"Ah," he said, "I had forgotten. Briefly the bond was this: 'to adhere to and defend the true religion of Presbyterianism, and to labour to recover the purity and liberty of the Gospel as it was established and professed in the Kingdom of Scotland.' It was to put an end to all endeavours to foist prelacy upon us and to signify our adherence to the Presbyterian form of Church-government which King James himself had sworn to uphold in this Kingdom of Scotland, that we put our names to the bond. Not that we were against the King, for in the Covenant it was written plain that we were ready with our lives to stand to the defence of our dread sovereign, the King's Majesty. The wave of fervour spread like a holy fire from that old kirkyard through the length and breadth of Scotland, and the noblest blood in the land and the flower of its intellect signed the Covenant. Later on there came a day when those who stood for liberty of conscience in England as well as Scotland made a compact. That was the Solemn League and Covenant, whereby we bound ourselves to preserve a reformed religion in the Church of Scotland. The memory of man is short, and it has almost been forgotten that the solemn league was a joint Scottish and English affair, and that it was ratified by the English Parliament. These things were the beginning, but since then this puir kingdom has passed through the fire."
He paused and sighed deeply, then picking up the thread of his words again he told me the chequered history of the Covenanters for close on fifty years. It was a story that thrilled me--a record of suffering, of high endeavour, of grievous wrong. Of his own sufferings he made little, though he had suffered sore, and I, who had never felt the call to sacrifice myself for a principle, was humbled to the dust as I listened. He spoke in accents tense with emotion, and sometimes his voice rang with pride. I was too spell-bound to interrupt him, though many questions were upon my lips.
At last he ceased, as though the memories he was recalling had overwhelmed him, then he resumed:
"So, in some sort, my story is the story of puir auld Scotland, for the past fifty years. It is a tragedy, and the pity is--a needless tragedy! If the rulers of a land would study history and human nature, it would save them from muckle wrong-doing and oppression. It has been tried before and, I doubt not, it will be tried many a time again, but it will never succeed--for no tyrant can destroy the soul of a people by brute force. They call us rebels, and maybe so we are, but we were not rebels in the beginning. Two kings signed the bond: the Parliament passed it. We remained true to our pledged word; the kings forgot theirs, and they call us the law-breakers. And some call us narrow-minded fanatics. Some of us may be; for when the penalty of a man's faith is his death, he may come to lay as much stress on the commas in his creed as on the principles it declares. No man has the right to compromise on the fundamentals.
"Sometimes I wonder if I had my life to live over again whether I would do as I have done. Maist likely I should, for all through I have let my conscience guide me. I have no regrets, but only a gnawing sorrow that sometimes torments me. I have been in dangers many, and I have never lowered my flag, either to a fear or to a denial of my faith, and yet the Lord has not counted me worthy to win the martyr's crown." His voice broke, and he hesitated for a moment, then went on: "I have fought a good fight; I have almost finished my course, but whether I have kept the faith is no' for me to say. I have tried.
"The night of Scotland's woe has been long and stormy; but the dawn of a better day is not far off, and she will yet take her place in the forefront of the nations as the land in which the battle for liberty of conscience was fought and won.
"Look ye," and he pointed to the east, where the darkness was beginning to break as the sun swung up from his bed.
CHAPTER X
THE FIELD MEETING
A week passed uneventfully. Each night I joined my friend and the glad notes of his flute were still our signal: each morning we parted to sleep through the daylight hours each in his own hiding-place.