XXI.—"OLD BLUNTIE."
Creehope Linn was a well-known retreat of the old Covenanters in Dumfriesshire. The water, in the course of successive ages, has cut itself a smooth, winding, and extremely deep passage, through an immense bed of sandstone; and so capricious have been its excavations, that, whilst the rock beneath is hollowed out into vast recesses, or natural caves and chambers, the rock above almost meets, and spreads a gloom, approaching to complete darkness, all around the caverns below. In these caverns—as I already, more than once, have had occasion to mention—the poor persecuted flock found a temporary shelter and safety. There was something in the natural gloom which induced melancholy and even fearful cogitations. One of these caves, immediately over what is still known by the appropriate designation of "Hell's Cauldron," was, long after the Revolution, tenanted by an old man of singular aspect and character, who cobbled shoes for the peasantry around. His residence is still shown, and known as the "Sutor's Seat." You may still see the hollow in the rock where he lay himself, and another which contained his implements. Tradition gives but few notices of his habits, but these few are perhaps worth recording. He was manifestly crazy; but still there was a method in his madness; and nothing would persuade him, after the Revolution, that he might ever safely visit the upper world. He still talked of Clavers, and Johnston, and Douglas, and Lag; and the rocks retain to this day, it is said, the names of some of these worthies, engraved by Sutor Bluntie's awl. Whether this appellation of "Bluntie" was his own original name, or whether it was only a cognomen, I cannot positively aver, though I think the last is more than probable, as I never heard of any person of this name in Dumfriesshire, or, indeed, anywhere else. He would, whilst in the act of mending a shoe or cobbling a boot, suddenly spring to his legs, look fearfully around him, and aver that he was not alone—that the pursuer was present—that a fearfully disfigured, mangled carcase stood in the very centre of Hell's Caldron. "There it stands!" he would say—"there! there! One jaw hanging down, and one eye out; its legs broken; its skull in pieces; its belly ripped up; and yet it looks terribly at me. But the foul fiend will be here by and by—ay will he. He will soon settle your jabbering, Donald Cameron. There—there he comes: he is rushing, like a tempest, among these trees!—he is sweeping like a whirlwind amongst these rocks! Yes—he comes, like a lion, roaring for his prey. But you are gone, Donald Cameron; it was as well. You sank into the Caldron to award the foul fiend, did you?—out of the frying-pan into the fire, lad! But now all's quiet again—I will finish my job in spite of you!" Even at mid-day, he kept a lamp constantly burning; and the rock is still blackened by the smoke. Thus, doubtless, his mind had taken a gloomy tint, which gradually diverged into downright insanity. But there was, after all, a method in his madness. There was a particular reason for the peculiar usages which his imagination conjured up; and it was this:—During the hottest period of the Persecution, Old Bluntie, who was by profession a shoemaker, had taken to this (to him) well-known and familiar recess. There he remained during the day; but at night he stole out, with the beasts of prey, to obtain food. His wife (for he had no children) had been shot, one day, by a dragoon, as she stood in her doorway. The man simply exclaimed—"That's the Covenanting b——!" fired his pistol, and the woman fell. Bluntie became, ever after this, altogether reckless; his only object was, by one means or another, by hook or by crook, to lead or decoy the persecutors into ambushes and danger. It was he mainly who decoyed the party into the Pass of Enterkin, already described in these papers. He pretended to turn informer; but when the cave was searched, the inmate was flown; but a rifle-gun, from behind a hedge, seldom missed its mark. Another plan of his was of a somewhat original character. Creehope Linn divides, as I have already described, a sandstone rock, over which there lies a deep layer of moss, surmounted by close and tall heather—at least this was the case formerly, and may be so still. For a considerable way below the fall known by the name of the "Grey Mare's Tail," the linn almost meets above, and the heather altogether—to an inexperienced stranger, there is no evidence whatever of the dreadful abyss, of sixty feet depth, which yawns beneath. The ground around is level, and the water moves on at such a distance from the surface, that, unless in floods, it is quite inaudible. Clavers at this time was a stranger in the southern district, to which, in consequence of Turner's rising at Dumfries, he had been recently appointed; and his men were, of course, equally strangers. Old Bluntie caused a report to be conveyed to Clavers, whilst stationed at Croalchapel, in the neighbourhood, that a number of the friends of the Covenant, with old Cargill at their head, were to have a meeting, or conventicle, in a hollow glen, fifty yards south of the Linn. It was, of course, to take place at night, and by favour of a harvest moon. Having been deceived by false intelligence on other occasions, Clavers ordered Red Rob to lead a troop of ten men into an adjoining cleugh, and there to dismiss one of them on foot to reconnoitre the ground. All this was done. But when the soldier came within sight of the place of meeting, he found only one man, whom he immediately hailed. The figure started, and ran swiftly away, whilst a ball went fully more swiftly in pursuit, but missed its mark. The soldier pursued sword in hand, and Bluntie made the best of his way onward towards the mountain pass of Bellybught. But, all at once, the soldier disappeared. He had sunk through the heather, and was not to be seen. The other nine dragoons, who had heard the report, now followed in hot pursuit, and, coming inadvertently on the same concealed danger, horse and man went over at once. The legs of several of the horses were broken; two stuck in the jaws of the ravine, which was not wide enough to allow them to sink; and one rider went plump to the bottom; whilst another had his neck broken, by being pitched on his head to some distance. This person's name was John Campbell; and the spot retains the name of "Jock's Step" to this hour.
XXII.—THOMAS HARKNESS OF LOCKERBEN.
I have already given some account of the famous rescue at Enterkin—I am now about to follow out one of the consequences of that rescue:—
Amongst those who were engaged in this affair, was Thomas Harkness of Lockerben, parish of Dalgarno. Immediately after the affray, the various individuals who were principally concerned in it separated. Andrew Clerk, in Leadhills, fled to Annandale; Samuel M'Ewan, in Glencairn, made off towards Cumnock; and Thomas Harkness hovered for some time amongst the Lowther heights, and then took refuge in a widow woman's house in Leadhills. Marion Morrison was the widow of David Douglas, a miner, who had lost his life in one of the shafts. She lived in a small cottage on the heathy muir, and at a considerable distance from the other houses, which, in these times, were not numerous. She had one only daughter—now woman-grown and comely—who, by spinning sale-yarn for the Lanark and Douglas market, supported herself and her mother, if not in comfort, at least in competence and peace. They were both religious persons, and took a deep interest in the persecuted remnant. Many a prayer had Marion put up in behalf of God's own people, to which her daughter May, as she was called, responded with deep sincerity. As the old song says, "It was in and about the Martinmas time," when Marion and her daughter were engaged, the one in carding and the other in spinning wool, the tarry-woo of the mountain land. May was blythe and cheerful, half-singing and half-chanting the now old, but then popular song—
"Oh, tarry woo is ill to spin!
Card it weel ere ye begin—
Card it weel, and draw it sma'—
Tarry woo is the best of a'!"
when the cat was observed to make a sudden movement across the hearth, and in stepped a tall figure, wrapped up in a shepherd's plaid. Marion started, and May all but screamed. But the figure soon unfolded itself, exclaiming—
"Be not afeared—be not afeared, honest Christian women. I am a poor, pursued, persecuted bird, flying into your hut from the claws of the kite. I have neither slept nor broken bread for these three days and three nights; but, now that the moon has waned, I have ventured down, in the dark, to beg a morsel of meal and water, a night's shelter, and a few hours' rest. My name is Thomas Harkness of Lockerben, where my forbears have lived for these three hundred years bygane; and it's e'en a richt sair case that, wi' thae grey hairs and wrinkles, I should be compelled to sleep wi' the peaseweep, and to sup wi' the fox on the mountain fell."