“What’s that you are saying now,” said Walter, pretending to rouse himself up.
“Pe sad works this,” said he. “Huh! Cot in heaven aye! Hersel would be fighting te Campbells, sword in hand, for every inch of the Moor of Rhanoch; but Cot t‑‑n, if she like to pe pluffing and shooting through te podies of te poor helpless insignificant crheatures. T‑‑n’d foolish ignorant peheople! Cot t‑‑n, if she pe having the good sense and prhudence of a bheast.”
Walter commended his feeling, and again asked his advice with regard to his own conduct.
“Who is te great man tat is te laird to yourself?” asked he.
“Mr Hay of Drumelzier,” was answered.
“Then lose not a mhoment in getting his very good report or security. All goes by that. It will do more ghood than any stock of innocence; and you had need to look very sharp, else he may soon cut you short. It’s a very good and a very kind man, but she pe caring no more for the lives of peoples, tan I would do for as many ptarmigans.”
Walter pondered on this hint throughout the night; and the more he did so the more he was convinced, that, as the affairs of the country were then conducted, Macpherson’s advice was of the first utility. He sent for one of the shepherds of Kippelgill next morning, charged him with an express to his family, and unable to do any thing further for himself, submitted patiently to his fate.
Clavers having been informed that night that some great conventicles had been held to the southward, he arose early, crossed the mountains by the Pennera Corse, and entered that district of the south called Eskdale. He had run short of ammunition by the way, and knowing of no other supply, dispatched Bruce with 20 men by the way of Ettrick, to plunder the aisle where the ancient and noble family of the Scotts of Thirlstane were enshrined in massy leaden chests. From these he cut the lids, and otherwise damaged them, scattering the bones about in the aisle; but the Scotts of Daventon shortly after gathered up the relics of their ancestors, which they again deposited in the chests,—closed them up with wooden lids, and buried them deep under the aisle floor, that they might no more be discomposed by the hand of wanton depravity.
At a place called the Steps of Glenderg, Clavers met with Sir James Johnston of Westeraw, with fifty armed men, who gave him an exaggerated account of the district of Eskdale, telling him of such and such field–meetings, and what inflammatory discourses had there been delivered, insinuating all the while that the whole dale ought to be made an example of. Clavers rejoiced in his heart at this, for the works of devastation and destruction were beginning to wear short. The Covenanters were now so sorely reduced, that scarcely durst one show his face, unless it were to the moon and stars of Heaven. A striking instance of this I may here relate by the way, as it happened on the very day to which my tale has conducted me.
A poor wanderer, named, I think, Matthew Douglas, had skulked about these mountains, chiefly in a wild glen, called the Caldron, ever since the battle of Bothwell–bridge. He had made several narrow, and, as he thought, most providential escapes, but was at length quite overcome by famine, cold, and watching; and finding his end approaching, he crept by night into a poor widow’s house at Kennelburn, whose name, if my informer is not mistaken, was Ann Hyslop. Ann was not a Cameronian, but being of a gentle and humane disposition, she received the dying man kindly—watched, and even wept over him, administering to all his wants. But the vital springs of life were exhausted and dried up: He died on the second day after his arrival, and was buried with great privacy, by night, in the church–yard at Westerkirk.