[157]. Sir George Mackenzie got £1500 of Sir William Scott of Harden’s fine; the Duke of Gordon and the Marquis of Atholl shared the fine of Harden, junior—three thousand five hundred pounds between them! Some degree of honour, as the times went, might perhaps then attach to the open driving of their neighbours’ cattle, not infrequent on the Highland borders, as it was accompanied with danger and required at least brute-courage; but these legal thefts, like the pilfering of the pick-pocket or the petty-fogging lawyer—his twin-brother in our day—excite unmingled disgust, because the thieves know they can do it safely.
But the chief instigators were the curates, and among them Peter Pierson, at Carsphairn, particularly distinguished himself. When Grierson of Lag held a court at Carsphairn church the preceding autumn, he sat with him, described the characters of the parishioners who were summoned, and appeared and gave information respecting the absentees. Soldiers were in consequence sent after them, who spoiled their houses and haled many old and infirm people, and women with child, and the sick, before the commissioner, who handled them but roughly. The whole parish was thus thrown into confusion, and Pierson being a surly ill-natured man, and very “blustering” withal, boasting in public companies that he feared no whigs—he only feared rats and mice—he came to be very generally disliked throughout the district, and was particularly obnoxious to the wanderers who were under hiding in that quarter. A few of them, therefore, determined to force him to sign a written declaration, that he would give up his trade of informer, and proceeded to the manse early in December, when they understood he was alone; for he did not even keep a servant. Two of their number being sent before, got entrance and delivered their commission, which put Pierson into the utmost rage, and drawing a broadsword and cocking a pistol, he got between them and the door. Upon this they called out, when other two, James Macmichael, gamekeeper to the Laird of Maxwellton, and Rodger Padzen came and knocked at the door. Pierson opened it, and was proceeding to attack them, when Macmichael shot him dead on the spot. The rest at a distance, on hearing the noise, ran up and cried—“Take no lives;” but it was too late. This deed was instantly and strongly disavowed by the wanderers, who would never allow any of the party to join with their societies; but one of the assassins was afterwards discovered to be a government spy, and Padzen ere long enlisted in Strachan’s troop of dragoons, which gave credibility to the report, that the whole had been a government plot, to bring discredit on the persecuted wanderers, and justify the savage, unconstitutional measures the managers were pursuing.
Several instances of severity, which occurred during this month, evince the natural tendency of persecution to harden the hearts and destroy every good feeling in the breasts of the persecutors. A poor man, who had been imprisoned in Dumfries jail, for not hearing the curate, having broken the prison and fled to England, his wife with seven small children begged their way after him; but finding no shelter there, she was forced to return. When journeying back, she had stopped to rest at a small alehouse. While sitting peaceably there, Johnston of Wester-raw, with some other persecutors happening to come in, required her to take the test, which she refusing, they haled her to Dumfries prison; and though she earnestly begged they would allow her to take her sucking-child—an infant of three months old—along with her, they would not consent, but threatened unless she complied next day they would drown her. Still she held fast her integrity, and lay for five weeks in jail, till she was sent to Edinburgh, whither her poor children, who, forbid to enter Dumfries, had been supported by charity, followed her, and where she somehow or other got released.[[158]]
[158]. The poor children who were able to walk came afterwards to Dumfries, and the eldest applied to the bailies that they might only have liberty to see and speak to their mother. This request was refused, and they were turned out of the town. When going past the prison, one of them saw her looking out at a window, but was not suffered to speak to her. When forced away from the spot, the child blessed the Lord that he had once more seen his mother.—Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 441.
John Linning, a dyer in Glasgow, a blind man, chargeable with nothing but non-conformity, was confined fourteen weeks. When a young daughter of his was taken sick, she cried out passionately for her father; yet would not the magistrates either suffer him to visit her on her deathbed or attend her funeral.
Claverhouse acted up to his instructions, and merited well of his employers. When ranging through Galloway (December 18) he came unexpectedly upon some of the wanderers, who were under hiding at Auchincloy, near the Water of Dee, and surprised six of them together; four he murdered upon the spot, and two he carried with him to Kirkcudbright, where, calling an assize, he went through the farce of a trial, and immediately ordered them to be executed! Nor would he permit them to write a few lines to their relatives to inform them of their fate. Other two escaped, and were pursued by some of the soldiers, who being informed of a house at which they had called in passing, but never sat down, entered the cottage, and missing their prey, took all its inmates prisoners and burnt it to the ground.
James Graham, a tailor in Corsmichael, was not so fortunate. Returning home from his work to his mother’s house, he too was overtaken, when walking peaceably along the highway, by Claverhouse and his squad. They knew him not, and had nothing to lay to his charge; but searching him, and finding a Bible in his pocket, that was crime enough. They took it and his tools from him, and carried him as a disloyal rebel to Kirkcudbright; thence he was sent to Dumfries, where he lay some time in irons, and was afterwards sent to Edinburgh, where, being questioned upon the declaration of the societies, and refusing to answer, he was found guilty of the treason he had not confessed—and of which there was no proof—condemned and hung!
About the latter end of this month, Lady Cavers, who had been in prison, first in Edinburgh tolbooth and then in Stirling Castle, upwards of two years, for keeping conventicles and being present at them, was released through the intervention of her son, Sir William Douglas, upon his return from his travels, who became bound for her living regularly in future or leaving the kingdom within three months. Yet was she not let go till she paid an enormous fine of five hundred pounds sterling—a sum, says Wodrow, exceeding three years’ rent of her estate—though the said rents had been sequestered, and her tenants plundered, during the time of her imprisonment.
About the same time, Dame Margaret Weems, Lady Colville, was imprisoned in Edinburgh tolbooth, for her ecclesiastical irregularities, especially for breeding up her son, Lord Colville, in fanaticism, and putting him out of the way when the council was going to commit his education to others.
In the parish of Nithsdale, James Crosbie, for refusing the test, had his ears cropt and was banished as a slave to Jamaica. In the parish of Auchinleck, William Johnstone being summoned to the court, and not appearing, a party of soldiers were sent to his house, which they plundered; and, as he and his wife had fled, they carried away with them a maid-servant who had charge of the children, leaving two or three destitute infants to shift for themselves; and because she refused to take the abjuration, which she told them she did not understand, they put burning matches between her fingers, and roasted the flesh to the bone. Her patience and composure under such torment so astonished the savages, that, after the infliction, they allowed her to return home. John Hallome, a youth of eighteen, seized while travelling on the road by Lieutenant Livingstone, and refusing the oath, was carried to Kirkcudbright, where a jury of soldiers being called, and he of course found guilty, he was instantly shot.