In the month of October, and the memorable year 1688, it is well known that Clavers hasted southward, with all the troops under his command, to assist King James against the Prince of Orange and the protestant party of England, or to sell himself to the latter, any of the ways that he found most convenient. In the course of this march, as he was resting his troops at a place called Ninemile–brae, near the Border, a poor emaciated and forlorn–looking wretch came to him, and desired to speak a word with him. Mr Adam Copland and he were sitting together when this happened; Clavers asked his name and his business, for none of the two recognised him—It was Clerk, the curate (that had been) of Chapelhope and Kirkhope! Clavers said, as there were none present save a friend, he might say out his business. This he declined, and took Clavers a short way aside. Copland watched their motions, but could not hear what Clerk said. When he began to tell his story Clavers burst into a violent fit of laughter, but soon restrained himself, and Copland beheld him knitting his brows, and biting his lip, as he seldom failed to do when angry. When they parted, he heard him saying distinctly, “It is impossible that I can avenge your wrongs at this time, for I have matters of great import before me; but the day may come ere long when it will be in my power, and d‑‑n me if I do not do it!”
The spirits of the wild having been victorious, and the reverend curate, the goodwife’s only stay, overcome and carried off bodily, she was impatient, and on the rack every minute that she staid longer about the house. She caused one of her sons take a horse, and conduct her to Gilmanscleuch that night, to her brother Thomas’s farm, determined no more to see Chapelhope till her husband’s return; and if that should never take place, to bid it adieu for ever.
Nanny went to the led farm of Riskinhope, that being the nearest house to Chapelhope, and just over against it, in order to take what care she was able of the things about the house during the day. There also the two boys remained, and herded throughout the day in a very indifferent manner; and, in short, every thing about the farm was going fast to confusion when Katharine returned from her mission to the Laird of Drummelzier. Thus it was that she found her father’s house deserted, its doors locked up, and its hearth cold.
Her anxiety to converse privately with Nanny was great; but at her first visit, when she went for the key, this was impossible without being overheard. She soon, however, found an opportunity; for that night she enticed her into the byre at Chapelhope, in the gloaming, after the kine had left the lone, where a conversation took place between them in effect as follows:
“Alas, Nanny! how has all this happened? Did not the two Covenanters, for whom I sent, come to bear you company?”
“Dear bairn, if they did come I saw nae them. If they came, they were ower late, for the spirits were there afore them; an’ I hae seen sic a sight! Dear, dear bairn, dinna gar me gang owre it again—I hae seen a sight that’s enough to turn the heart o’ flesh to an iceshogle, an’ to freeze up the very springs o’ life!—Dinna gar me gang ower it again, an’ rake up the ashes o’ the honoured dead—But what need I say sae? The dead are up already! Lord in Heaven be my shield and safeguard!”
“Nanny, you affright me; but, be assured, your terrors have originated in some mistake—your sight has deceived you, and all shall yet be explained to your satisfaction.”
“Say nae sae, dear bairn; my sight hasna deceived me, yet I have been deceived. The world has deceived me—hell has deceived me—and heaven has winked at the deed. Alak, an’ wae’s me, that it should sae hae been predestined afore the world began! The day was, an’ no sae lang sin’ syne, when I could hae prayed wi’ confidence, an’ sung wi’ joy; but now my mind is overturned, and I hae nouther stay on earth, nor hope in heaven! The veil of the Temple may be rent below, and the ark of the testimony thrown open above, but their forms will not be seen within the one, nor their names found written in the other! We have been counted as sheep for the slaughter; we have been killed all the day long; yet hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious, and is his mercy clean gone for ever!”
“Peace, peace, for Heaven’s sake!—You are verging on blasphemy, and know not what you say.”
“Do the reprobate know what they say, or can they forbear? How then can I? I, who am in the bond of iniquity, and the jaws of death eternal?—Where can I fly? When the righteous are not saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?—Ay, dear bairn, weel may ye stare and raise up your hands that gate; but when ye hear my tale, ye winna wonder that my poor wits are uprooted. Suppose sic a case your ain—suppose you had been the bosom companion o’ ane for twenty years—had joined wi’ him in devotion, e’ening and morning, for a’ that time, and had never heard a sigh but for sin, nor a complaint but of the iniquities of the land—If ye had witnessed him follow two comely sons, your own flesh and blood, to the scaffold, and bless his God who put it in their hearts to stand and suffer for his cause, and for the crown of martyrdom he had bestowed on them, and bury the mangled bodies of other two with tears, but not with repining—If, after a’ this, he had been hunted as a partridge on the mountains, and for the same dear cause, the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus, had laid down his life—If you knew that his grey head was hung upon the city wall for a spectacle to gaze at, and his trunk buried in the wild by strangers—Say you knew all this, and had all these dear ties in your remembrance, and yet, after long years of hope soon to join their blest society above, to see again that loved and revered form stand before your eyes on earth at midnight, shrivelled, pale, and deformed, and mixed with malevolent spirits on dire and revengeful intent, where wad your hope—where wad your confidence—or where wad your wits hae been flown?” Here she cried bitterly; and seizing the astonished Katharine’s hand with both hers, and pressing it to her brow, she continued her impassioned and frantic strain.—“Pity me, O dear bairn, pity me! For man hasna pitied me, an’ God hasna pitied me! I’m gaun down a floody water, down, down; an’ I wad fain grip at something, if it were but a swoomin strae, as a last hope, or I sink a’ thegither.”