Tales of the Covenanters

by Ellen Emma Guthrie

"Good God!" he exclaimed, on beholding this terrible spectacle; "what means this?"

On hearing the voice of a stranger, the younger female lifted her head, but unable to speak, she merely pointed to the deceased, and then burying her face in her hands, gave way to fresh bursts of sorrow.

"O do not grieve thus," said Inchdarnie, "but tell me, in heaven's name, who has been the author of this bloody outrage; and if it should be in my power to render you any assistance——"

"Assistance!" screamed the old woman in a shrill voice of agony, and starting to her feet as she spoke, "can you restore us the dead? Can you bring back light to the eyeballs, and life to the stiffening frame? Can you blast with heaven's lightning——?"

"Oh, hush mother, hush! use not these awful words!" exclaimed the anguished wife; "it is not for us to curse our——"

"Stretched on the cottage floor lay the apparently lifeless body of a man, bathed in a pool of blood, while at his head sat an aged female, ghastly with despair."

"Interrupt me not!" cried the aged matron. "Can you blast with heaven's lightnings," she continued, "the mitred head of him who ordered the deed to be done—that rendered me childless in my old age? O may the curses of a bereaved mother cling to his soul, and drag him down—down! But I will be avenged," she continued, the frenzied light of madness blazing in her sunken eyes, "I will be avenged, and that right soon; God has promised it; the heavens frown not in wrath when I cry for revenge! And when that day comes, when he, the bloody prelate, kneels in the very dust begging for that mercy he this day denied to me, then—then will he know the bitterness of kneeling at the foot of man, and kneeling in vain." Here, thoroughly exhausted by her own violence, the heart-stricken mother threw herself on the body of her child, screaming aloud, "My son! my son!"

Overcome with horror at the wretched scene, and perceiving that assistance could not be of any avail, Andrew Ayton, after he had thrust some money into the passive hand of the more gentle mourner, quickly regained the door, and mounting his horse, which stood pawing the ground with impatience to be gone, galloped hastily onwards to Perth. Now that the excitement which had hitherto sustained him had in some measure subsided, Andrew Ayton began to experience the effects of the fatigue arising from the scenes through which he had passed, and to realise the necessity there was of his obtaining some repose; accordingly he alighted at the first public-house that afforded hopes of entertainment for man and beast. In the course of the following morning he resumed his journey, and entered the "Fair City" as the light of day was departing. Being very desirous of seeing Mr. Wellwood, who was then thought to be dying, he made at once for the house in which he resided. It was a humble apartment into which he was ushered; no signs of luxury, barely of comfort, greeted the stranger's eye. The ceiling was low and dark, and the casement small; yet through that narrow aperture the sun's rays entered wooingly and kissed the pallid brow of a young man—sole tenant of the solitary apartment—who instantly rose from his chair and advanced a few steps, although with apparent difficulty, so much was he wasted by sickness, to welcome Andrew Ayton. As each of the young men had heard frequent and favourable mention made of the other, both paused for one moment as if by mutual consent, and earnestly gazed in each other's face. What a contrast did they at this moment present! There stood young Ayton, his long fair hair hanging in waving masses on his shoulders; youth written on his brow—his blue eyes bright with enthusiasm, and his tall elegant figure erect and bold; while opposite to him was one on whose forehead the cold band of death had set its seal. Although comparatively young in years, he was old with anxiety and suffering; his flushed cheek and lustrous eye, his damp forehead and short dry cough, all attesting the fatal presence of consumption. To gaze on them thus was to imagine a meeting between life and death, or that between two warriors; the one bravely arming for the coming fight, and the other, weary of the strife, about to repose after having borne the burden and heat of the day. At length Mr. Wellwood spoke, and his voice was low and sweet as he expressed the pleasure it gave him to see Mr. Ayton; while the latter grieved beyond measure on beholding Mr. Wellwood so feeble and attenuated, could scarce command his voice sufficiently to make a suitable reply. After the lapse of some little time, during which both sat silent, Mr. Wellwood, who had been gazing in a dreamy manner on the few blighted flowers adorning his window, emblems of his own untimely fate, demanded of Andrew Ayton if Archbishop Sharpe had committed any further outrages on the Presbyterians.

"Oh! Mr. Wellwood," burst forth Inchdarnie, "words cannot paint the deep hatred that haughty prelate bears towards us; he would, if possible, blot our names from the book of life; the wholesale murders committed by his orders are terrible beyond imagination; and not contented with what has been already done, he daily devises fresh means of torture. Had you seen what I witnessed while coming hither, it would never have been effaced from your memory; the lifeless corpse, the bereaved wife, and the maniac mother—all are before me even now. That such men are permitted to live only to commit crimes revolting to humanity is indeed strange!"