8. Under what obligations were future generations placed?
10. What task here has fallen to us?
XXXVI.
AYRSMOSS.—A.D. 1680.
Ayrsmoss is a household word among Covenanters. Here is one of the numerous spots where temporary defeat has been transformed into permanent glory. A granite monument with suitable inscription marks the place and honors the fallen heroes. This is the field where Richard Cameron with a hardy group of Covenanters met the foe, and fought the first fight of Scotland's Revolutionary war against King Charles II.
Ayrsmoss lies in the heart of a wide solitude. The eye takes in a wild, broken surface in all directions. Loneliness broods in the very air. The heart grows heavy and the eyes dreamy, while we sit on a tuft of rushes and gaze at the monument that bears the names of the worthy dead. Reverie readily rehabilitates the landscape, and, in vision, the field is covered again with the horrors of the engagement. The horsemen are dashing upon each other, the air is shattered with the discharge of guns, swords are flashing in the evening sunlight, men are falling, blood is flowing, the Covenanters are fleeing, and—Cameron lies on the field dead.
Richard Cameron had sounded the keynote of freedom, that reverberated all over Scotland, and down into England, and over into Holland, and at length struck the ears of William, Prince of Orange. Cameron and his Covenanted associates, having disowned the authority of King Charles, disputed by force of arms his right to reign. They had preferred three charges against him. These were:
(1) Perjury; (2) Usurpation; (3) Tyranny.
The king had grossly violated the Covenant to which he had given his oath. The Covenant was the Scottish Constitution of government, and the wilful subversion of it was treason.