Our champions had become fewer, but they made up in bravery what they lacked in numbers. Doubtless they thought they would sell their lives as dearly as possible. Bessie McDougal often trembled for her son, and I will not deny that another did the same. Alas! I have to record that our worst fears were realized. He likewise was pierced by the enemy's bullet. I was now more than ever drawn towards his aged mother, for I felt that we had a common sorrow. I was near her as she stood over the cold clay of her son, and I slipped my hand in hers. She tightened her grasp, and turned and looked at me. "Puir Effie," said she, "your ain heart is sair, I mak nae doot."
I answered with tears that I could no longer keep back.
Afterwards she told me all that Robert had said. "I will always love you because he loved you," she said, pressing me to her heart.
This is the last death of our friends that I have to record. The dreadful "killing time," as the last few and most bloody years of persecution were called, came at last to an end, and a brighter and better day dawned upon long-oppressed Scotland, thanks to the good Lord.
CHAPTER XII. PEACE.
The persecution of our kirk lasted through the reigns of Charles II. and James II., a period of twenty-eight years. But the Lord gave us deliverance at last. James was driven from the throne in November, 1688, and liberty of conscience was proclaimed by his successor, King William.
It now remains for me to trace our way back to quiet industrial pursuits. This was no easy matter for us; for, setting aside the fact that sorrow had taken nearly all the heart out of us, it will be remembered that, while many of our neighbors had lost a son, a brother, or a father, we had lost nearly every male member of our family. And as for my nephew Jamie, his hands were full at home. How should we win our bread? It was a serious question; and for this cause we were glad to learn that Janet and her bairn were to be the sole heirs of Bessie McDougal. She had laid by a heavy purse of gold, the reward of long years of labor performed by herself and her husband. They had never a child but Robert, so they could well lay by; and by canny management she had contrived to save something from taxation and the troopers. Nor was she likely to use her savings in her old age, for no sooner was peace restored to the country than she again filled up her poultry-yard and bought cows, so that her butter, eggs, and fowls were sent to market as in the years before the troubles began.
But with us it was very different. My father had accumulated very little, having had five bairns to clothe, feed, and educate. During the troubles we had labored constantly and practised every species of economy, but our purse was now empty. I could spin and weave, and that I did both early and late. But I do not think I could have kept even with the world if Ellen had not realized how matters stood with us and gone to her own kinsfolk. This was no small relief to us, for it not only made one less to provide for, but also made it possible for us to rent a room to a worthy woman who, like ourselves, had lost all her supporters in the evil times.