An instance illustrative of these remarks occurred, according to invariable tradition (partly oral, and partly written), in the Pass of Dalveen, one of the wildest and most sublime localities in Dumfries-shire. In the days of which we speak, there were no mail-coaches, nor did the public road from Edinburgh to Dumfries pass, as now, through that most fearfully sublime ravine; all then was seclusion and solitude in that mountain retirement, where the winds met and mingled from many a converging glen; and the eagle and the raven divided the supremacy above. The site of the shepherd's shieling is indeed still ascertainable by the depth of verdure which marks the departed walls; and the traveller may see it by the burn-side, almost half-way down the pass.
The family which, during the latter period of the eight-and-twenty years' persecution, occupied this humble dwelling was named M'Michael. There were two brothers of that name; Daniel, who was a bachelor, and Gilbert, who was married, and the father of a son, now a lad of ten or twelve, and two daughters, still younger. The mother of these children was a M'Caig, a name immortalised in the annals of persecution. The two brothers, Gilbert and Daniel, had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the spite and revenge of the curate of Durrisdeer, by their refusing to attend ordinances; and their obtaining baptism, and even, as times and occasions offered, the sealing ordinance of the Supper, from the hands of worthy Mr Welsh. Besides all this, when hard pursued one day in the pass, Daniel and Gilbert had defended themselves against a whole troop of Douglas' dragoons, by occupying the rocky summits of the Lowther Hills, and precipitating loose and rebounding rocks on the pursuers beneath. It was on this occasion that "Red Rob," of persecuting notoriety, had his shoulder-blade dislocated; and that Lieutenant James Douglas himself, in his extreme eagerness to scale the steep, had two of his front teeth dislodged.
Winter 1686 was peculiarly severe, and the proximity of Drumlanrig Castle, the residence of the Queensberry Douglases, rendered it exceedingly unsafe for the two obnoxious brothers, in particular, to visit their home, unless it were by snatches, and at the dead hour of night. The natural consequence of all this was, that both brothers lost their health, and that Gilbert, in particular, who was constitutionally infirm, contracted, or rather exasperated, a bad cough, which threatened serious consequences. It is quite true that a warm bed and the comforts of home might have done much for the complaint; but Gilbert's ordinary bedroom was the damp extremity of a hollow in a rock, without fire, and with his plaid alone as a nightly couch and covering. It was on a cold and drifty day in the month of January, that Gilbert, in the presence of his family, and under hourly apprehension of a visit from the barbarous Douglas, called his family around him, and, leaning upon the bosom of his beloved wife, addressed them in words to the following effect:—
"My dearest wife, my dear children, and my beloved Daniel, stand round me, for I am dying." Thereupon there was much weeping, and the poor woman had to be carried out of the room, nearly insensible. This pause was employed by Gilbert in secret prayer and ejaculation—
"Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!—Lord, comfort the widow and the fatherless!—Lord, give strength for trial, and faith for dying like a Christian!"
When the poor widow had been so far recovered as to be able to return to the bedside, the dying man proceeded, with frequent pauses and much weakness, thus:—
"I hope I may say, though at an infinite distance, with the apostle Paul, I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith—the faith of my Saviour, of his holy apostles, and of our Covenanted Kirk. I have kept it in bad report, as well as in good—in the day of her extreme suffering, as well as when godly Mr Brown was minister of Durrisdeer. They have driven me from my humble but happy home, and from my wife and children, to the mountain and the cave; but I have ever said—
'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come mine aid,
My safety cometh from the Lord.'
And I have ever found it so. I have been shot at, pursued, hunted like a wild beast, and exposed to disease, and pain, and extreme weakness—whilst I was, unless at intervals, denied the voice that soothes, the truth that cheers, and the looks of sympathy that mitigate in the extremest suffering; and I am now, if it shall please God to withhold for a little the foot of the merciless and the ungodly—I am now about to close my testimony by sealing it with my latest breath."
This exertion was too much for his exhausted strength, and it seemed to all that life had fled; when, after a few short and heavy respirations, he again proceeded—"Lord, give me strength for this last, this parting effort in this our covenanted cause!—Now, my dearly beloved, I leave you; for I hear my Master's call, and the Spirit and the Bride say, Come! I leave you with this last, this dying advice: Let nothing deprive you of your crown, hold fast your integrity; for He whom you will serve will come quickly, and terrible will his coming be to all his enemies."