While they were weighing the matter tidings of our father's death reached us. He with others had been taken from the place of their imprisonment and driven like beasts before the merciless soldiers. My father, weak from age, long confinement, and insufficient nourishment, became exhausted, and lagged in the march. A brutal soldier pierced him with a spear, and he fell. His head and hands were cut off and exposed to public gaze at Edinburgh. The mangled body was left without proper burial. The enemy alleged, in justification of their conduct, that he was the most obstinate of all the "ranting rebels."
Ah, well we understood that charge! It meant that torture, keenest torture, had been his; and he had borne it uncomplainingly, sustained by God's grace.
And now when I think of the Heavenly City, and of the just made perfect who dwell there, I can almost see my father amid the throng of the redeemed; I can almost hear him sing praises to God and the Lamb with the tongue that never denied the faith while on earth.
My brothers and nephew no longer hesitated, as may well be supposed. Margaret, James' wife and the mother of Jamie, no longer "wee," freely gave her consent. "Alas!" she said, "war is a fearsome thing; but since it is your duty to go, go, and may God protect you both and bring you safe home."
Ellen could not feel the same resignation. She clung to Richie till the last moment, almost upbraiding him for leaving her. He turned on her a look in which pity was blent with reproach.
"Ellen," he said, "I cannot forget that I am a man, and not a dog. I can no longer patiently suffer these outrages."
With aching hearts they took leave of their weeping families, their own eyes filled with tears and their lips tremulous with unspoken anxieties. But they bravely endeavored to suppress their emotion, and, sustained by firmness of purpose and hopeful anticipation of righted wrongs, they tore themselves away.
Bessie McDougal, who could never forget her loss at Rullion Green, still, with patriotic piety, encouraged her only son Robert to devote himself to the cause of our kirk and country. She came with him as far as our house, for Robert was to go with Jamie and Richie. I very well remember how she looked at that time. Naturally cheerful, hale, and ruddy, she had borne up remarkably well under her afflictions. But her cheek had grown paler and her step less firm and elastic, so that she leaned a little heavily on the stout walking-stick she carried.
It was at our door that she took leave of Robert. Collecting all her strength, she took her son's hand and bravely spoke her farewells.
"Robert, my son, you are my only earthly prop and stay; but I will nae grudge ye to God and his ain cause. And if my auld e'en shall behold your face nae mair in the flesh, we shall meet again where troubles are nae mair. Should you fall in battle, you will but follow in the steps of him who has gane before you. Gie your mither a kiss, my bairn. Fare ye weel, fare ye weel!"