"The Laird of Balmagechan being amongst the last to penetrate into this abode of stench, damp, darkness, suffocation, and death, a soldier made a lunge at him with the point of his pike. Balmagechan was a peaceable man and a Christian; but this was somewhat too much—so, turning round in an instant, and closing at once with his insulting tormentor, he fairly wrested the pike from the soldier's grasp, and, splintering it in shivers over his head, he added, 'Tak, then, that in the meantime, thou devil's gaet, to teach thee better manners!' The apartment into which, with scarcely room to stand, 177 (our numbers having thus diminished from 200, on the march) human beings were thrust was, in fact, dug out of the rock, and, unless by a small narrow window towards the sea, had no means of admitting either light or air. As the night advanced, the heat became intolerable, and a sense of suffocation, the most painful of any to which our frail nature can be exposed, seemed to threaten an excruciating, if not an immediate death. In vain we knocked, and called upon the guard, and implored a little air, and asked water, for God and mercy's sake. We were only answered by scoffs and jeers. At last nature, in many instances being entirely worn out, gave way. Some turned their heads over upon the shoulder of the persons nearest them, as if in the act of drinking water, and expired—others lost their reason entirely, struck out furiously around them, tore their own hair and that of others, and then went off in strong and hideous convulsions. Happier were they, at this awful midnight hour, who entered this dungeon with a feeble step, and in a wasted state of bodily strength; for their struggle was short, and their death comparatively easy—they died ere midnight. But far otherwise was it with many upon whom God had bestowed youth, health, and unimpaired strength. They stood the contest long; and frequently, after they appeared to be dead, awoke again in renewed strength, and ten times increased suffering. After the fatal discovery was made, that the door was not to be opened, the rush toward the opposite window became absolutely intolerable. The feeble were trodden down, and even the strong wasted their strength in contending with each other.
"Morning at last dawned, and our prison-door flew suddenly open. The governor's lady had learned our fate; and, even at the risk of giving offence to her lord, she had ordered us air and water, whilst he still slept. 'O woman, woman,' exclaims Mr Quentin Dick, in his MS. before me, 'thou art, and hast ever been, an angel. What does not man—what do not we owe thee?'"
In a word, more than the half perished on that dreadful night, and amongst those who were ultimately liberated by order in council, were the individuals who have been particularised in this narrative.
Reader, we inquire not into thy political creed—we ask not whether thou art a Whig or a Tory, a Conservative or a Radical—we can allow thee to be an honest and conscientious man, on all these suppositions: all we ask of thee is this, "Art thou a man?" The inference is inevitable.
Perhaps some may wish to know what became of Euphan Thriepland, Jamie M'Birnie, and Jeanie Wilson. We are happy that, owing to an accidental occurrence, we can throw some light upon the subject. Last time we were in Dumfries-shire, and in Closeburn, our native parish, we read upon the door of a change-house, in the village of Croalchapel, this inscription, "Whisky, Ale, and British Spirits, sold here, by James M'Birnie." The coincidence of the name revived my long-obscured recollection of the past, and led, in fact, ultimately to the whole of this narrative. We learned, from an old bedrid woman, the grandmother of this James, that he of Dunnottar celebrity had returned to Edinburgh and married Jeanie Wilson; that he had taken auld aunt Euphan home to their dwelling; and had been employed for several years after the Revolution, as a nursery and seeds-man, in Edinburgh; that, having realised a competency, they had ultimately retired to their native parish of Closeburn, and had tenanted a small farm called Stepends; that their son had been a drover, and unsuccessful even to bankruptcy; and that the family were now reduced to the condition which we beheld.
III.—PEDEN'S FAREWELL SERMON.
We believe there never was such a sad Sabbath witnessed, as that upon which nearly four hundred of the Established clergy of Scotland preached their farewell sermons and addresses to their several congregations. It was a day, as the historians of that period express it, of "wailing, and of loud lamentation, as the weeping of Jazer, when the lords of the heathen had broken down her principal plants; and as the mourning of Rachel, who wept for her children, and would not be comforted."
On the 4th day of October, 1662, a council, under the commission of the infatuated and ill-advised Middleton, was held at Glasgow; and, in an hour of brutal intoxication, it was resolved and decreed that all those ministers of the Church of Scotland who had, by a popular election, entered upon their cures since the year 1649, should, in the first instance, be arrested, nor permitted to resume their pulpits, or draw their stipends, till they had received a presentation at the hands of the lay patrons, and submitted to induction from the diocesan bishop. In other words, Presbytery, which had been so dearly purchased, and was so acceptable to the people of Scotland, was to be superseded by Prelacy; and the mandate of the prince, or of his privy council, was to be considered in future as law, in all matters whether civil or ecclesiastical. It was not to be supposed that the descendants and admirers of Knox, and Hamilton, and Welsh, and Melville could calmly and passively submit to this; and accordingly the 20th day of October—the last Sabbath which, without conformity to the orders in council, the proscribed ministers were permitted to preach—was a day anticipated with anxious feelings, and afterwards remembered to their dying day, by all who witnessed it. It was our fortune, in early life, to be acquainted with an old man, upwards of ninety, an inhabitant of the village of Glenluce, whose grandfather was actually present at the farewell or parting sermon which Mr Peden, the author of the famous prophecies which bear his name, delivered on this occasion to his parishioners. We have conversed with this aged chronicler so frequently and so fully upon the subject, that we believe we can give a pretty faithful report of what was then delivered by Peden.
I remember well (continued, according to my authority, the old chronicler)—I mind it well, it seems but as yesterday—the morning of this truly awful and not-to-be-forgotten day. It had been rain in the night-time, and the morning was dark and cloudy—the mist trailed like the smoke o' a furnace, white and ragged, alang the hill-taps. The heavens above seemed, as it were, to scowl upon the earth beneath. I rose early, as was my wont on the Sabbath morning, and hitched away towards the tap o' the Briock. I had only continued, it micht be, an hour in private meditation and prayer, when I heard the eight-o'clock bells beginning to toll. Indeed, I could hear, from the place where I was, I may say, every bell in the presbytery. The sound o' these bells is still in my ears—it was unusually sweet and melodious; and yet there was something very melancholy in the sound. I thought on the blood of the saints by which these bells had been purchased; upon the many souls, now gone to a better place, who had been summoned to a preached gospel by these bells; and I thought, too, on the sad alteration which a few hours would produce, when the pulpits would be deserted by the worthy Presbyterian ministers who filled them, and be filled, it micht be, by Prelatical curates—wolves in sheep's clothing, and fushionless preachers at the best. Even at this early hour, I could see, every here and there, blue bonnets, and black-and-white plaids, and scarlet mantles, mixing with and coming forth every now and then from the broken and creeping mist. The Lord's own covenanted flock were e'en gaun awa to pluck a mouthfu (it micht be the last) o' hale-some and sanctified pasture.