in other words, ye puir contemptible body, whom no respectable person will permit to advance further into their house than the hallen, against which ye loiter and lean till it shakes.
The fire, in these times, occupied, like the sun, the centre of the system, around which, at various distances, revolved, the Venus guidwife, the Mars guidman, the Juno Jenny, the Jupiter Jock, the Saturn Sandy, and a vast number of satellites, in the shape of half-clad, bare-footed, uncombed, squalling brats. Pocket handkerchiefs there were none; but coat-sleeves and petticoat tails did just as well; and though the Kenley Burn ran past, pure and pellucid, its waters were seldom defiled—unless perhaps, on a church-going Sunday—with the ablution of hands and faces. There was a byre covered with heath, and with rafters fixed in the earth, without the advantage of walls, from which issued, in their season, cows, stirks, and calves, all covered over, like the Dacians, in scaly armour, rattling as they went in hardened shairn, and sometimes carrying a considerable fragment of the door-head of their cabin along with them; ducks swattered in a Glenburnie midden dub; and an assortment of hens, over whom presided a most dignified cock in full feather, giving an air of extreme liveliness and stir to the whole. But although the outside of things was, comparatively with modern manners and improvements, somewhat rude and forbidding, there were warm hearts and tender consciences within. There literature was indeed but limited; but, limited as it was, it comprehended the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and “Knox’s History of the Church of Scotland.” Well acquainted was Andrew Watson, and so was his wife, Janet Morrison, with the grievous defections and oppressions of the times. And never did Andrew bend his knees in family worship, but he prayed the Lord in behoof of the poor persecuted remnant, of the good and faithful Mr Alexander Wilson, the ousted minister of Cameron, and of a’ those that opposed Prelacy and conformity, and supported Presbytery, in thae sairly afflicted lands.
It was half-past one o’clock, on as beautiful a 3rd of May as ever burst, in glory and in song, upon the kingdom of Fife, in the year of grace 1679, when Peggy Watson—a girl about fourteen years of age, and daughter to the above-mentioned Andrew—entered her father’s door in a dreadful state of affright. It was some time before the poor girl could be brought to utter any coherent sounds at all; at last, she said that she and Tam Cargill, a neighbour’s boy had been amusing themselves in seeking for birds’ nests on Drumcarrow Craig, when she saw a number of men on horseback gathered round the tall ash tree, at the farm of Magus. By and by, a gentleman’s servant passed them on horseback, and then a fine coach appeared, drawn by six horses. When the coach passed (she said), the men under the tree set off at full gallop after it; and she heard firing, and loud speaking, and saw the coach overtaken, and stopped, and a man dragged out of it, and shot at, and murdered—she was quite sure that he was murdered. Thereupon, Tam Cargill had run off homewards in one direction, and she in another; for she was afraid the dreadful men might look up at Drumcarrow Craig, and murder her and her companion too. This narrative caused a great sensation in the family, and Andrew was at a loss how to understand it; for, although the archbishop’s treachery and cruelty were well known in the country, yet the more immediate object of popular detestation was Mr William Carmichael, sheriff-substitute of Fife, from whose hornings, and finings, and distrainings, and quarterings of a rapacious and sensual soldiery, scarcely any one individual, unconnected with the prelatic faction, had been excepted. Nothing farther occurred till about ten o’clock at night, when all the family had been summoned around a peat-fire, on a sandstone hearth, to family prayers. There were in all ten individuals, comprehending the lad, the lass, six bairns, of whom Peggy was the oldest, with the guidman and the guidwife, worshipping and nursing the youngest bairn at the same time. The dogs, which lay scattered about at their ease and convenience, and which seemed, hitherto, to be enjoying a comfortable repose, suddenly sprang to their legs, and gave tongue vociferously.
“Hide me,” ejaculated a young man, stout and square built, and of a somewhat prepossessing appearance. “O conceal me, honest Andrew Watson, for the pursuer is close at my heels!”
The Bible was immediately laid aside, and the whole family gathered round the strange intruder in the utmost consternation.
“Dear me!” said Andrew Watson, “and what has brought you about our hallen like an ill-doer, at this time o’ the night, and in sic a like manner. I wish ye haena been where ye sudna hae been, Mr George Balfour, my man. Are na the bonny woods o’ Gilston, o’er by there, sufficient to shelter the laird’s son in the hour o’ his difficulty and need?”
“I canna gang hame at ony rate—I have just seen, frae my hiding-hole in the Linns o’ Kenley, a whole band o’ soldiers scouring all over the country, and bearing down upon Gilston direct.”
“But——” Andrew was proceeding, when his well-known neighbour entreated of him to act and not to talk, for a party of dragoons would, in all probability, be at his door in a few seconds. What was to be done? The children screamed at the idea of dragoons; the guidwife wrung her hands, completely nonplussed; whilst Andrew, thinking for a moment, and ejaculating, “The son of the righteous father guilty or not, must not be deserted in his need; he asks shelter and secrecy, and he shall have both till morning, at least.” So saying, he conducted Mr George Balfour privately to a small barn immediately adjoining, and filling an empty sack nearly half-full of straw, he thrust his neighbour into it, bringing the straw up around his person and over his head—there being a sufficiency of holes towards the fastenings at the mouth of the sack, by which respiration could be effected, and even vision partially obtained. Having done this, Andrew placed the sack, head uppermost, in a recumbent position, in the centre of several other sacks filled apparently in a similar manner with grain. “There,” says Andrew, “stand ye there till morning; and gin ye hear the door open, and see armed men enter, beware of your breathing, for even that may betray you.”
Mr George Balfour had been seen passing Den Head, after the affair of the archbishop, and a herd callant had pointed his route out in the direction of Kinaldy farm-house. Thus instructed, a company of from ten to twelve dragoons surrounded the dwelling-house of Kinaldy about twelve o’clock at night, and, breaking up the door without any ceremony, proceeded immediately to search for the murderer. The children—even to that in the cradle—were all turned out naked; the cows were dislodged from their stakes, and set adrift in the fields; two horses were unstabled; and the dung-hill fowls were sent screaming and cackling from their perches in the byre. By and by, the barn occupied their attention; and having made short work of the door opening, they commenced cutting and thrusting with their broadswords amongst some straw which occupied the further end. One of the band laid his hand upon a sack, and finding that it contained oats, he immediately called for assistance, and carried it out to the adjoining field, emptying it immediately of its contents, and putting their horses to feed at will. Still the object of their pursuit was invisible, and they become more and more infuriated; so, taking the eldest girl, already mentioned, they questioned her, with their pistols at her breast, respecting what she had seen or knew. Fortunately, the girl was really ignorant, as was the whole family, except Andrew, of the hiding-place of him they were in pursuit of; but, terror-stricken as she was, she admitted that she had seen Mr George Balfour, whom she knew, in the house that very evening.
“Come, come,” said the leader of the troop—one of Carmichael’s instruments of oppression—“we will make short work of it, Andrew; either give up him we are in search of, or we will make a bonfire of the hail bigging, and leave you and these naked savages to warm your skins at the flames.” This they would actually have put into execution, had not a horseman arrived at the critical moment with information that Balfour of Burley had been traced to Dura Den, and that their immediate presence was required to surround the retreat on all sides, and capture the main instrument in the bloody transaction. A retreat was thereupon immediately sounded, but not till Andrew Watson had been assured that he, at least, should not escape, but that his property; if not his person, should pay dearly for harbouring a murderer. With great speed was the pass of Dura surrounded, and afterwards searched, even to that cave in the steep face of the rock, part of which is visible, immediately opposite to Yoolfield, even to this hour; but, if even Balfour had taken refuge here, as is, from several circumstances, more than probable, he had received warning in time, and had fled to Lanark, in the west country. So the avengers of blood were too late for their quarry, and were obliged to return to Cupar towards morning, with the report of their total failure in capturing any of the offenders.