was immediately obeyed. In an instant that gentleman entered the
apartment, with a smile upon his face, all the party standing up and
receiving him with the most marked reverence and respect.
"You'll excuse the liberty I have taken in sending for you, Sir John,"
said the person who had called him, on the former's entrance; "and I
certainly would not have taken that liberty, had I not known how much
pleasure it gives you when an opportunity is afforded you of doing a
generous thing. Here, Sir John, is a young woman about to be sacrificed
at the altar of Mammon. Now, I know that you would not permit this if
you could help it. Neither will I; and, to prevent it, I have promised
to the intended bride's father here, that I will give one hundred merks
and one hundred acres of land to the husband of Meenie's choice, Davy
Linn of Partick--a very deserving young man, I believe--on the day after
she is married to him. Now, Sir John, will you become my security to
Clayslaps for the fulfilment of this promise?"
"Most assuredly," said Sir John, smiling; "let me have pen, ink, and
paper, and I will give him my written obligation to that effect."
The materials were brought, and the obligation drawn out; Clayslaps and
all the others being too much confounded by what was passing to offer
any interruption or make any remark. When the paper was written, it was
handed to Meenie's father, who, almost unconsciously--for he did not
seem to know very well what he was doing--read it over. On concluding
the perusal,
"A'richt aneugh," he said--"a'richt aneugh. Od, this _is_ a queer
business. But it's a' owre late, guid sirs. We canna be aff wi'
Goupinsfou at this stage o' the affair, and in this sort o' way. It
wadna be fair nor honest, and wad look unco strange like. Besides, ye
canna expeck that he would submit to't himsel."
This was certainly a reasonable enough supposition, but it happened to
be an unfounded one; for Goupinsfou was not only an ass, but a most
abominably mean and selfish one; and Sir John, aware of this, thought he
knew a way to reconcile him to the loss of Meenie.
Going up to Goupinsfou, he took him aside, and whispered in his ear, "I
say, laird, you've long had an eye, I know, to the bit holm on the
Kelvin, below the Gorroch Mills."
"It's a bonny spot," interrupted Goupinsfou, cocking his ears.
"It is," replied Sir John. "Well, then, it shall be yours, if you give
up all claim to the hand of Meenie Ritchie, and give me in writing an
entire quittance on that score."
"Dune!" exclaimed Goupinsfou, instantly, wisely calculating that he
could readily find another wife, but might not so readily get another
offer of the piece of land he so much coveted. "Dune, Sir John!" he
exclaimed, grasping that gentleman by the hand with the selfish
eagerness that belonged to his character; but, desirous of glossing
over the meanness of the transaction, he placed his acquiescence on
another footing than that of bribery, by adding, "I wadna like, I'm
sure, to force the lassie to marry me against her will. I gie her up wi'
a' my heart."
Having obtained the brute's consent to resign the hand of Meenie, Sir
John turned to the party, and informed them that their worthy friend,
the Laird of Goupinsfou, out of consideration for the feelings of Meenie
Ritchie, which he feared were not favourable to him, resigned all claim
to her hand, and left her at full liberty to marry whom she pleased.
"Weel, that's certainly sae far guid," said Clayslaps; "but still I'm no
athegither reconciled to this business. It looks----"
"Toots, guidman," here interposed his wife, "the thing's a'richt aneugh.
Havena ye Sir John's haun o' vrit for the promise made by
this--this"--and she looked at the person she meant, and would have said
_gentleman_, but another glimpse of the patched shoes directed her to
the words--"_honest man_, to gie Davie the land and siller spoken o';
and what mair wad ye hae? Davie's a discreet, decent, well-doin lad,
everybody kens, that will mak, I'm sure, a guid husband to Meenie; sae,
just let them e'en gang thegither."
She would scarcely have said so much for Davie an hour before; but she
said it now, and it was all well enough.
"Weel, weel, guidwife," said Clayslaps, "since it is sae, we'll see
aboot it. There can be nae harm, however, in delayin a day or twa, at
ony rate, till we think owre't."
"No, no--no delay," exclaimed the meddling stranger; "delays are
dangerous, guidman. Nothing like the present moment. Let us strike while
the iron's hot. Landlord," he said, turning round to Ringan, "send Davie
Linn here."
In a second after, Davie Linn rushed into the apartment, flew to Meenie,
and caught her in his arms. "Mine yet! mine yet, Meenie!" he exclaimed,
rapturously. It was all he could say; and, little as it was, it was more
than she he addressed was able to express. During the whole night,
indeed, she had not opened her lips, and seemed to have been scarcely
conscious of what was passing around her. This was the effect of deep
misery; and the result was now nearly the same from an excess of joy.
"No delay now, curate," said the intermeddler. "Set to work as fast as
you can, and buckle these two together. No objection, I fancy?"
"Oh, none in the world," said the curate; "I'll fix them in a trice. But
I say, freend," he added, laughing, "I'm thinkin what a fule I was to
pay your reckonin the nicht--ane wha maks the merks flee like drift snaw
on a windy day, and gies awa lumps o' land wi' as little thocht
as--as--as I settled your lawin. Feth, but it was fulish aneugh o' me,
and ye're a queer ane, be ye wha ye like."
"Not so very foolish, perhaps, as you think, curate," said the person
thus addressed, "and that it's possible ye may find. At any rate, it's
no lost what a friend gets, you know, curate; but, in the meantime, will
you proceed with the ceremony, if you please. And, guidman," he added,
turning to Clayslaps, "will ye allow me to give away the bride?"
"I ken nane here that has a better richt," replied the latter, now
thoroughly reconciled to the sudden and most unexpected change in his
daughter's destiny which had taken place. "Ye may either gie her awa or
tak her yersel, just as ye like; for, by my faith, ye seem to be a guid
honest chiel, be ye wha ye like, as the curate says."
"Well, then, since you place her at my disposal, I here give her to
Davie Linn o' Partick--and may he always continue to deserve her!"
This conveyance of the fair Meenie, the curate lost no time in
legalising and confirming. When the ceremony was completed, "Now," said
the stranger, "if there be a fiddler or piper in all Govan who will
play to us for love or money, let him be brought here instantly, and
we'll finish as well as we've begun. By St Bride, we'll have a night of
it! What say you, Sir John?" And he turned to that gentleman with a
smile. "Will you condescend to honour us with your presence, and with as
much good-humour as you can conveniently spare?"
"Oh, most certainly," replied the latter, laughing, "with all my heart."
The desired musician was procured, and made his appearance. The room was
cleared, creature comforts were ordered in, in unsparing abundance, and
such a night of mirth and fun ensued as, we believe, has not been seen
since in the little village of Govan, and perhaps not often anywhere
else. The curate danced and frisked about like a three-year-old; Sir
John conducted himself with no less animation; but neither of them had
the smallest chance with the gentleman in the darned hose. He kept the
floor almost the whole night, whooping and hallooing in a most spirited
manner, and dancing fully half the time with the bride, and the rest
with her mother, the guidwife of Clayslaps, relieved occasionally by a
turn-out with some young girls of the neighbourhood, whom the landlord
of the Grilse and Gridiron had hurriedly brought together, on the
principle of "the more the merrier." But time and tide wait on no man.
Morning came, and the revellers prepared to depart to their several
homes. The marriage party, including the bride and bridegroom, and Sir
John Elphingstone, proceeded to the ferry, to which they were
accompanied by him who had performed the principal character of the
night. Having seen them all embarked, and having wished the young
married couple every happiness, he stood on the shore for an instant,
waved them a final adieu, retired by the way of the village, and was
seen no more.
Within a week after the occurrence of the events just related, the
worthy curate of Govan was surprised one day by receiving a letter from
the Archbishop of Glasgow.
"What's wrang now?" said the curate to himself, as he opened it. "My
dismissal, I suppose, for the irregularity o' my conduct at Ringan
Scouler's the ither nicht."
It was not exactly so, as the reader will perceive. The letter ran
thus:--
"At the recommendation of a high personage, I intend appointing
you to the vacant rectorship of Govan. You will therefore
repair immediately to me, either at my palace at Glasgow or my
castle at Partick, that I may confer with you farther on the
subject.
"DUNBAR, A. B. OF G."
"Whe-e-e-ou!" ejaculated the curate, with a long-drawn expiration, when
he had read this very pleasant document--"I smell a rat. 'Od, but it was
stupid o' me no to think o't afore. I'm sure I micht hae kent him; for
I've seen him twa or three times; but then he was in a green frock-coat
o' the finest claith; a velvet bonnet, wi' ruby and feathers, was on his
head; a chain o' gowd, worth five hundred merks, if it was worth a
bodle, round his neck, and a gaucy sword by his side. Still I ought to
hae kent him, for a' his clouted shoon and darned hose. But the cat's
oot o' the pock; and, my word, a bonny beast it is!"
What does the good curate's hints and allegorical allusions mean?
inquires the reader. Why, it means that the worthy man suspected--and we
have no doubt his suspicion was perfectly correct--that the person in
the darned hose was no other than James V., King of Scotland.
GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.
I.--THE GRANDMOTHER'S NARRATIVE.
Notwithstanding the researches of Woodrow, and the more recent
enlargement and excellent annotations of Dr Burns, we are quite
conscious that a volume somewhat interesting might still be collected of
additional and traditional atrocities, of which no written record
remains, nor other, save the recollections _of recollections_--in other
words, the remembrance which we and a few others possess of the
narratives of our grandmothers whilst we were yet children. Our own
maternal grandmother died at ninety-six--we ourselves are now in our
sixtieth year; so that, deducting eight or nine years for our age
previous to our taking an interest in such concerns, we have our
grandmother existing before (say) 1695, which, deducting eight years of
infancy, brings us to 1703, which is only twenty-five years posterior to
the conclusion, and fifty-three to the commencement, of the atrocious
twenty-eight years' persecution. It is then manifest, from this
arithmetical computation, that our own grandmother, on whose truthful
intentions we can rely with confidence, came into contact and
conversation with those who were contemporaneous with the events and
persons she referred to. This surely is no very violent or unsafe
stretch of tradition; but, even though it were much more so, we would be
disposed to yield to it somewhat more consideration than is generally
done. Now-a-days, the pen and the press are almost the only recorders of
passing and past events and circumstances; but, in the age to which we
refer, this was not the case. The children of Israel were bound by a
holy and inviolate law to record _verbally_ to their children, and
those again to theirs, what the Lord had done for their forefathers. And
on the same principle, and under the same comparative absence of written
records, did our grandmothers receive from their immediate predecessors
the revolting disclosures which they have handed down to us. There are
here but two links in the chain--those, namely, which connect our
grandmothers with their parents, and with us; but, had there been
twenty--nay, fifty or a hundred links--we should not, on account of the
high antiquity of such a tradition, have been disposed to dismiss it as
altogether groundless, and not implying even the slightest authority. In
illustration of this, we may adduce the facts, sufficiently well known
and authenticated, which were disclosed about thirty years ago at
Burgh-head, the ultimate extent of Roman conquest in Scotland. In that
promontory, now inhabited by a scattered population, there remained,
from age to age, a tradition that a Roman well had existed on the
particular spot. There being a lack of water in the place, the
inhabitants combined to have the locality opened, with the view of
disclosing so useful and essential an element. They dug twenty and even
thirty feet downwards, but made no disclosures; and were on the point of
giving up the search, when the father of the late Duke of Gordon
happening to pass, and to ascertain their object and their want of
success, very generously supplied them with the means of making a
further excavation. At last, to their no small surprise and delight,
they came to a nicely built and rounded well-mouth, with a stair
downwards to the bottom, and the bronze statues of Mercury and other
heathen gods stuck into niches. This well remains to this hour, and may
be visited by the traveller along the Moray Frith, as an indisputable
and indelible evidence of the value of traditions in ages when almost no
other means of record existed. True, such traditions are deeply
coloured and tinged by the prejudices of the age in which they
originated--allowance as to exaggeration must be made for excited
feelings and outraged opinions; but still the groundwork may in general
be depended on. The old, and perhaps vulgar, proverb, "There is aye SOME
water where the stirkie drowns!" applies in this case with a conclusive
force; and we may rely upon it, even from the collateral and written
evidence of parties and partisans on all sides, that nothing which mere
tradition has hinted at can exceed, in characters of genuine cruelty and
downright bloodshed and murder, those historical statements which have
reached us.
True, a writer lately deceased, whose memory is immortal, and whose
writings will survive whilst national feelings and the vitality of high
talent remain, has given us a somewhat chivalrous and attractive
character of the most distinguished actor in the atrocities of the
fearful time; and it is to be more than lamented--to be deplored--that
an early and habitual, and ultimately constitutional, leaning to
aristocratic and chivalrous views should have induced such a writer as
Sir Walter Scott to draw such an interesting picture of the really
infamous "Clavers"--of him who, for a piece of morning pastime, could,
with his own pistol, blow out a husband's brains, without law or trial,
and that in the presence of his wife and infant family! But the great
body of historians are on the side of truth and tradition; and the
recently-published, and still publishing, Life by Lockhart has unfolded,
and will yet unfold, those leanings of the great novelist which have
occasioned so lamentable a deviation from real history.
Under the shelter, then, of these preliminary observations, we proceed
with such notices and statements as we have heard repeated, or seen in
manuscripts which have (as we believe) never been printed. And we shall
give these notices and statements as they were given to us--surrounded
by a halo of superstition, and involving much belief which is now,
happily or unhappily--we do not say which--completely exploded.
Oh, my bairn! these were fearful times!--(Grandmother _loquitur_)--ay,
and atweel war _they_. My own mother has again and again made my hair
stand on end, and my heart-blood run cold at her relations.
Ye ken Auchincairn, my bairn; and maybe, whan ye were seeking for hawks'
nests, ye hae searched the Whitestane Cleughs. Aweel, ye maybe hae seen,
or maybe no--for young hearts and een like yours (O sirs! mine are now
dim and sair!) tak little tent o' sic-like things; but, my bonny bairn,
though tent it ye didna, true it is, and of verity, that, at the very
bottom o' that steep and fearfu linn, there is a rock, a stane like a
blue whunstane; and owre that stane the water has run for years and
years, and the winds and the rains of heaven hae dashed and plashed
against it; but still that stane remains (dear me, I'm amaist
greeting!)--it remains stained and spotted _wi' bluid_. And that bluid,
my dear bairn, is o' the bluid that rins in yer ain veins--it is the
bluid o' William Harkness, my own faither's brother. Weel, and ye shall
hear; for my mother used to tell me the langsyne stories sae aft, that I
can just repeat them in her ain words. Weel, it was the month of
October, and the nights were beginning to lengthen; and the puir
persecuted saints, that had taen to the _outside_ a' simmer, and were
seldom, if ever, to be seen in the _inside_, were beginning to pop in
again nows and thans, when they thought Dalyel, and Johnston, and
Clavers, and Douglas, and the rest o' the murdering gang, war elsewhere.
Aweel, as I am telling ye, yer granduncle cam hame to his ain brother's
house; it might be about the dawn o' the morning, whan a' the house,
except his brother, were sleeping, and he had got a cog o' crap whey on
his knee, wi' a barley scone--for glad, glad was he to get it; and he
had just finished saying the grace, and was conversing quietly like,
and in whisper, wi' his ain brother, when what should he hear, but a rap
at the kitchen-door, and a voice pouring in through the keyhole--
"Willie Harkness! Willie Harkness! the Philistines are upon ye! They are
just now crossing the Pothouseburn."
I trow when he heard that, he wasna lang in clearing the closs, and
takin doun the shank, straight for the foot of the Whiteside Linn, where
the cave was in which he had for weeks and months been concealed. It was
now, ye see, the grey o' the morning, and things could be seen moving at
some distance. Just as my uncle was about to enter the bramble-bushes at
the foot o' the linn, he was met by a trooper on horseback.
"Stand!" said a voice, in accents of Satan; "stand, this moment, and
surrender; or your life is not worth three snuffs of a Covenanter's
mull."
My uncle kent weel the consequences of standing, and of being taken
captive; and ye see, my bairn, life is sweet to us a'; sae he e'en
dashed into the thicket, and, in an instant o' time, and ere the dragoon
could shoulder his musket, he was tumbling head-foremost (but holding by
the branches) towards the bottom of Whiteside Linn. There lay my worthy
uncle, breathless, and motionless, and silent, expecting every moment
that the dragoon would dismount and secure him. However, the man o' sin
contented himsel wi' firing several times (at random) into the linn. The
last shot which was fired took effect on my uncle's knee; the blood
sprung from it, and he fainted. As God would have it, at this time no
further pursuit was attempted, and my uncle was lame for life. The blood
still remains on the stane, as witness against the unholy hand that shed
it. But, alas! we are a' erring creatures; and who knows but even a
dragoon may get repentance and find mercy! God forbid, my wee man, that
we should condemn ony ane, even a persecutor, to eternal damnation!
It's awfu--it's fearfu! But that's no a' ye shall hear. When the
trooper came up to the house, and joined his party, he repeated what had
passed, and a search was set about in the linn for my uncle; but William
had by this time crippen into his cauld, dripping cave, over which the
water spouted in a cascade, and thus concealed him from their search;
sae, after marking the blood, and almost raving like bloodhounds with
disappointment, they tied up a servant girl--whom they had first abused
in the most unseemly and beastly manner--to a tree, and there they left
her, incapable, though she had been able, of freeing herself. She was
relieved in an hour; but never recovered either the shame or the
cruelty. She died, and her grave is in the east corner, near the large
bushy tree in Closeburn kirkyard. "Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord; for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them."
Muckle better, my dear, was her fate, though seemingly a hard one, than
that o' the ungodly curate o' Closeburn--o' him wha was informer against
the puir persecuted remnant, and wha, through the instrumentality o' his
spies and informers, had occasioned a' this murder and cruelty. Ye shall
hear. He--I mean, my bairn, the curate--had been hurlin the folk,
whether they would or no, to the kirk, for weeks, in carts and
hurdles--for oh, they liked his cauld, moral harangues ill, and his
conduct far waur. He had even got the laird to refuse burial in the
kirkyard to ony who refused to hear his fushionless preaching. Puir
Nanny Walker's funeral (she who had been sae horribly murdered) was to
tak place on sic a day. The curate had heard o' this, and he was
resolved to oppose the interment. But God's ways, my wean, are not as
our ways, nor his thoughts as ours; in his hands are the issues of life
and of death; he killeth and he maketh alive--blessed be his name, for
ever, amen! Weel, as I was telling ye, out cam the curate, raging,
running, and stamping like a madman; coming down his ain entry like a
roaring lion, and swearing--for he stuck at naething--that Nanny
Walker's vile Covenanting heart should never rot in Closeburn kirkyard.
Aweel, when he had just reached the kirk stile, and was in the act o'
lifting up his hand against them who were bearing the coffin into the
kirkyard, what think ye, my bairn, happened? The ungodly man, with his
mouth open in cursing, and his hand uplifted to strike, instantly fell
down on the flagstanes, uttered but one groan, and expired! Ye see, my
bairn, what a fearfu thing it is to persecute, and then to fall into the
hands o' an angry and avenging God. Oh, may never descendant o' mine
deserve or meet wi' sic a fate! But there is mair to tell ye still. Just
at the time when this fearfu visitation o' Providence took place, the
family o' Auchincairn war a' engaged wi' the Buik, whan _in_ should rush
wha but daft Gibbie Galloway, wha had never spoken a sensible word in
his life--for he was a born innocent, he and his mither afore him! Weel,
and to be sure, just about this time, for they compared it afterwards,
_in_ Gibbie stammered into the kitchen, whar they war a' convened, and
interrupted the guidman's prayer, wha happened at the time to be prayin
to the Lord for vengeance against the ungodly curate:--
"Haud at him," said Gibby--"haud at him! he's 'ust at the pit-brow!"
Ay, fearfu, sirs--thae war awfu times!
II.--THE COVENANTERS' MARCH.
The narratives of the Rev. Mr Frazer of Alness, as well as those of
Quentin Dick, William M'Millan, and Mr Robert M'Lellan, Laird of
Balmagechan--all sufferers by, and MS. historians of the same events--we
have carefully perused; and it is from a collection of these hitherto
unpublished MSS. that the following paper is composed.
Mr Frazer had gone to London about the end of the year 1676, and had
continued there till 1685, when he was seized, along with the Laird of
Balmagechan, in Galloway, whilst they were listening to the instructions
of the Rev. Mr Alexander Shields, the celebrated author of the "Hynd let
loose," and forwarded by sea, under fetter and hatchway, to Leith. After
a variety of tossing and council-questioning, as was the order of the
day at this time, they were marched from the Canongate Tolbooth, along
with upwards of 200 prisoners, to Dunnottar Castle in Kincardineshire.
Of the sudden and unexpected summoning which they experienced, the
reverend autobiographer speaks in these terms:--