archy Tait had often seen the old gentleman driving six-in-hand about twelve o'clock at night. Returning, therefore, one morning to the M'Dermots, and renewing the conversation respecting Isbel Kirk and Nanny Nivison, it was agreed that one of the Irish sisterhood should walk over to Isbel's with him next forenoon, and that she would give him evidence of the fate of his flocks. Isbel was sitting before her door, in the sunshine of a fine spring morning, when the guidman and Esther M'Dermot arrived. She welcomed them kindly into her small but clean and neat cottage; and, with all the despatch which her blindness would permit of, dusted for their use an old-fashioned chair, and a round stool, which served the double purpose of stool and table. The conversation went on as usual about the weather, and the last sufferer in the cause of the Covenant, when Esther M'Dermot went into a dark corner, and forthwith drew out into the guidman's view, and to his infinite astonishment, a sheep's head, which bore the well-known mark of the farm on its ears.
"Look there, guidman," said Esther, "isna that proof positive of the way in which your braw hirsel is disposed of? By Jasus and the holy St Patrick! and here is a foot too, and twa horns!"
Poor Isbel Kirk could scarcely be made to apprehend the meaning of all this—indeed she could scarcely see the evidences of her guilt—and assured the guidman, in the most unequivocal manner imaginable, that she was innocent as the child unborn; indeed, she said, what should she do with dead sheep, or how should she get hold of them, seeing she was old and blind, and had not enjoyed a bit of mutton, or any other flesh, meat, since the new year?
"Ay," responded old Esther; "but ye hae friends that can help ye; dinna I whiles see, after dark, twa tall figures stealing o'er your way frae the Whitside linn yonder! I'se warrant they dinna live on deaf nits, after lying a' day in a dark and damp cave." Isbel held up her hands in prayer, entreating the Lord to be merciful to her and to his ain inheritance, and to discomfit the plans of his and her enemies.
"Ye may pray," said Elspat, "as ye like, but ye'll no mak the guidman here distrust his ain een, wi' yer praying and yer Whiggery." This last suggestion of the nightly visitors staggered Mr Watson not a little; he well knew how friendly old Isbel was to the poor Covenanters, and brought himself to conclude, under the weighty and conclusive evidence before him, that Isbel might have persuaded herself that she was rendering God good service by feeding his chosen people with the best of his flock. Isbel could only protest her innocence and ignorance of the way in which these evidences against her came there; whilst the guidman and Esther took their leave—he threatening that the matter should not rest where it was, and the old Irish jade pretending to commiserate Isbel on the unfortunate discovery.
Next morning, the pothouse was surrounded, and carefully searched by a detachment of Lag's men, to whom information of Isbel's harbouring rebels had been (the reader may guess how) communicated. Having been unsuccessful in their search, they put the poor blind creature to the torture, because she would not discover, or, perhaps, could not reveal, the retreat of the persecuted people. A burning match was put betwixt her fingers, and she was firmly tied to a bedpost, whilst the fire was blown into a flame by one of the soldiers. Not a feature in Isbel's countenance changed; but her lips moved, and she was evidently deeply absorbed in devotional exercise.
"Come, come, old Bleary," said one, "out with it! or we will roast you on the coals, like a red herring, for Beelzebub's breakfast."
"Ye can only do what ye're permitted to do," said the poor sufferer, now writhing with pain, and suffering all the agonies of martyrdom. "Ye may burn this poor auld body, and reduce it to its natural dust; but ye will never hear my tongue betray any of the poor persecuted remnant."
It is horrible to relate, but the fact cannot be disputed, that these monsters stood by and blew the match till the poor creature's fingers were actually burnt off—yet she only once cried for mercy; but, when they mentioned the conditions, she fainted; and thus nature relieved her from her sufferings. When she came again to herself, she found that they had killed the only living creature which she could call companion, and actually hung the body of the dead cat around her neck; but they were gone, and her hands were untied.
During the ensuing night a watch was set upon poor Isbel's house, thinking, as the persecutors did, that they would catch the nightly visitants, who were yet ignorant of their friend's sufferings in their behalf. The men lay concealed among brackens, on the bank opposite to the pothouse, and near to Staffybiggin, the residence of the M'Dermots. To their surprise, a figure, about twelve o'clock, came warily and stealthily around a flock of sheep which lay ruminating in the hollow. It was a female figure, if not the devil in a female garb. They continued to keep silent and lie still. At last they saw the whole flock driven over and across a thick-set bush of fern. One of the sheep immediately began to struggle; but it was manifestly held by the foot—in a few instants, two figures were seen dragging it into M'Dermot's door. This naturally excited their surprise, and, rushing immediately into the hut, they found the two old women in the act of preparing in a pit—which, during the day time, was concealed—mutton for their own use. The murder was now out. These wretched women had been in the habit, for some years, of supplying themselves from the Barmoor flocks; the one lying flat down upon her back amongst the furze, and the other driving the sheep over her breast. Thus the sister who caught, had an opportunity of selecting; and the best of the wedders had thus from time to time disappeared.
Poor Isbel Kirk!—her innocence was now fully established; but it was too late. Her kind friend Nanny Nivison attended her in her last illness, and the guidman of Barmoor paid every humane attention. But the ruffians of a mistaken and ill-advised government had deranged her nervous system. Besides, the burn never properly healed; it at last mortified, and she died almost insensible, either of pain or presence. Her soul seemed to have left its frail tabernacle ere life was extinct. The example we have here given is taken from that humble source, which the historian leaves open to the gleaner. Indeed, the histories of those times give but a very imperfect idea of the atrocities of that remarkable period. The cottage door must be opened to get at the truth; but the stately political historian seldom enters.
XVI. —THE CURLERS.
Winter 1684-5 was, like the last, cold, frosty, and stormy. The ice was on lake and muir from new year's day till the month of March. Curling was then, as it is still, the great winter amusement in the south and west of Scotland. The ploughman lad rose by two o'clock of a frosty morning, had the day's fodder threshed for the cattle, and was on the ice, besom in hand, by nine o'clock. The farmer, after seeing things right in the stable and the byre, was not long behind his servant. The minister left his study and his M.S., his concordance, and his desk, for the loch, and the rink, and the channel-stane. Even the laird himself was not proof against the temptation, but often preferred full twelve hours of rousing game on the ice, to all the fascinations of the drawing or the billiard-room, or the study. Even the schoolmaster was incapable of resisting the tempting and animating sound; and, at every peal of laughter which broke upon his own and his pupils' ears, turned his eyes and his steps towards the window which looked upon the adjoining loch; and, at last, entirely overcome by the shout over a contested shot; off he and his bevy swarmed, helter-skelter, across the Carse Meadow, to the ice. From all accounts which I have heard of it, this was a notable amongst many notable days. The factor was never in such play; the master greatly outdid himself; the laird played hind-hand in beautiful style; and Sutor John came up the rink "like Jehu in time o' need." Shots were laid just a yard, right and left, before and behind the tee; shots were taken out, and run off the ice with wonderful precision; guards, that most ticklish of all plays, were rested just over the hog-score, so as completely to cover the winner; inwicks were taken to a hair, and the player's stone whirled in most gracefully, (like a lady in a country dance), and settled, three-deep-guarded, upon the top of the tee. Chance had her triumphs as well as good play. A random shot, driven with such fury that the stone rebounded and split in two, deprived the opposite side of four shots, and took the game. The sky was blue as indigo, and the sun shot his beams over the Keir Hills in penetrating and invigorating splendour. Old women frequented the loch with baskets; boys and young lads skated gracefully around; the whisky-bottle did its duty; and even the herons at the spring-wells had their necks greatly elongated by the roaring fun. It was a capital day's sport. Little did this happy scene exhibit of the suffering and the misery which was all this while perpetrated by the men of violence. Clavers, the ever-infamous, was in Wigtonshire with his Lambs; Grierson was lying in his den of Lag, like a lion on the spring; Johnstone was on the Annan; and Winram on the Doon; whilst Douglas was here, and there, and everywhere, flying, like a malevolent spirit, from strath to strath, and from hill to dale. The snow lay, and had long been lying, more than a foot deep, crisp and white, over the bleak but beauteous wild; the sheep were perishing for want of pasture; and many poor creatures were in absolute want of the necessaries of life. (The potato, that true friend of the people, had not yet made its way to any extent into Scotland). Caves, dens, and outhouses were crowded with the persecuted flock. The ousted ministers were still lifting up their voice in the wilderness, and the distant hum of psalmody was heard afar amongst the hills, and by the side of the frozen stream and the bare hawthorn. What a contrast did all this present to the fun, frolic, and downright ecstacy of this day's sport! But the night came, with its beef and its greens, and its song, and its punch, and its anecdote, and its thrice-played games, and its warm words, and its half-muttered threats, and its dispersion about three in the morning.
"Wha was yon stranger?" said John Harkness to Sandy Gibson, as they met next day on the hill. "I didna like the look o' him; an' yet he played his stane weel, an' took a great lead in the conversation. I wish he mayna be a spy, after a'; for I never heard o' ony Watsons in Ecclefechan, till yon creature cast up."
"Indeed," said lang Sandy, "I didna like the creature—it got sae fou an' impudent, late at nicht; an' then that puir haverel, Will Paterson, cam in, an' let oot that the cave at Glencairn had been surprised, an' the auld minister murdered. If it be na the case—as I believe it isna hitherto—there was enough said last nicht to mak it necessary to hae the puir, persecuted saint informed o' his danger."
"An' that's as true," responded John; "an' I think you an' I canna do better than wear awa wast o'er whan the sun gaes down, an' let honest Mr Lawson ken that his retreat is known. That Watson creature—didna ye tent?—went aff, wi' the curate, a wee afore the lave; they were heard busy talking together, in a low tone of voice, as they went hame to the manse. I wonder what maks the laird—wha is a perfect gentleman, an' a friend, too, o' the Covenanted truth—keep company, on the ice, or off it, wi' that rotten-hearted, roupit creature, the curate o' Closeburn?"
"Indeed," replied the other, "he is sae clean daft aboot playing at channel-stane, that, I believe, baith him, an' the dominie, an' the factor—forby Souter Ferguson—would play wi' auld Symnie himself, provided he was a keen and a guid shot! But it will be mirk dark—an' there's nae moon—ere we mak Glencairn cave o't."
John Harkness and Sandy Gibson arrived at Monyaive, in Glencairn, a little after dark. The cave was about a mile distant from the town; and, with the view of refreshment, as well as of concerting the best way of avoiding suspicion, they entered a small ale-house kept by an old woman at the farther end of the bridge. They were shewn into a narrow and meanly-furnished apartment, and called for a bottle of the best beer, with a suitable accompaniment of bread and cheese. The landlady, by-and-by, was sent for, and was asked to partake of her own beverage, and questioned, in a careless and incidental manner, respecting the news. She looked somewhat embarrassed; and, fixing her eyes upon a keyhole, in a door which conducted to an adjoining apartment, she said, in a whisper—
"I ken brawly wha ye are, an maybe, too, what ye're after; but ye hae need to be active, lads; for there are those in that ither room that wadna care though a yer heads, as well as those o' some ither folks that shall be nameless were stuck on the West Port o' Edinbro."
In an instant, the two young farmers were butt the house, and beside Tibby Haddow's peat fire. In the course of a short, and, to all but themselves, an inaudible conversation, they learned that Lag himself, disguised as a common soldier, was in the next room, in close colloquy with a person clothed in grey duffle, with a broad bonnet on his head. From the description of the person, the two Closeburnians had no manner of doubt that the information obtained last night, in regard to the existence of a place of refuge in Glencairn, was now in the act of being communicated.
"At one o'clock!" said a well-known voice—it was that of Lag, to a certainty.
"Yes, at one," responded the stranger, Watson—whose voice was equally well-known to the farmers—"at one!" And they parted—the one going east, and the other west—and were lost in the darkness of night.
It was now past seven, with a clear, frosty night. What was to be done? It was manifest that the cave was betrayed—at least, that the whereabouts was known—and it was likewise necessary that this information should be conveyed to the poor inmate. But where was he to find a refuge, after the cave had been vacated? It struck them, in consulting, that if they could get the old woman to be friendly and assisting, the escape might be effected before the time evidently fixed upon for taking the cave by surprise. This was, however, a somewhat dangerous experiment; for, although Tibby M'Murdo was known to be favourable—as who amongst the lower classes was not?—to the non-conformists, yet she might not choose to run the immense risk of ruin and even death, which might result from her knowingly giving harbour to a rebel. So, by way of sounding the old woman—who lived in the house by herself, her granddaughter, who was at service in the town, only visiting her occasionally—they proposed to stay all night in the house, as they were in hourly expectation of a wool-dealer who had made an appointment to meet them here, but who, owing to the heavy roads, had manifestly been detained beyond the appointed time. The old woman had various objections to this arrangement; but was at last persuaded to make an addition to her fire, to put half-a-dozen bottles of her best ale on the table, with a tappit hen, and what she termed "a wee drap o' the creature," and to retire to rest about eight o'clock, her usual hour, they having already paid for all, and promised not to leave the house till she rose in the morning. At this time, about eight o'clock, the night had suddenly became dark and cloudy, and there was a strange noise up amongst the rocks overhead. It was manifest that there was a change of weather fast approaching. At last the snow descended, the wind arose, and it became a perfect tempest. Next morning, there were three human beings in Tibby's small ben, busily employed in discussing the good things already purchased, as well as in higgling and bothering about the price of wool. The weather, which had been exceedingly boisterous all night, had again cleared up into frost, and the inhabitants of Monyaive were busied in cutting away the accumulated snow from their doors, when in burst old Tibby's granddaughter, and, all at once, with exceeding animation, made the following communication:—
"Ay, granny, ye never heard what has taen place this last nicht. I had it a' frae Jock Johnston. Ye ken Jock—he's oor maister's foreman, an' unco weel acquent wi' the dragoons that lodge in the Spread Eagle. Weel, Jock tells me that Lag was here last nicht, in disguise like, an' that they had gotten information, frae ane o' their spies like, aboot a cave up by yonder where some o' the puir persecuted folks is concealed; an' that, aboot ane o'clock o' this morning—an' an awsome morning it was—they had marched on, three abreast, through the drift, carrying strae alang wi' them an lighted matches; an' that they gaed straight to the cave, an' immediately summoned the puir folks to come out and be shot; and that they only answered by a groan, which tellt them as plainly as could be, that the puir creatures were there; and that they immediately set fire to the straes at the mooth o' the cave, and fairly smoked them (Jock tells me) to death. Did ye ever hear the like o't?"
"O woman!" responded the grandmother, "but that is fearfu'!—these are indeed fearfu' times; there is naebody sure o' their lives for half-an-hour thegither, wha doesna gae to hear the fushionless curates!"
At this instant, one of the dragoons drew up his horse at the door, asking if a man, such as he described, with a blue bonnet and a grey duffle coat, had returned late last night, or rather this morning, to bed. Old Tibby answered, in a quavering voice, that the man mentioned had left her house about eight o'clock, and had not yet returned. The dragoon appeared somewhat incredulous; and, giving his horse to the girl to hold, he dashed at once and boldly into the room, where the three persons already mentioned were seated. The young farmers questioned immediately the propriety of his conduct; but he drew his sword, and swore that he would make cats' meat of the first that should lay hold upon him. He had no sooner said so, than a man sprang upon him from the fireside, and, striking his sword-arm down with the poker, immediately secured his person by such means as the place and time presented. The fellow roared like a bull, blaspheming and vociferating mightily of the crime of arresting a king's soldier in the discharge of his duty. But he was hurried into a concealed bed, tied firmly down with ropes and even blankets, and made to know that, unless he was silent, he might have to pay for his disobedience with his life. When old Tibby saw how things were going on, and that her house might suffer by such transactions, she sallied forth as fast as her feeble limbs and well-worn staff would carry her, exclaiming as she went—"We'll a' be slain—we'll a' be slain!—the laird o' Lag will be here—and Clavers will be here—and the King himself will be here—an' we'll a' be murdered—we'll a' be murdered!" At this moment, the trooper appeared in his regimentals, mounted his horse, and was off at full gallop. The granddaughter, now relieved from holding the dragoon's horse, followed her grandmother, and brought her lamp to the house; but, to their infinite surprise, there was nobody there save the very cursing trooper whom she had seen so recently ride off. His voice was loud, and his complainings fearful; but neither Tibby nor her granddaughter durst go near him, as they were fully convinced that he was a devil, and no man, since he had the power at once of mounting a horse and flying rather than riding away, and, at the same time, of lying cursing and swearing in a press bed in the ben. At last a neighbour heard the tale, and, being less superstitions, relieved the unfortunate prisoner from his rather awkward predicament. He swore revenge, and to cut poor old Tibby into two with his sword; but he found, upon searching for his weapon, that it was absent, as well as his clothes, which had been forcibly stripped from him when he was tied—and that without leave—and that he had nothing for it but to thrust himself into canonicals—in which garb he actually walked home to his quarters, amidst the shouts of his companions, and to the astonishment of all the staring villagers.
As he was making the best of his way to hide his disgrace in the Spread Eagle, he was told that his commanding officer, Sir Robert Grierson, had been wishing to speak with him, for some time past. Upon appearing immediately in the presence of authority, he was questioned in regard to the mission on which he had been despatched, and was scarcely credited when he narrated the treatment which he had met with, and the loss which he had sustained. A detachment was immediately despatched in quest of the thief, the wool-merchant, who had so cleverly supplied himself with a passport from the king; and, after our soldier's person had been unrobed, and attired for the present in his stable undress, Lag set out with a few followers, to examine the cave, in order to be assured of Mr Lawson's death. "They may gallop off with our horses," said Lag, in a jocular manner, by the way; "but they will not easily gallop off with the old choked hound, who has led us so many dances over the hills of Queensberry and Auchenleck." At last, they arrived at the mouth of the cave, and entered. Black and blue, and severely bruised, lay the dead body before them. "Ah, ha!" said Lag, making his boot, as he expressed it, acquainted with old Canticle's posteriors. "Ah, ha! my fleet bird of the mountain, and we have caught you at last, and caught you napping—ha, ha! Why don't you speak, old fire and brimstone? What! not a word now!—and yet you had plenty when you preached from the Gouk Thorn, to upwards of two thousand of your prick-eared, purse-mouthed, canting followers. Come, my lads, we have less work to do now; we will e'en back to quarters, and drink a safe voyage into the Holy Land, to old Dumb-and-flat there!" So saying, he reined up his horse, and was on the point of withdrawing the men, when one of them, who had eyed the body, which was imperfectly seen in the dark cave, more nearly than the rest, exclaimed—"And, by the Lord Harry, and we are all at fault, and the game is off, on four living legs, after all—off and away! and we standing drivelling here, when we should be many miles off in hot pursuit of this cunning fox who has contrived to give us the slip once more."
"What means the idiot?" vociferated Grierson.
"Mean!—why, what should I mean, Sir Robert, but that this here piece of carrion is no more the stinking corpse of old Closeburn, than I am a son of the Covenant!"
It turned out, upon investigation, that this was the body of the informer Watson, who had preceded Lag to the cave during the terrible drift; had been observed by John Harkness and Sandy Gibson, who were then employed in removing Lawson to the small inn; and, after a drubbing which disabled him from moving, he had been left the only tenant of the cave. When Grierson came, as above mentioned, from the drift and the cold, as well as the beating, he was unable to speak; but his groans brought his miserable death upon him; and Lawson, by assuming the dragoon's garb and steed, was enabled to escape, and to officiate, as has been already mentioned in a former paper, for several years before his death, in his own church, from which he had been so long and so unjustly driven. Thus did it please God to punish the infamous conduct of Watson, and to enable his own servant to effect his escape. The dragoon's horse was found, one morning at day-light, neighing and beating the hoof at old Tibby's door. It soon found an owner, but told no stories respecting its late occupant, who was now snugly lodged in William Graham's parlour in the guid town of Kendal. Graham and he were cousins-german.
XVII. —THE VIOLATED COFFIN.
An effort has, of late, been made to repel the allegations which, for past ages, have been made against the infamous instruments of cruelty during the twenty-eight years' persecution. The Covenanters have been represented as factious democrats, setting at defiance all constituted authority, and exposing themselves to the vengeance of law and justice. These sentiments are apt to identify themselves with modern politics; but we hope we will never see our country again devastated by oppression, cruelty, and all the shootings, and headings, and hangings of the Stuart despotism repeated. It becomes, therefore, the duty of every friend of good and equal government to put his hand to the work, and to support those principles under which Britain has flourished so long, and every man has sat in safety and in peace under his own vine and his own fig-tree. No train of reasoning, or of demonstration, however, will suffice for this. The judgment is, in many occasions, convinced of error and injustice, whilst the heart and the conduct remain the same. There must be something in accordance with the decisions of the judgment pressed home upon the feelings. There must be vivid pictures of the workings of a system of misrule placed before the mind's eye, so that a deep and a human interest may be felt in the picture. The reader must open the doors of our suffering peasantry, and witness their family and fireside bereavements. He must become their companion under the snow-wreath and the damp cave—he must mount the scaffold with them, and even listen to their last act and testimony. How vast is the impression which a painter can, in this way, make upon the spirit of the spectator! Let Allan's famous Circassian slave be an instance in point; but the painter is limited to a single point of time, and the relation which that bears and exhibits to what has gone before or will come after; but the writer of narrative possesses the power of shifting his telescope from eminence to eminence—of varying, ad libitum, time, place, and circumstances—and thus of making up for the acknowledged inferiority of written description of narratives to what is submitted, as Horace says, "Oculis fidelibus," by his vast and unlimited power of variety. The means, therefore, by which past generations have been made to feel and acknowledge the inhumanities, the scandalous atrocities of those blood-stained times, still remain subservient to their original and long tried purposes; and it becomes the imperious duty of every succeeding age to transmit and perpetuate the impressions of abhorrence with which those times were regarded and recollected. This duty, too, becomes so much the more necessary, as the times become the more remote. The object which is rapidly passed and distanced by the speed of the steam-engine, does not more naturally diminish in dimensions to the eye, as it recedes into the depths of distance, than do the events which, in passing, figured largely and impressively, lose their bulk and their interest when removed from us by the dim and darkening interval of successive centuries; and the only method by which their natural and universal law can be modified, or in any degree counteracted, is by a continuous and uninterrupted reference to the past—by making what is old, recent by description and imagination; and by more carefully tracing and acknowledging the connection which past agents and times have, or may be supposed to have, upon the present advancement and happiness of man. Had the devotedness of the Covenanter and Nonconformist been less entire than it was—had the arbitrary desires of a bigoted priesthood and a tyrant prince been submitted to—then had the Duke of York been king to the end of his days—Rome had again triumphed in her priesthood; and we at this hour, if at all awakened from the influence of surrounding advancement to a sense of our degradation, had been only enacting bloody Reformation, instead of bloodless Reform, and suffering the incalculable miseries which our forefathers, centuries ago, anticipated. Nay, more, but for the lesson taught us by the friends of the Covenant and the conventicle, where had been the great encouragement to resist political oppression in all time to come, when the proudly elevated finger may point to the record, which said, and still says, in letters indeed of blood—"A people resolved to be free, can never be ultimately enslaved." The Covenant had its use—and, immense in its own day, and in its immediate efforts, it placed William, and law, and freedom on the throne of Britain; but that is as nothing in the balance, when compared with the less visible and more remote effects of this distinguished triumph:—It, throughout all the last century, maintained a firm and unyielding struggle with despotism, sometimes indeed worsted, but never altogether subdued; and it has, of late years, issued in events and triumphs too recent and too agitating to be now fairly and fully discussed. Nor will the influence of the Covenant cease to be felt in our land, till God shall have deserted her, and left her entirely to the freedom of her own will, to the debasing influence of that luxury and corruption which has formed the grave of every kingdom that has yet lived out its limited period.
These Gleanings of the Covenant have been written under the impression, and with the view above expressed; and it is hoped that the following narrative, true in all its leading circumstances, and more than true in the "vraisemblable," may contribute something to the object thus distinctly stated.
The funeral of Thomas Thomson had advanced from the Gaitend to the Lakehead. The accompaniment was numerous—the group was denser. Thomas had lived respected, and died regretted. He was the father of five helpless children, all females, and his wife was manifestly about to be delivered of a sixth. Just as the procession had advanced to the house of Will Coultart, a troop of ten men rode up. They had evidently been drinking, and spoke not only blasphemously, but in terms of intimidation.—"Stop, you cursed crew," said the leader. "He has escaped law, but he shall not escape justice. Come here, lad;" and at once they alighted from their horses, seized the coffin, and opening the lid, were about to penetrate the corpse through and through. "Stop a little," said John Ferguson, the famous souter of Closeburn; "there are maybe twa at a bargain-making;" so saying, he lifted an axe which he took up at a wright's door, and dared any one to disturb them in their Christian duty. A "pell-mell" took place, in the midst of which poor Ferguson was killed. He had two sons in the company, who, seeing how their father had been used, rushed upon the dragoons, and were both of them severely wounded. In the meantime, Douglas of Drumlanrig came up, and, understanding how things went, ordered the soldiers to give in, and the wounded men to be taken care off. All this was wondrous well; but what follows is not so. The body of Ferguson was carried to Croalchapel; and the two sons accompanied it, with many tears. Douglas seemed to feel what had happened, and could not avoid accompanying the party home. He entered the house of mourning, where there was a dead father, a weeping widow, and two wounded sons. He entered, but he saw nothing but Peggy. Poor Peggy was an only sister of these lads—an only daughter of her murdered father. Douglas was a man of the world! Oh, my God, what a term that is! and how much misery and horror does it not contain. Peggy was really beautiful; not like Georgina Gordon, or Lady William, or Mrs Norton, or Lady Blessington; for her beauty depended in no degree upon art. Had you arrayed her in rags, and placed her in a poor's-house, she would have appeared to advantage. Peggy, too, (the God who made her knows,) was pure in soul, and innocent in act as is the angel Gabriel! she never once thought of sinning, as a woman may, and does (sometimes) sin; she lived for her father, whom she loved—and for her mother, whom she did not greatly dislike. But her mother was a stepmother, and Peggy liked her father. Guess, then, her grief, when Peggy saw her father murdered, her brothers wounded, and knew the cause thereof. "Lift her," said Douglas to his men, after he had, in seeming humanity, seen the corpse and brothers home; "lift her into Red Hob's saddle, and carry her to Drumlanrig." No sooner said than done. The weeping, screaming girl was lifted into the saddle, and conveyed, per force, to Drumlanrig. At that gate there stood a figure clothed in dyed garments. It was the elder brother of Peggy, he who had been least injured of the two. He stood with his sword in his hand, and dared any one who would conduct his sister into the abode of dishonour. Douglas snapped, and then fired a pistol at him, but neither took effect. In the meantime, the brother was secured, and the sister was carried into the "Blue Room," well known afterwards as the infamous sleeping-chamber of old "Q." The not less infamous, though ultimately repentant Douglas, advanced into the chamber. The poor girl seemed as if she had seen a snake; she shrunk from his approach and from his blandishments. She had previously opened the window into the green walk; she had taken her resolve, and, in a few instants, lay a maimed, almost mangled being, on the beautiful walks of Drumlanrig. Douglas was manifestly struck by the incident, but not converted. He took sufficient care to have the poor girl conveyed home, and to have the brothers provided for, but his hour was not yet come. It was not till after his frequent conversations with the minister of Closeburn, that he came to a proper sense of his horrible conduct. But what was the awful devastation of this family. The poor beauteous flower Peggy, who was about to have been married to a farmer's son, (Kirkpatrick of Auchincairn,) was by him rejected. He called at the house sometime afterwards, with a view to see her; but he came full of suspicion, and therefore unwilling to receive the truth. He had heard the whole story, and must have known that his Peggy was at least as pure in mind as she had been beautiful in person; but he belonged not naturally to the noble stock of the family to which he was to have been allied, and gave himself up to prejudice. The girl was still in bed, to which, from her bruises, she had been confined for months. The meeting might have been one which a poet would have gloried in describing, or a painter in delineating and embellishing, with hues stolen from the arc of Heaven! Alas! it was one only worthy of the pencil of a Ribera—fraught with cruelty, and abounding in selfishness and dishonour. The girl, as she turned her pale yet beautiful face on him, told him the truth, and watched, with tears in her eyes, the effect of her narrative on one whose image had never been absent from her mind, if indeed it had not supported her in her struggle, and nerved her to the purpose which preferred death to dishonour. Her bruises and wounds spoke for her, and, to any one but her lover, would have proved that he was a part of the object of her sacrifice. It was all to no purpose. The eloquence of truth, of love, of nature, were lost upon him; nothing would persuade him that the object of his love had not been degraded. He turned a cold glance of doubt upon her, and turned to leave the room. Peggy rushed out of bed, and, maimed and weak as she was, would have stopped him. Her energies failed her—her lover was gone; and her mother, roused by the cries of her pain, came and assisted her again into bed. Poor Peggy heard no more of Kirkpatrick. She sickened and died?—no! far worse!—she became desperate, married a blackguard, and lived a drunkard; the sons were banished for firing at Douglas, as he passed in his carriage through Thornhill; and the poor mother of the whole family became—shall I tell it I—an object of charity! Thus was, to my certain knowledge, at least to that of my ancestors, a most creditable and well-doing family ruined, root and branch, by the persecutors—or, in other words, by those who, without knowing what they did, regarded the "Covenant" as an unholy thing, and fought the foremost in the ranks of oppression and uniformity.
Now, there is not a word of this in Woodrow, or Burns, or even in the MS. of the Advocate's Library; and yet we can assure the reader, that the material facts are as true as is the death of Darnley, or the murder of Rizzio! God bless you, madam! you have, and can have, and ought to have no notion whatever of the united current of horribility, which ran through the whole ocean of cruelty during these awful and most terrific times! May the God that made, the Saviour that redeemed, and the Holy Spirit that prepares us for heaven, make us thankful that in those times we do not live; and that such men as Woodrow and Burns (the first and the last) have been raised up, to vindicate and to justify such men as then suffered in their families, or in their persons, for the covenanted cause of the Great Head of our Presbyterian Church!