Before proceeding with the incidents as they occurred, which is the
common way of telling a story in the country, it will be necessary to
explain some circumstances alluded to in the foregoing chapter.
Walter Laidlaw rented the extensive bounds of Chapelhope from the Laird
of Drummelzier. He was a substantial, and even a wealthy man, as times
went then, for he had a stock of 3000 sheep, cattle, and horses; and
had, besides, saved considerable sums of money, which he had lent out to
neighbouring farmers who were not in circumstances so independent as
himself.
He had one only daughter, his darling, who was adorned with every
accomplishment which the country could then afford, and with every
grace and beauty that a country maiden may possess. He had likewise two
sons, who were younger than she, and a number of shepherds and female
servants.
The time on which the incidents here recorded took place, was, I
believe, in the autumn of the year 1685, the most dismal and troublous
time that these districts of the south and west of Scotland ever saw, or
have since seen. The persecution for religion then raged in its wildest
and most unbridled fury: the Covenanters, or the whigs, as they were
then called, were proscribed, imprisoned, and at last hunted down like
wild beasts. Graham, Viscount of Dundee, better known by the detested
name of Clavers, set loose his savage troopers upon those peaceful
districts, with peremptory orders to plunder, waste, disperse, and
destroy the conventiclers, wherever they might be found.
All the outer parts of the lands of Chapelhope are broken into thousands
of deep black ruts, called by the country people _moss haggs_. Each of
the largest of these has a green stripe along its bottom; and in this
place in particular they are so numerous, so intersected and complex in
their lines, that, as a hiding-place, they are unequalled--men, foxes,
and sheep, may all there find cover with equal safety from being
discovered, and may hide for days and nights without being aware of one
another. The neighbouring farms to the westward abound with inaccessible
rocks, caverns, and ravines. To these mountains, therefore, the
shattered remains of the fugitives from the field of Bothwell Bridge, as
well as the broken and persecuted whigs from all the western and
southern counties, fled as to their last refuge. Being unacquainted,
however, with the inhabitants of the country in which they had taken
shelter--with their religious principles, or the opinions which they
held respecting the measures of government--they durst not trust them
with the secret of their retreat. They had watches set, sounds for
signals, and skulked away from one hiding-place to another at the
approach of the armed troop, the careless fowler, or the solitary
shepherd; yea, such precautions were they obliged to use, that they
often fled from the face of one another.
From the midst of that inhospitable wilderness--from those dark mosses
and unfrequented caverns--the prayers of the persecuted race nightly
arose to the throne of the Almighty--prayers, as all testified who heard
them, fraught with the most simple pathos, as well as the most bold and
vehement sublimity. In the solemn gloom of the evening, after the last
rays of day had disappeared, and again in the morning before they began
to streamer the east, the song of praise was sung to that Being, under
whose fatherly chastisement they were patiently suffering. These psalms,
always chaunted with ardour and wild melody, and borne on the light
breezes of the twilight, were often heard at a great distance. The heart
of the peasant grew chill, and his hairs stood all on end, as he hasted
home to alarm the cottage circle with a tale of horror. Lights were seen
moving by night in wilds and caverns where human thing never resided,
and where the foot of man seldom had trode.
The shepherds knew, or thought they knew, that no human being frequented
these places; and they believed, as well they might, that whole hordes
of spirits had taken possession of their remote and solitary dells. They
lived in terror and consternation. Those who had no tie in the country
left it, and retreated into the vales, where the habitations of men are
numerous, and where the fairy, the brownie, or the walking ghost, is
rarely seen. Such as had friends whom they could not leave, or sheep and
cattle upon the lands, as the farmers and shepherds had, were obliged to
remain, but their astonishment and awe continued to increase. They knew
there was but one Being to whom they could apply for protection against
these unearthly visitants; family worship was begun both at evening and
morning in the farmers' hall and the most remote hamlet; and that age
introduced a spirit of devotion into those regions, which one hundred
and thirty years continuance of the utmost laxity and indecision in
religious principles has not yet been able wholly to eradicate.
It is likewise necessary to mention here, though perfectly well known,
that every corner of that distracted country was furnished with a
gownsman, to instruct the inhabitants in the _mild_ and _benignant_
principles of prelacy, but chiefly to act as spies upon the detested
whigs. In the fulfilment of this last task they were not remiss; they
proved the most inveterate and incorrigible enemies that the poor
covenanters had, even though heaven, earth, and hell seemed to have
combined against them.
The officiating priest at the kirk of Saint Mary of the Lowes had been
particularly active in this part of his commission. The smallest number
could not be convened for the purposes of public devotion--two or three
stragglers could not be seen crossing the country, but information was
instantly sent to Clavers, or some one of his officers; and, at the same
time, these devotional meetings were always described to be of the most
atrocious and rebellious nature. The whigs became grievously incensed
against this ecclesiastic, for, in the bleakest mountain of their native
land, they could not enjoy a lair in common with the foxes and the
wild-goats in peace, nor worship their God without annoyance in the dens
and caves of the earth. Their conventicles, though held in places ever
so remote, were broke in upon and dispersed by armed troops, and their
ministers and brethren carried away to prisons, to banishment, and to
death. They waxed desperate; and what will not desperate men do? They
way-laid, and seized upon one of the priest's emissaries by night, a
young female, who was running on a message to Grierson of Lag. Overcome
with fear at being in custody of such frightful-looking fellows, with
their sallow cheeks and long beards, she confessed the whole, and gave
up her dispatches. They were of the most aggravated nature. Forthwith
two or three of the most hardy of the whigs, without the concurrence or
knowledge of their brethren, posted straight to the Virgin's chapel that
very night, shot the chaplain, and buried him at a small distance from
his own little solitary mansion; at the same time giving out to the
country, that he was a sorcerer, an adulterer, and a character every way
evil. His name has accordingly been handed down to posterity as a most
horrid necromancer.
This was a rash and unpremeditated act; and, as might well have been
foreseen, the cure proved worse than the disease. It brought the armed
troops upon them both from the east and the west. Dundee came to
Traquair, and stationed companies of troops in a line across the
country. The Laird of Lag placed a body of men in the narrowest pass of
Moffatdale, in the only path by which these mountains are accessible.
Thus all communication was cut off between the mountain-men and the
western counties; for every one who went or came by that way, these
soldiers took prisoner, searched, and examined; and one lad, who was
coming from Moffat, carrying more bread than they thought he could well
account for, they shot dead on the spot just as he had dropt on his
knees to pray.
A curate, named Clerk, still remained, to keep an eye upon the whigs and
pester them. He had the charge of two chapels in that vicinity; the one
at a place now called Kirkhope, which was dedicated to Saint Irene, a
saint of whom the narrator of this story could give no account. The
other was dedicated to Saint Lawrence; the remains of it are still to be
seen at Chapelhope, in a small circular inclosure on the west side of
the burn. Clerk was as malevolent to the full against the proscribed
party as his late brother, but he wanted the abilities of the deceased;
he was ignorant, superstitious, and had assumed a part of the fanaticism
in religion of the adverse party, for it was the age and the country of
fanaticism, and nothing else would take. By that principally he had
gained some influence among his hearers, on whom he tried every
stimulant to influence them against the whigs. The goodwife of
Chapelhope was particularly attached to him and his tenets; he held her
completely in leading-strings; her concience approved of every thing, or
disapproved, merely as he directed; he flattered her for her deep
knowledge in true and sound divinity and the Holy Scriptures, although
of both she was grossly ignorant. But she had learned from her preceptor
a kind of cant--a jargon of religious terms and sentences of Scripture
mixed, of which she had great pride but little understanding. She was
just such a character as would have been a whig, had she ever had an
opportunity of hearing or conversing with any of that sect. Nothing
earthly could be so truly ludicrous as some of her exhibitions in a
religious style. The family and servants were in general swayed by their
mistress, who took a decided part with Clerk in all his schemes against
the whigs, and constantly dispatched one of her own servants to carry
his messages of information to the king's officers. This circumstance
soon became known to the mountain-men, and though they were always
obliged to take refuge on the lands of Chapelhope by day, they avoided
carefully all communication with the family or shepherds (for several of
the shepherds on that farm lived in cottages at a great distance from
one another and from the farm-house.)
Walter despised Clerk and his tenets most heartily; he saw that he was
a shallow, hypocritical, and selfish being, and that he knew nothing of
the principles in which he pretended to instruct them; therefore he
sorely regretted the influence that he had gained over his family.
Neither did he approve of the rigid and rebellious principles which he
believed the Covenanters professed. When he met with any man, or
community of men, who believed firmly in any thing and held it sacred,
Walter revered that, and held it sacred likewise; but it was rather from
a deference to the belief and feelings of his fellow creatures than his
own conviction. In short, Walter was an honest, conscientious, good,
old-fashioned man, but he made no great fuss about religion, and many
supposed that he did not care a pin who was right or who was wrong.
On the 23d of August, Clavers (I think it best to denominate him so, as
he is always called by that name in the country,) dispatched nineteen
men from Traquair, under the command of one Copland, a gentleman
volunteer in his troop, and a very brave young man, to gain intelligence
concerning the murder of the curate, and use every means to bring the
perpetrators to justice. Copland and his men came to the mansion of the
late chaplain, where they remained all the night, and made every enquiry
that they could concerning the murderers. Several witnesses were brought
in and examined, and among others the very identical girl whom the whigs
took prisoner, and robbed of the dispatches. She had heard the letter
read by one of the gang who seized her, while the rest stood and
listened. It bore, "that great numbers of the broken and rebellious
traitors kenneled in the wilds around Loch-Skene, from whence they
committed depredations on all the countries about; that they likewise
made religious incursions into those districts, where great multitudes
attended their inflammatory harangues." It also stated, "that a noted
incendiary was to preach on such a day in Kirkinhope Linn, where the
whole group might easily be surrounded and annihilated; that many of
them were armed with guns, bludgeons, and broadswords, but that they
were the most cowardly, heartless dogs alive; and that he himself, who
had private and certain information of all their hiding places, would
engage to rid the country of them in a few days, if Lag would allow him
but one company of soldiers."
Copland now began to suspect that his force was too small to accomplish
any thing of moment; he determined, however, to make a dash into the
wild next morning, and, if possible, to seize some prisoners, and
thereby gain more accurate information. On the morning of the 24th,
having procured two trusty guides, he proceeded on his expedition. He
and nine of his followers went up by a place called Sheilhope, the other
nine by Chapelhope--they were to scour the broken ground, take all those
prisoners whom they found skulking, fire upon such as refused to stand,
and meet on a certain height at noon. Copland and his party reached the
appointed place without making any reprisal; they perceived some
stragglers on the heights and rocks at a great distance, who always
vanished away, like beings not of this world. Three of the other party
took one poor lad prisoner, who was so spent and emaciated that he had
been unable to fly at the signal-sound; but so intent were they on blood
that he was not ever brought before their leader, who never so much as
knew of the capture.
The guide was wont to relate the circumstances of this poor man's trial
and execution, for, but for him, no such thing would ever have been
known; the death of a whig, or a straggler of any kind, was then a
matter of no concern--They were three Brae-mar Highlanders who took him;
like the most part of his associates, he answered their questions in a
surly manner, and by the most cutting retorts, which particularly
enraged a Donald Farquharson, one of the party, against him. "Weel,
I'll pe pitting you to 'e test, and tat fery shun, my coot freen," said
Donald; "and I'll just pe teeling you, eince for a', tat ye haif ne meer
but tway meenets and a half to leef."
The poor forlorn wight answered, "that he expected no better at their
hands,--that he desired no longer time, and he hoped they would bear
patiently with him for that short space." He then kneeled down and
prayed most fervently, while Donald, who wanted only a hair to make a
tether of, as the saying is, seemed watching diligently for a word at
which to quarrel. At length he spoke words to the following purport.
"Father, forgive these poor misled creatures, as I forgive them; they
are running blindly upon a wrong path, and without the power of thy
grace they shall never gain the right one more." Donald, who did not
well understand the dialect in which the prisoner prayed, looked
shrewdly at his companions. "Dugald More," said he--"Dugald More, fat's
'e man saying?"
"He is praying," replied the other, "that we may lose our way, and never
find it more."
"Cot t--n 'e soul o' 'e tief, is he?" said Donald, and ran him through
with his bayonet.
The wounded man groaned, and cried most piteously, and even called out
"murder," but there was none to rescue or regard him. The soldiers,
however, cut the matter short, by tossing him into a deep hole in the
morass, where he sunk in the mire and was seen no more.
When Copland arrived at the place of rendezvous, five out of his ten
associates were no where to be seen, nor did they make their appearance,
although he tarried there till two in the afternoon. The guide then
conducted him by the path on which those missing should have come, and
on arriving at a narrow pass in Chapelhope, he found the bodies of the
four soldiers and their guide mangled and defaced in no ordinary
way; and judging from this that he had been long enough in that
neighbourhood, he hasted back to Traquair with the news of the loss.
Clavers is said to have broke out into the most violent rage, and to
have sworn that night by the Blessed Virgin and all the Holy Trinity,
utterly to extirpate the seed of the d--d whining psalm-singing race
from the face of the earth, and that ere Beltein there should not be as
much whig blood in Scotland as would make a dish of soup to a dog. He
however concealed from the privy council the loss of these five men, nor
did they ever know of it to this day.