“It’s that scoundrel, the Reverend George Lawless,” murmured Wallace in a deep and bitter tone.
“I am come here,” replied the martyr, “to bear my testimony against you, and all such as you are.”
“Own our King, and pray for him, whatever ye say of us,” returned the curate.
“I will discourse no more with you,” rejoined Renwick. “I am in a little to appear before Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, who shall pour shame, contempt, and confusion on all the kings of the earth who have not ruled for Him.”
After this Renwick—as was usual with the martyrs when about to finish their course—sang, read a portion of Scripture, and prayed, in the midst of considerable interruption from the drums. He also managed to address the spectators. Among the sentences that reached the ears of Jean and Wallace were the following:—
“I am come here this day to lay down my life for adhering to the truths of Christ... I die as a Presbyterian Protestant... I own the Word of God as the rule of faith and manners... I leave my testimony against ... all encroachments made on Christ’s rights, who is the Prince of the kings of the earth.”
The noise of the drums rendered his voice inaudible at this point, and the executioner, advancing, tied a napkin over his eyes. He was then ordered to go up the ladder. To a friend who stood by him he gave his last messages. Among them were the words—
“Keep your ground, and the Lord will provide you teachers and ministers; and when He comes He will make these despised truths glorious in the earth.”
His last words were— “Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth.”
Thus fell the last, as it turned out, of the martyrs of the Covenants, on the 17th of February 1688. But it did not seem to Will Wallace that the storm of twenty-eight long years had almost blown over, as he glanced at the scowling brows and compressed lips of the upturned faces around him.