“I’ll answer any reasonable thing, sir,” said the poor weaver.
“Hout! never head the creature, man,” said Walter; “it’s a poor drunken senseless beast of a thing.”
Ingles fixed his reeling unsteady eyes upon him, filled with drunken rage—walked on, spitting and looking across the way for a considerable space—“What the devil of a whig camel is this?” said he, crossing over to Walter’s side. “Drunken senseless beast of a thing! Holm, did you hear that?—Macwhinny, did you?—Eh? I’ll scorn to shoot the cusser, though I could do it—Eh? But I’ll kick him like a dog—Eh?—Take that, and that, will you? Eh?” And so saying, he kicked our proud–hearted and independant Goodman of Chapelhope with his plebeian foot, staggering backward each time he struck.
Walter’s spirit could not brook this; and disregardful of all consequences, he wheeled about with his face toward him, dragging the weaver round with a jerk, as a mastiff sometimes does a spaniel that is coupled to him; and, as Ingles threw up his foot to kick him on the belly, he followed up his heel with his foot, giving him such a fling upwards as made him whirl round in the air like a reel. He fell on his back, and lay motionless; on which, several of the party of soldiers levelled their muskets at Walter. “Ay, shoot,” said he, setting up his boardly breast to them—“Shoot at me if you dare, the best o’ ye.”
The soldiers cocked their pieces.
“Your Colonel himsel durstna wrang a hair o’ my head, though fain he wad hae done sae, without first gieing me ower to his betters—Let me see if a scullion amang ye a’ dare do mair than he.”
The soldiers turned their eyes, waiting for the word of command; and the weaver kept as far away from Walter as the nature of his bonds would let him. The command of the party now devolved on a Serjeant Douglas; who, perhaps nothing sorry for what had happened, stepped in between the soldiers and prisoner, and swore a great oath, that “what the prisoner said was the truth; and that all that it was their duty to do was, to take the prisoners safe to Edinburgh, as at first ordered; and there give their evidence of this transaction, which would send the lousy whig to hell at once, provided there was any chance of his otherwise escaping.”
They lifted Ingles, and held him up into the air to get breath, loosing meantime his cravat and clothes; on which he fell to vomit severely, owing to the fall he had got, and the great quantity of spirits he had drunk. They waited on him for about two hours; but as he still continued unable either to speak or walk, they took him into a house called Granton, and proceeded on their destination.
This Douglas, though apparently a superior person to the former commander of the party, was still more intolerant and cruel than he. There was no indignity or inconvenience that he could fasten on his prisoners which he did not exercise to the utmost. They lodged that night at a place called Tweedshaws; and Walter used always to relate an occurrence that took place the next morning, that strongly marked the character of this petty officer, as well as the licensed cruelty of the times.
Some time previous to this, there had been a fellowship meeting, at a place called Tallo–Lins, of the wanderers that lurked about Chapelhope and the adjacent mountains. About eighty had assembled, merely to spend the night in prayer, reading the Scriptures, &c. The curate of Tweedsmuir, a poor dissolute wretch, sent a flaming account of this in writing to the privy council, magnifying that simple affair to a great and dangerous meeting of armed men. The council took the alarm, raised the hue and cry, and offered a reward for the apprehending of any one who had been at the meeting of Tallo–Lins. The curate, learning that a party of the king’s troops was lodged that night in his parish and neighbourhood, came to Tweedshaws at a late hour, and requested to speak with the captain of the party. He then informed Douglas of the meeting, shewed him the council’s letter and proclamation, and finally told him that there was a man in a cottage hard by whom he strongly suspected to have formed one at the meeting alluded to in the proclamation. There being no conveniency for lodging so many people at Tweedshaws, Douglas and the curate drank together all the night, as did the soldiers in another party. A number of friends to the prisoners had given them money when they left Dumfries for Edinburgh, to supply as well as they might the privations to which they would be subjected; but here the military took the greater part of it from them to supply their intemperance. About the break of day, they went and surrounded a shepherd’s cottage belonging to the farm of Corehead, having been led thither by the curate, where they found the shepherd an old man, his daughter, and one Edward M’Cane, son to a merchant in Lanarkshire, who was courting this shepherdess, a beautiful young maiden. The curate having got intelligence that a stranger was at that house, immediately suspected him to be one of the wanderers, and on this surmise the information was given. The curate acknowledged the shepherd and his daughter as parishioners, but of M’Cane, he said, he knew nothing, and had no doubt that he was one of the rebellious whigs. They fell to examine the youth, but they were all affected with the liquor they had drunk over night, and made a mere farce of it, paying no regard to his answers, or, if they did, it was merely to misconstrue or mock them. He denied having been at the meeting at Tallo–Linns, and all acquaintance with the individuals whom they named as having been there present. Finding that they could make nothing of him whereon to ground a charge, Douglas made them search him for arms; for being somewhat drunk, he took it highly amiss that he should have been brought out of his way for nothing. M’Cane judged himself safe on that score, for he knew that he had neither knife, razor, bodkin, nor edged instrument of any kind about him; but as ill luck would have it, he chanced to have an old gun–flint in his waistcoat pocket. Douglas instantly pronounced this to be sufficient, and ordered him to be shot. M’Cane was speechless for some time with astonishment, and at length told his errand, and the footing on which he stood with the young girl before them, offering at the same time to bring proofs from his own parish of his loyalty and conformity. He even condescended to kneel to the ruffian, to clasp his knees, and beg and beseech of him to be allowed time for a regular proof; but nothing would move him. He said, the courtship was a very clever excuse, but would not do with him, and forthwith ordered him to be shot. He would not even allow him to sing a psalm with his two friends, but cursed and swore that the devil a psalm he should sing there. He said, “It would not be singing a few verses of a psalm in a wretched and miserable style that would keep him out of hell; and if he went to heaven, he might then lilt as much at psalm–singing as he had a mind.” When the girl, his betrothed sweet–heart, saw the muskets levelled at her lover, she broke through the file, shrieking most piteously, threw herself on him, clasped his neck and kissed him, crying, like one distracted, “O Edward, take me wi’ ye—take me wi’ ye; a’ the warld sanna part us.”