[Illustration: THE DARK YEAR OF DUNDEE.]
[Illustration]
THE
DARK YEAR OF DUNDEE:
=A Tale of the Scottish Reformation.=
_BY THE AUTHOR OF
“Sunset in Provence, and other Tales of Martyr Times,” &c._
[Illustration]
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1867.
[Illustration]
PREFACE
The Dark Year of Dundee may be called a tale of Fact, since Fiction has
only been employed in it as the handmaid of Truth, and for the purpose
of throwing a more vivid light upon scenes and events that actually
occurred. The “story,” slight as it is, may not inaptly be likened to
the sheath or calyx that encloses and protects the yet unopened bud.
When the flower unfolds its petals, the calyx has fulfilled its work,
and, hidden from the eye, no longer attracts the thoughts and attention
of the spectator. Thus it has been intended only to leave upon the
reader’s mind the impression of one grand and simple character;—only to
tell, plainly and briefly, the story of one who, long ago, laboured
abundantly and endured nobly for Christ’s sake, “strengthened with all
might according to his glorious power.” And no alloy of fiction has been
admitted into what is here recorded of George Wishart; for, apart from
any other consideration, such a character as his is “God’s workmanship,”
and it would seem impossible to add anything to the great Artist’s
design without marring its beauty and completeness.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
THE DARK YEAR OF DUNDEE.
Page
I. Fanaticism 9
II. Clouded Death 21
III. God’s Messenger 31
IV. Fruits of the Message 45
V. More Fruits of the Message 57
VI. The Darkest Hour 69
VII. New Friends and Old 83
VIII. The Cardinal’s Missionary 99
IX. How the Mission Sped 111
X. What became of the Cardinal’s Missionary 129
XI. Clear shining after Rain 147
XII. The Reward of God’s Messenger 169
XIII. He giveth his beloved Sleep 189
───────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE PRIOR’S TITHE.
I. Tithing the Fish 219
II. The Excommunication 231
III. The First Prayer 243
IV. Dawnings of Light 257
V. The Great Change 271
VI. Entering into the Cloud 287
VII. Voices in the Cloud 301
VIII. The Cloud Breaks 315
IX. Left Alone 329
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
I.
=Fanaticism.=
“I know the dim haunts of fever,
Where the blossoms of youth decay:
I know where your free broad river
Sweeps disease on its breast away.
“Yet despite your earnest pity,
And despite its own smoke and din,
I cling to yon crowded city,
Though I shrink from its woe and sin.”
_Hymns of Faith and Hope._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
I.
=Fanaticism.=
It was the early summer of the year 1544, and the shadow of a dark cloud
was already looming over every home in Dundee. God’s terrible angel of
the pestilence stood with his sword outstretched, as of old over guilty
Jerusalem; but no eye was opened to behold him; as yet no one suspected
the danger and the anguish at hand.
In a small room of one of the high dark houses of the old town, a
pretty, modest-looking young girl sat spinning, and singing as she span,
in a sweet though rather listless voice. Now and then she glanced
anxiously at the door, or rose to pay some little attention to the
“kail” for the mid-day repast. Although the meal could scarcely have
been intended for more than two persons, the fire necessary for its
preparation increased uncomfortably the heat of the narrow room.
“Guid day, Mary,” said a girl about her own age, or a little older,
entering without ceremony.
The new comer was tall and strongly made; and, without the smallest
pretensions to beauty, had an honest, open countenance. She held in her
hand a large bunch of the pretty field-flowers so well known in Scotland
as blue-bells.
“Look what I hae brocht ye, sin’ ye tell me ye come frae the hills. I
thocht ye’d like them, maybe, to mind ye of yer auld hame.”
Mary Wigton eagerly took the flowers, thanked her friend with many
expressions of delight, and a moment or two afterwards burst into tears.
Honest Janet Duncan was considerably disconcerted by the effect produced
by her gift. “Weel, to be sure,” she ejaculated, “gin I didna think
they’d hae pleasured ye!”
“Sae they hae,” said Mary, recovering herself quickly. “It was naebut a
wee thocht of the auld hame and the auld times, and the heather and
gowans on the bonnie Sidlaw hills. But it’s nae use thinking lang. Noo
father’s farm is sold, it’s no like we’ll ever gae back again. Where did
ye get thae blue-bells, Janet?”
“Archie, the ne’er-do-weel, played the truant frae his schule wi’ a
wheen idle callants like himsel, and gaed out owre the Law and Balgay
Hill. I’m afeard when Jamie comes ben and hears it he’ll be sair
angered. An’ it’s no wonnerfu’, when he’s focht as he has to keep the
lad to his schuling, and he nae mair himsel but a puir journeyman
baxter.”[1]
“He’s a guid brither to ye, Janet.”
“Ye may say just that.” Then, as a new thought struck her, she
contradicted herself energetically. “Na, he’s nae guid brither, but the
best brither in a’ Dundee. Left but[2] father, or mither, or friend in
the wide warld, wha wad hae thocht he could hae keepit us thegither, and
fended for us sae weel. I can turn my hand to mony a thing, thank the
saints, but there’s Archie and Effie, puir bairns; Archie naebut gaun
threteen, and unco witless, and Effie a wee bit lassie. Eh, but we’ve
seen hard times, Mary.”
Mary probably thought her own troubles had been greater than those of
her friend; but she only said in a sympathizing tone, “Sit ye down,
Janet, ye’re no hurried the day?”
Janet replied in the negative, for she dearly loved half an hour’s chat
with a friend, when it could be obtained without neglecting her duties
to her paragon brother Jamie, or her youthful charges, Archie and Effie.
“Ye’re watching for your father?”
“Ay; but I’m in hopes he’s got a lift o’ wark, he’s sae late. It’s unco
little he brings hame,” she said sadly.
“It’s ill speiring after wark in this muckle town,” answered Janet. “Why
did ye no bide in the country pairts, whaur a’body kenned ye?”
“I tell ye. There’s a man here that owes father a matter o’ twa hundert
merk—that Maister Wilson wha has the muckle shop in the Nethergate, and
sells silks and ribbons and sic’. He’s a rich man, but he’s no an
_honest_ man, Janet. When father loaned him the siller he was naebut a
puir laddie, and father helped him sin’ he was sib to his wife’s mither.
Weel, father’s that careless he never took tent to get a bit writing,
forbye his word o’ mouth, ye ken. Sae when the warld gaed by-ordinar ill
wi’ him, and the oats failed, and the sheep dee’d, and he maun sell the
bonnie farm his forbears held before him, he thocht o’ Maister Wilson
and his twa hundert merk, and came here to look after the siller. But
Maister Wilson, he says there’s nae debt ava’, and that father canna
prove it. Whilk last is owre true, wae’s me! Gin John, that’s my
brither, wad hae bided wi’ us, he’d hae been a braw lawyer the noo, and
richted us.”
“I didna ken ye had a brither, Mary.”
“Oh, ay; there were five o’ us, and a’ dee’d bairns but John and mysel.
He was the eldest, an’ I the youngest. He was twal year aulder than I.
He was a clever bairn, _vera_. Father had siller to spare in thae days,
sae he thocht to make a man of him, and sent him to St. Andrews to study
the law. And he was sae guid and kind-like, and loved his book sae weel.
A’ the maisters set muckle store by him, and as for father and mither,
he was just the licht o’ their een. But he gaed clean daft.”
“Gaed daft, Mary?”
“I canna mind mysel, for I was a wee lassie the time; but father told me
he wasna seventeen year auld full when sic’ a change came owre him. He
grew dour and hard, and wad hae nocht to do wi’ archery, and goff, and
putting the stane, and a’ thae ploys that young men use. He wad gang by
himsel, and greet and talk of his sins. It was aye and aye his sins wi’
him. Gin he had been a thief or a murderer he couldna hae made mair to
do on’t. Yet he was aye a guid lad, and what he could hae done to gar
him tak’ on sae, nae mortal could speir. Let father say what he might,
naething would serve him but to gie the law up, and tak’ the priest’s
frock. Sae that was the end on’t.”
“And do ye no see him whiles?”
“Na; we couldna gang to him, and he wouldna come to us. Father thinks he
has clean forgot us. Thae holy men grow unco hard to their ain folk
whiles. He’s no John Wigton ony mair, he’s Sir John Wigton the priest. I
dinna ken whaur he is the noo, and gin we met in the street ane ’id pass
the ither by.”
“When yer mither dee’d did ye no tell him?”
“How could we? We’re nae scholars, father nor I. But I trow he helped
mither to her grave.”
“Weel, our Jamie’s no _that_ religious; but he gaes to his kirk regular,
and says his _aves_ and minds his puir soul as he can.”
“Seems to me,” said Mary, “it’s a hard case gin puir folks canna save
their souls but they break their parents’ hearts. But here’s father!”
Janet stayed to exchange greetings with an elderly man of respectable
appearance, but with something in his step, voice, and manner, that
betrayed a certain weakness and indecision of character. Having answered
his remark, “It’s by-ordinar hot and heavy for the time o’ year,” with a
heartfelt, “Ye may weel say that,” she bade Mary good-bye, and hastened
upstairs to the rooms in the same “land” which the Duncan family
occupied.
While the father and daughter partake of their simple meal, a few words
may be added in explanation of the religious history which Mary had
recounted to her friend, much as an ignorant person might describe the
appearance of some curious piece of mechanism, the construction and uses
of which he was alike unable to comprehend.
John Wigton was no very unusual character. There have been obscure
Dominics and Loyolas, as well as village Hampdens and mute inglorious
Miltons. Naturally of a thoughtful temperament, as he passed from
boyhood into youth he began to ask himself some of those solemn
questions which are the birthright of every human soul. He knew but
little of the great realities of the eternal world, but that little
sufficed to make him first anxious and then miserable. He knew that sin
was hateful to God, and he felt himself a sinner. His convictions
partook of the ardour and intensity of his character, he was willing to
do or suffer anything so that he might escape from the wrath to come. At
this time perhaps John Wigton was not very far from the kingdom of
heaven. Had a copy of Tyndale’s New Testament fallen into his hands, had
he heard some enlightened reformer preaching Christ and him crucified,
his character, humanly speaking, might have differed from what it
actually became as light differs from darkness. But Rome had him in her
hands to mould, and out of such materials Rome moulds fanatics—from this
wine she distils her sourest vinegar. She did not seek to obliterate his
convictions; she rather strengthened, though she did not, properly
speaking, deepen them. She told him little of the holiness of God’s
character and of the true nature of sin; but she told him much of the
sinner’s awful doom, of the fire and brimstone and the never-dying worm.
She employed almost exclusively images of physical suffering, and
employed them to terrify the imagination and to shake the nerves, rather
than to touch the heart or the conscience. And when he sought for a way
of escape from all these horrors, the path of penance and
self-mortification was opened before him. He was taught to torture
himself here that God might not torture him for ever hereafter; for it
was in such an aspect that the Lord merciful and gracious, slow to anger
and plenteous in goodness and truth, was presented to his mind. Being
sincere and earnest, he did all, and more than all, that was required of
him. He scourged himself, he starved himself, he deprived himself of
necessary sleep, and in many other ways, which it would be neither
pleasant nor profitable to enumerate, he practised “will-worship and
neglecting of the body.” But it would not do. If the blood of bulls and
goats cannot take away sin, neither could a man’s own blood, though he
were to pour it forth drop by drop, and in the most painful way that
even the depraved imagination of monkish inquisitors could devise. John
Wigton’s conscience, like that of many another miserable victim of Rome,
bore sad witness to this truth. He was not at peace, he was not
forgiven. On he went, further and further, upon the painful path
prescribed to him, still pursuing a phantom that, like the mirage of the
desert, always eluded his grasp. He did not find what he sought, but
something he did find which, in the abnegation of all possible
enjoyment, and the endurance of almost all possible suffering, still
made life tolerable to him—he found excitement, he found employment for
his powers, and food for his pride. Even apart from the praise it
brought him (and he who _knew_ himself a miserable unpardoned sinner
liked to hear himself called a saint), he began to take a morbid but
real pleasure in self-infliction.
But there is an old and wise saying, “When water ceases to quench
thirst, what will you drink after it?” It is the character of every
unnatural excitement to pall with indulgence; and thus John Wigton found
at length that his bodily austerities ceased to afford him even
temporary relief and satisfaction. A stronger stimulant was required,
and he found it. He set himself to mortify, not the nerves and muscles
of his body, but the desires of his mind and the feelings of his heart.
Family affection, friendship, the love of study, the free exercise of
reason and judgment, all were ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of his
faith. In process of time he came to regard an impulse of tenderness
towards his parents or his little sister as a kind of sinful
self-indulgence, only greater than a soft bed or a luxurious meal. And
there is this difference between the grosser and the more subtle forms
of self-torture, that while a man may perhaps educate himself into an
unnatural insensibility to bodily pain without injury to the rest of his
character, the process of hardening his soul is equivalent to a moral
self-murder. John Wigton dared not allow himself to love or to pity, and
he succeeded (or _thought_ he did) in conquering these weaknesses of
human nature; but he paid a heavy price for his success. He soon learned
to regard the sufferings of others with indifference, nay, with joy and
triumph, when they advanced the interests of the Church. In her service
he was willing (or thought he was) to give his own body to be burned,
and it was quite as meritorious, and on the whole rather more
convenient, to burn the bodies of other men. At this point his education
may be considered finished. At thirty years of age he was a thorough
fanatic, with conscience and feeling both absorbed in one master
passion. And then cooler heads began to take note of him as a man who
might make a useful tool when there was work to be done from which
ordinary men would shrink in horror.
Is this a fancy sketch? Alas! history answers, No; and from amongst the
dim and shadowy forms of that multitude whom Rome has crowned with her
doubtful honours there rises before the memory more than one so-called
“saint” who might have sat for the portrait.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II.
=Clouded Death.=
“O God! to clasp those fingers close,
And yet to feel so lonely:
To see a light on dearest brows,
That is the sunlight only!
Be pitiful, O God!”
E. B. BROWNING.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II.
=Clouded Death.=
When we look from a distance upon some great mountain, we are apt to
form rather mistaken ideas, not only of its dimensions, but of its
relation to the surrounding landscape. It seems to stand before us alone
in its majesty, rising like an altar to heaven, and sundered by some
sharp dividing line from the plain beneath. But usually it is not so. A
nearer approach brings us to gentle slopes, green with pasture or waving
with corn, rising higher and higher, sometimes almost imperceptibly,
till at last, by slow gradations, we arrive at the region of jagged rock
and frowning precipice. Something like this we may find in the moral
world. To the distant observer, a time of terror and anguish stands out
in bold relief from the ordinary level of common life; and he forgets
the subtle gradations, the diversified incidents, some of them trivial
enough, through which men usually pass from one kind of life to another.
So passed the men of Dundee, in the summer months of that terrible year,
step by step from vague apprehension to vivid, actual terror; as the
pestilence that walketh in darkness first struck down one, and another,
and another; then gradually multiplied its victims until the voice of
lamentation filled the city, and no man felt his own life safe from the
destroyer for a single hour.
Not very long after the first appearance of the pestilence, Archie
Duncan came back one morning in high glee from the grammar-school,
whither he had been despatched by the careful Janet only half an hour
before.
“Nae mair schule,” he cried, flinging his book on the table; “maister’s
awa’, for fear o’ the sickness;—and may guid gang wi’ him!”
Jamie, who happened to be in the room, brought his brother’s ill-timed
hilarity to a close by a smart box on the ear. “Hae ye no feeling,
callant?” he asked angrily. “Ye suld be on yer twa knees, praying the
blessed saints to pity us, instead of jesting and daffing.”
There was justice in the reproof, and Archie was abashed. He withdrew
quietly to the window where his little sister was standing, and Jamie
presently resumed: “A’ the rich folk’ll soon be awa’, and naebody left
in the toun but puir bodies, wha maun just bide because they canna
quit.”
“There’s a hantle shops shut up alang by the High Street and the
Nethergate,” remarked Janet.
“Folk dinna care to buy, these times,” responded Jamie. “I hae thocht it
an ill trade enoo’ to be naething but a puir baxter lad, Janet; but noo
I thank Saint Andrew for the same, for folk maun _eat_, so lang’s
they’re alive.”
At this moment the door was partly opened, and a low, startled voice
called, “Janet!”
“Come ben, Mary,” said Jamie, at once recognising that of Mary Wigton.
Mary did not come in, however, and Janet went outside the door to speak
to her. The poor girl’s face was deadly pale, and her eyes were large
and wild with terror. “What’s wrang wi’ ye?” asked Janet, in alarm.
“Na sae muckle,” said Mary, trying to hide her fears, not so much from
her friend as from herself. “Father’s head’s licht the day, and he’s no
himsel a’ thegither,—but—but—he’s no _that_ ill, Janet.” She was
trembling violently and clinging to the handle of the door for support.
“Puir lassie,” said Janet, compassionately.
“Will ye come and see him the noo? Do, Janet, _do_—for mercy’s sake!”
Janet was a brave girl, and she loved Mary Wigton dearly. But for the
sake of the other members of her family she felt she durst not enter the
infected room. She answered, therefore, after a moment’s hard struggle
with herself, “Wae’s me! I daurna, for Jamie and the bairns.”
Mary did not remonstrate, but the sorrowful expression of her face
touched Janet deeply. She said, “I’ll gang in and gar Jamie fetch ye a
leech.[3] He’ll ken what’s wrang wi’ yer father. Aiblins it’s no the
sickness.”
Mary thanked her, and returned sadly to her watch beside her father’s
bed; still hoping against hope that this might prove some passing
ailment, and not the dreaded “sickness.”
James Duncan found it difficult to procure a physician; as some, who
thought their own lives of more value than those of their patients, had
quitted the town, and of course those who remained had their hands full
of work.
At length, however, he succeeded; though at the heavy price of
presenting himself late at his master’s shop, and being obliged to admit
that the sickness had made its appearance in the house where he lodged.
The physician, a compassionate man, reluctantly pronounced the verdict
poor Mary most dreaded. He then prescribed some remedies, which were
probably calculated to do neither good nor harm to the sufferer; and
left, promising to send a hired nurse, and to return himself on the
morrow.
The presence of the nurse probably saved Mary’s reason, if not her life.
All that day, and the night that followed it, they two kept their awful
watch beside the suffering and delirious patient. When the morning
broke, and all things looked weird and strange in the faint gray light,
then there came a change. Mary had risen to extinguish the useless lamp,
when to her great joy her father quietly asked her to leave it burning
still. Reason had returned, but alas! it was only the last look cast
upon earth by the parting soul ere its dread flight to the unknown
world.
“I hae been vera ill, Mary!” said the dying man. “I maun hae a priest.
Where’s our John?”
Mary started. Up to this moment, terror and anguish had so bewildered
her, that, as she afterwards thought, with bitter self-reproach, she had
forgotten her dear father’s soul in ministering to his body. “John’s no
here,” she said, “but I’ll fetch ye a priest.”
“Na, na,” said Wigton, holding her hand in his; “ye maunna leave me, my
lassie.”
Nor could she part with the nurse, so she again had recourse to the
Duncans. Standing this time at the foot of the stairs, she called Janet,
and in a few agitated words made her request.
Jamie was out, his business requiring his attendance at an early hour,
but Janet herself readily undertook the mission; while Mary returned to
her place, and heard the nurse whisper as she passed her, “He’s sinking
fast.”
Two long slow hours wore away, and then Janet returned. Mary met her in
the passage. “He’s amaist gone!” she gasped.
“Wae’s me! I hae travelled the hail toun, and the never a priest could I
get!” said Janet, in much distress. “The mair part hae gone awa’ like
ither folk, and the lave willna come when it’s the sickness. There’s ane
frae St. Mary’s Kirk might hae come, but he’s ill himsel the day.
Anither—”
But Mary did not stay to hear the detailed account of her failures. With
a look of anguish she put her hand to her head, murmuring, “Too late!
Too late!” then hurried back to her father, and knelt down beside his
bed.
She took his cold hand in hers, and said, as calmly as she could,
“Father dear, we canna get a priest. We maun trust in the guid God
aboon, and in the blessed Virgin.”
“Nae priest—nae priest!” said the dying man, with a bewildered look.
“But where’s our John?”
“We maun try to pray,” answered Mary, and she began in faltering tones
to repeat a Paternoster. But the Latin words, which she could not
understand, were soon exchanged for a wild agonized cry for mercy in her
native tongue. And almost before she had finished, the spirit of Hugh
Wigton passed away.
It is painful to linger over scenes like this, and the heart yearns to
escape from the thoughts they suggest. But for once, at least, let us
dare to face the bitter, bitter truth; it may have its lessons for us.
Were there not many deathbeds in the plague-stricken town no brighter
than that of Hugh Wigton? We have every reason to suppose it. For it
must be remembered, that even had Janet Duncan succeeded in procuring a
priest, the rites he would have administered might have made the dying
man more comfortable, but could not have made him safer. Not having
Christ, what had he in which to trust?
Are not the same awful tragedies still enacted before us day by day?
Dare we ask ourselves how many, even from the midst of a nominally
Christian land, “go to the generation of their fathers, and never see
light?” And meanwhile _we_—even we who have tasted the good Word of God
and the powers of the world to come—do we not too often eat and drink,
buy and sell and get gain, and pursue our various schemes of business
and pleasure, all too heedless of “the exceeding great and bitter cry,
which seems as it were to go up from the waste places of the earth,
Bless us, even us also, O our Father?”
[Illustration]
III.
=God’s Messenger.=
“Across the fever’s fiery path he trod,
And one went with him like the Son of God.”
REV. W. ALEXANDER.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
III.
=God’s Messenger.=
After the death of Hugh Wigton, the Duncans took his desolate and
broken-hearted orphan to their own home. Mary’s grief was not wild—that
was not in her character—but it was intense and crushing. Except the
absent brother, her father had been her only surviving relative, and all
the tendrils of her loving nature had entwined themselves around him. He
was snatched from her in a single day; and that in a manner so bitter
and heart-rending that horror was at first almost stronger than sorrow.
One thought, above all others, cruelly aggravated her distress, and it
was rarely absent from her. He died without the sacraments of the
Church—what then would become of his soul? This anguish was too deep for
words, and almost for tears; it was only upon one occasion that she even
alluded to it.
“I wonner,” she said to Janet one day, while she helped her in some
humble household work, “I wonner gin the kirkmen be richt sure themsels
that a’ they tell us is true,”
“Oh, Mary!” exclaimed Janet, whose mind was the reverse of speculative
in its tendencies, “what gars ye speir sic’ a thing?”
But Mary answered intelligently, for sorrow is a good master in the art
of thinking, “Did they no care for their ain lives, and let my dear
father dee like a puir dumb beast, that has nae soul ava’?”
“Tut, lassie, a’body cares for his life,” said Janet, going on
vigorously with her work.
Mary shook her head. “But they suld hae mair pity. They suld hae a
thocht o’ the puir souls that are deeing around them. God forgie me, I
canna bide the thocht of it! My puir, puir father! An’ there’s mony sic’
as he, Janet; mony sic’!”
“Weel, it’s no for the like of us to be deaving our heads wi’ sic’
things;—gie us a hand wi’ the spurtle, Mary; Jamie’ll come ben keen for
his parritch,—tho’ there’s unco little meal left in the kist.”
Mary was silenced, but not comforted. Soon, however, other troubles
came. The victims of the pestilence were every day more numerous; and
although Mary cared but little just then for her own life, she took part
in the fears of the Duncan family for each other; nor could any of them
remain unmoved by the universal terror and distress. To their trials
that of want was now added; for James Duncan’s master had dismissed him
from his employment on hearing that a person had died of the plague in
the “land” where he lived; and although the girls could spin and sew,
they found it, for the same reason, impossible to dispose of their work.
Knowing it would be useless to seek another situation at present, Jamie
had no alternative but to sit at home, idle, hungry, and miserable.
Naturally, these circumstances did not tend to improve his temper, which
was further soured by various collisions with Archie. It was not to be
expected that a bright active boy would be content to stay indoors all
day without occupation or amusement; and yet it seemed little less than
madness to allow him to wander about the streets at his will. Janet’s
good sense fortunately led her to compromise matters by sending him,
whenever she could, upon necessary errands, cautioning him to “gang
hoolie,”[4] to keep the middle of the street, and above all not to
linger with idle boys, “wha might gie him the sickness.”
On one of these occasions he delayed such an unreasonable time that
Jamie vowed summary vengeance on his return. His absence being still
further prolonged, annoyance changed to serious anxiety, as instances
had occurred of persons being suddenly seized with the pestilence in the
streets, and unable ever to regain their homes. But towards the end of
the second hour, Archie reappeared, and with a countenance and manner
which showed there was nothing amiss.
Laying down the loaf he had been sent to purchase, he exclaimed, “Eh,
but there’s braw news the day! A’ the tounfolk are weel nigh daft wi’
joy, sae that a body wad think the sickness was awa’. Maister Wishart’s
come back again.”
“Wha’s he?” asked Effie, who thought that what pleased Archie ought to
interest her.
“Hoot! a’body kens Maister George Wishart. He’s a guid priest (but they
ca’ him the minister), and nae common priest either; he’s a braw
gentleman, and sae guid to the puir folk, forbye preaching like an
angel.”
“He’s nae priest ava’,” said Jamie. “He’s naebut a preacher; and he’s a
muckle heretic. Do ye no mind when he was here before, how the lord
cardinal put the tounfolk in fear, and they bade him gang his ways?”
“He’s nae heretic!” returned Archie, who was not sorry to contradict his
elder brother, and who besides had spent the greater part of the last
two hours taking lessons in “heresy” at the street corners and in the
shops. “He’s nae heretic. It’s naebut the bishops ca’ him that, because
they canna preach like him theirsels, the doited loons!”
“Whist, laddie! ye suldna misca’ yer betters.”
“But what gars him come back the noo, when a’body wha could do it has
just rin awa’? Is he no fear’t o’ the sickness?” asked Janet.
“He’s no fear’t of _onything_,” said Archie, with genuine admiration,
for courage is perhaps the only virtue a boy can thoroughly appreciate.
But at these words Mary dropped her thread (she had been spinning), and
fixed her eyes on his face with a sudden look of interest. “And he’s
gaun to preach the morn frae the Cowgate.”
“Frae the Cowgate!”
“Frae the top o’ the Cowgate. And the folk wha hae had the sickness
amang them maun gang outside; and the _free_ folk maun bide inside.”
“Then we maun gang out,” said Janet.
“Ye’ll gang neither out nor in wi’ my guid will,” Jamie interposed.
“Gin our puir souls havena enoo’ upon them, these ill times, without
fashing oursels wi’ his heresies. He was weel awa’. What gars him come
back to set the town in a bleeze wi’ sic’ fooleries?” An ungenerous
speech, which James Duncan afterwards repented.
“He maun hae a guid heart to Dundee,” Janet ventured to remark, “or he
wadna come here sic’ a time. Mair pity gin he is a heretic.”
“Gin!” repeated Jamie ironically; “gin my lord cardinal had him in his
grip, nae doot but he’d burn him quick, and gie the silly folk wha gang
to hear him something to remember.”
“Atweel,” said Archly smartly, “let my lord cardinal come and gie us a
sermon himsel, and we’ll a’ leave Maister Wishart and gang to hear
_him_. But I wad ye a plack, he’ll put mair than the length of his
muckle cross between us and him the noo!”
“Ye may hand yer clavers,” said Jamie, who did not feel himself equal to
a discussion of the subject “Ye’re nane gaun to the Cowgate the morn.”
Archie vigorously remonstrated against this decision. “It’s no for the
heresy,” he said in self-vindication, “but I want to see a man preach
frae the top o’ the gate.”
Janet however, as in duty bound, threw her weight into the scale of
Jamie’s lawful authority. “Ye’ll be a guid lad and mind yer brither,”
she said to Archie; “and forbye the heresy, wha kens but we micht tak’
the sickness, gaun promiscuous into sic’ a muckle crowd.”
Here the matter might have ended, but for Mary Wigton, who looked up and
said very quietly, “I hope ye’ll no be fashed or think hard o’ me, but I
maun gang to hear Maister Wishart.”
This took them all by surprise, for since her father’s death Mary had
been as it were quite passive, not seeming to have any will or purpose
of her own.
“An’ what for, Mary, lass?” Jamie asked, in the softened tone he always
used when speaking to her.
“Because he hae ta’en thocht o’ the puir folks’ souls, and doesna think
muckle to set his ain life i’ the bawk. God bless him for it! Gin he had
been here, father needna hae dee’d like—like—”
“Atweel, he maun hae the love o’ God in his heart, and the Word o’ God
on his lips, let them ca’ him heretic as they may.”
When James Duncan gave himself time to reflect, he began to modify the
opinions he had expressed. Granted that Wishart was a heretic, he was
still a man of rank and talent, admired and beloved not only by
thousands of the people, but by many of the nobles of the land. That
such a man should put his life in his hand, and voluntarily hasten to
the city where death was raging, and whence all who could do it had fled
in terror, served at least to impress one lesson on his mind. The men of
Dundee were not, as in his dejection he had begun to think, quite
forsaken both of heaven and earth. One man at least there was who had
found it in his heart to come to them in this time of trouble, for the
express purpose of giving them all the help and comfort he could. Might
not his courageous charity be a sign that God’s mercy was not so far
away as they were tempted to imagine? Thus, at last, Wishart’s coming
began to look very like a single ray of light in their clouded sky, and
in his heart he “blessed him unawares.”
Janet having ascertained next morning that Mary still persisted in her
intention of going to the preaching, was considerably surprised to see
her brother take from the “kist” in which it was deposited, a gown which
had belonged to his father, and which he carefully reserved for
important occasions.
“Ye’re no gaun out the morn?” she asked.
“Do ye think, woman, I could let the lassie gang her lane to the
Cowgate?” was the answer.
“An’ _you_ maun gang, _I’ll_ not be left behind,” said Janet.
“Please yersel,” was Jamie’s laconic reply.
“But we daurna leave the bairns,” suggested Janet.
The “bairns” overhearing this, entreated to be of the party; and after a
little more discussion it was decided that all were to go, Jamie
quieting his conscience with the reflection, “Ane sermon willna dae us
muckle harm, an’ it were as full of heresies as Glasgow is of bells.”
They were soon a part of the crowd that thronged about the east gate of
the town. Janet and Mary stood together; Jamie took little Effie in his
arms; while Archie, to his great joy, succeeded in dislodging a taller
boy than himself from the top of a particularly eligible heap of stones.
Mary could not help remarking the mournful expression of all the faces
that surrounded them. Pallid, sickly, worn-out faces they were, for the
most part; many of them bearing the traces of just such agonies as she
had passed through when she watched by her father’s death-bed. And not a
few had a wild and reckless look, as if, in the effort to escape from
anguish, they were hardening themselves into despair.
Suddenly every eye was raised upwards with a look of eager interest and
expectation. Very touching was the gaze of that great multitude, in its
wistful, silent appeal to the heart of him who had come among them,
promising to tell them something which could make life more tolerable,
and death less bitter. Mary looked where others did, and her eye rested
with involuntary admiration on the stately figure of the preacher, a
tall man, dark-haired, and of dark complexion, with a noble countenance,
and singularly graceful manner. Something else there was, not so easy to
describe or to analyze, which insensibly attracted her. It may have been
the love and pity that beamed from his face as he looked on those
sorrowing thousands—the love that winged his footsteps to that scene of
death, because, as he said, “They are now in trouble, and need comfort;
and perhaps the hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence
that Word which before, for fear of men, they set at light part.”
But besides this, a man could scarcely live as George Wishart did—so
very near to Christ that he loved to spend whole days and nights in
direct communion with him, or follow so closely in the footsteps of his
self-denying charity—without reflecting, even in outward appearance,
some little of the glory of that land in which his spirit dwelt. For
there is a calm and an elevation which nothing but the peace and the
presence of God can impart to the countenance of man.
Amidst a deep silence he read aloud the text he had chosen: “He sent his
Word, and healed them.” “It is neither herb nor plaster, O Lord,” he
said, “but thy Word that heals all.” And then, for the first time, Mary
Wigton heard Christ preached. She heard that there was a disease more
deadly than the dreaded pestilence; that she herself had breathed its
poison; that it had entered her being and become a part of it; and her
heart and her conscience answered “yes” to the charge. Then she heard of
the Deliverer, the “Word” of God, who, because he loved mankind, because
he loved _her_, had left his home which was the Heaven of Heavens, to
suffer and die upon earth, that all who believed on him might be healed
of their deadly sickness, forgiven their transgressions, renewed in the
spirit of their minds, and made the sons and daughters of the Lord
Almighty.
Are “the words of this life” in our ears as an oft told tale? If so, let
us thank God for it, while we ask him never to allow their familiarity
to let them seem less precious. But to Mary, and to many who heard them
with her, they were new and wonderful as the glory of the sunrise in the
eyes of one who has dwelt all his life in a darksome cave. The love of
the blessed Son of God, and of the Father who sent him, sank to the very
depths of her heart. She believed that love was for her; she received
and embraced it, without so much as staying to question whether this was
indeed the faith upon which the preacher insisted. For her the fiat had
gone forth, “Behold, I make all things new!” and peace and joy took the
place of the deep dejection which before had threatened to overwhelm
her. Lonely and sorrowful, an “orphan of the earthly love and heavenly,”
had she come thither that morning; she returned home with a happy,
thankful heart,—God’s forgiven and accepted child.
Nor was hers the only heart to which George Wishart was made the
messenger of peace that day. The great reformer Knox, who loved and
reverenced him deeply, tells us that by this sermon “he raised up the
hearts of all that heard him, that they regardit not death, but judgit
thame mair happie that sould depairt, than sic as sould remain behind.”
And was not the joy of bringing this joy to thousands, who otherwise
would have lain in darkness and the shadow of death, worth all he braved
and all he suffered for it? This was far more than the peril of
infection; inasmuch as the wrath of wicked men is more deadly than the
breath of disease, and as we have yet to learn, they gave him “cruel
thanks” for his labours of self-devoted love. Yet it is true that “he
that reapeth receiveth wages” here and now, as well as “gathereth fruit
into life eternal.” It does not need the heart of a hero or a martyr, it
only needs a little sense of the value of one human soul, and a little
love to Him who died to redeem it, to enable the humblest Christian to
comprehend what that wages is, and to esteem such a life as George
Wishart’s, not only grander and nobler, but actually _happier_ than the
most triumphant career the lofty ambition of youth ever pictured forth
in the future.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IV.
=Fruits of the Message.=
“The shadow had passed from her heart and brow,
And a deep calm filled her breast;
For the peace of God was her portion now,
And her weary soul found rest.”
_Lays of the Kirk and Covenant._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
IV.
=Fruits of the Message.=
The Duncans walked home from the East Port in thoughtful silence, which
Mary Wigton did not feel inclined to disturb. Her own heart was full of
new strange feelings, which she could not as yet understand or arrange;
but they filled her with joy, and with a love which seemed to pour
itself forth on every one around. She could not join in Janet’s
lamentations over the spare meal that awaited their return, for was it
not provided by that heavenly Father of whose love she had just heard,
and would he not send whatever they really needed? To her it was a
feast; and she quietly enjoyed the luxury of a clandestine transfer of
more than half her own portion to poor Archie, who, being a healthy,
growing boy, suffered keenly from the want of sufficient food.
At length they began to discuss the sermon; it was little Effie, the
youngest of the party, who introduced the subject.
“Didna yon man on the gate speak braw words o’ the guid Lord Jesus’?”
she said, addressing Jamie, who was very fond of her.
“I didna ken ye were minding him, bairnie.”
“Ou ay, I minded every word. I never heard the like before.”
“There’s mair than you can say that, Effie, dear,” added Mary, with a
beaming face. “God be thankit for thae guid words. Mony’s the sair heart
they’ll hae healed the day.”
“Weel,” said Janet, “I dinna think sae muckle on’t. He seemed to jalouse
we were a by-ordinar sinfu’ folk; and, sae far as I ken, we’re nae waur
than the lave. What do you say, Jamie?”
Thus directly appealed to, Jamie answered oracularly,—
“He’s a braw preacher, Janet; but he’s a muckle heretic.”
Nor could he be induced to commit himself to any more explicit opinion.
He manifested, however, an extraordinary desire to hear the “muckle
heretic” on every possible occasion. When, a short time afterwards, he
was fortunate enough to be taken back by his former master, who set a
high value on his uprightness and industry, he announced the fact to
Janet with the following commentary—
“It was no that easy to settle between maister and me; for he’s unco
keen after the preaching himsel, and didna like to leave the shop; but I
gared him promise to shut it up the while, though I hae tint[5] a trifle
wages thereby.”
“Oh, Jamie lad, wasna that a silly thing, wi’ sae mony mouths to fill,
and the meal sae dear?”
“Tut, lassie, wad ye no let a man pleasure himsel whiles?”
And so not one of the very frequent preachings from the East Port was
missed by any of the Duncan family, or by Mary Wigton. All loved to go,
though from different motives. Mary, as a new-born babe, desired the
sincere milk of the word, that she might grow thereby. She was very
ignorant, not only of the doctrines of the Christian faith, but even of
the great facts that underlie those doctrines. She could not read; and
had she been able to do so, she had never so much as seen any portion of
the Word of God in her own tongue. She was therefore entirely dependent,
both for instruction and edification, upon the sermons of Wishart; and
she valued those precious means of grace perhaps more highly than those
can conceive who are surrounded with churches and Bibles, with Christian
friends and religious books. She soon learned that prayer was not the
vain repetition of words she could not understand, but the lifting up of
the heart to a reconciled God and Father; and she found the way into his
presence opened to her through the merits of Him in whom alone she
trusted. When perplexities arose in her path (and to the thinking mind,
whether educated or ignorant, they surely will arise), she either prayed
over them until they vanished, or the preacher took them up and solved
them for her in one or other of his discourses. But she was saved from
many difficulties by the simple, childlike faith with which she had been
led to receive the word of God, and in a lesser degree by the fact that
religion had previously been with her merely the sentiment of a
naturally devout and amiable character. She had not been either deeply
acquainted with, or strongly attached to, the peculiar tenets of Popery;
and she gave them up almost without a struggle, when convinced, less by
the reformer’s eloquence than by the instincts of her own renewed heart,
that they were dishonouring to the Saviour she loved.
With James Duncan it was far different. The battle between the old faith
and the new had to be fought out step by step in his slow but thoughtful
mind. The good words of the gospel, its free invitations and promises of
mercy, seemed every day more suited to his need, and more grateful to
his longing heart. But he found that this pure and lofty faith could not
be made to harmonize with the creed to which he was still so strongly
attached. In his soul, that which letteth would let, until it was taken
out of the way. He was sometimes roused to vigorous, even bitter
opposition, by the preacher’s powerful though temperate exposure of
Romish superstition. To the mass, to purgatory, to the invocation of
saints, he clung almost with the energy of a drowning man; but he felt
them, as it were, dragged one by one from his unwilling hands by a moral
force greater than his own.
But no doctrine irritated him so much as that of justification by faith
only, which Wishart, who was lecturing on the Epistle to the Romans, set
forth with all the power and clearness for which the reformers were so
peculiarly remarkable. Yet even when he was most opposed to it there was
a voice within him that witnessed to its truth; and sometimes he was not
very far from suspecting that the secret of the peace he longed for lay
in the doctrine he despised.
As for Janet, the preaching did not, in the first instance, either
perplex her mind or touch her heart, but it troubled her conscience. She
did not hear it as a bigoted Romanist, nor yet as a candid inquirer
after the truth, but as a sinner, who had hitherto lived in careless
security, without God in the world. She grew miserable, and at one time
would gladly have discontinued her attendance; but she would not refuse
to accompany her brother, and besides she was herself not insensible to
the fascination which the preacher exercised. She could not speak of
what she felt; and, fearing to betray herself, she joined energetically
in Jamie’s condemnation of his heresies, while, in fact, she scarcely
understood in what they consisted.
The children loved to attend sermon almost as much as their elders.
Archie, while he remained utterly indifferent to the doctrines taught by
Wishart, contracted a boy’s first enthusiasm for his person; and little
Effie always liked to go where she might hear “mair o’ the guid Lord
Jesus.”
Upon one occasion Jamie returned from the East Port in a state of more
than usual apparent irritation, but real doubt and perplexity. They had
just heard a very full and luminous exposition of the way of the
sinner’s acceptance before God.
“It’s ill to ken what a man suld think,” he said. “Naebody does what he
preaches, or preaches what he does. Maister Wishart and the priests are
like enoo; there’s nae muckle to choose between them.”
“What gars ye sae sic a thing?” asked Archie indignantly. “Maister
Wishart’s no like the priests; he proves a’ he says, frae his wee book.”
“Do ye no mind that the priests are aye and aye telling us to do guid
warks for our puir souls? And they never do ane themsels that _I_ hae
seen; while Maister Wishart, wha does a hantle guid warks himsel, tells
folk they’re nae manner o’ use.”
“Ye may weel say he does guid warks,” said Archie, who preferred the
concrete to the abstract, and was glad to escape from a theological
discussion to a matter of fact. “A’ the toun says he does naething in
the warld (when he’s no preaching) but gang up and doun amang the sick
folk, wi’ neither fear nor care for his ain life, telling them the guid
words, and gieing them a’ the comfort he can, for their puir bodies as
weel as their souls. I hae heard that whiles, when he’s got nae mair
siller, he’s gien his vera claes awa’.”
“Mair’s the wonner what he can be thinking on, to tell us its nae use
our doing warks ava’, and that we hae nocht to do but just _believe_.
It’s owre easy ganging to heaven that gait.”
“Ye’re wrang, Jamie,” said Janet, turning suddenly round on him. “It’s
no easy ava’, but owre _hard_, the way he puts it. Does he no say we
maun love the Lord better than father, or mither, or brither? an’ that
we maunna gie up his Word, aince we ken it in our hearts, no, not to
save our vera lives? It’s owre muckle that for flesh and bluid, say I.”
Mary, who had not spoken before, now quietly put in a word.
“Ay, Janet, ye’d be richt enoo, gin we had to do it oursels. But the
guid Lord wha loved us, and gied his ain bluid for our sins, forbye a’
that, he gies us _the heart_ to do what he bids.”
“Then,” said Jamie quickly, “we maun do what He bids, and no just
believe and nae mair.”
Mary was a little puzzled, not exactly for thoughts, but for words in
which to clothe them. At last she said—
“Ane couldna believe and nae mair. Aebody wha kens the guid Lord loved
and forgave them, maun just be trying the haill day lang to do bits o’
things by way o’ thanks to him. But gin he didna make us free to the
love and forgieness _first_, what wad become of us ava’, puir sinners
that we are?”