the point of leaping from the wall; instead of doing which he assisted
in reversing the process which has just been described. It was much
easier, however; and the drop which Wallace had to make after his
friends were down was broken by their catching him in their arms.
Inexperience, however, is always liable to misfortune. The shock of
such a heavy man dropping from such a height gave them a surprise, and
sent them all three violently to the ground; but the firing, shouting,
and confusion on the other side of the wall caused them to jump up with
wonderful alacrity.
"Candlemaker Raw!" said Black in a hoarse whisper, as they dashed off in
different directions, and were lost in blackness of night.
With a very sad face, on which, however, there was an air of calm
resignation, Mrs. Black sat in her little room with her Bible open
before her. She had been reading to Mrs. Wallace and Jean, preparatory
to retiring for the night.
"It's awful to think of their lying out yonder, bedless, maybe
supperless, on a night like this," said Mrs. Wallace.
Jean, with her pretty face in that condition which the Scotch and
Norwegian languages expressively call begrutten, could do nothing but
sigh.
Just then hurried steps were heard on the stair, and next moment a loud
knocking shook the door.
"Wha's that?" exclaimed Mrs. Black, rising.
"It's me, mither. Open; quick!"
Next moment Andrew sprang in and looked hastily round.
"Am I the first, mither?"
Before the poor woman could recover from her joy and amazement
sufficiently to reply, another step was heard on the stair.
"That's ane o' them," said Black, turning and holding the door, so as to
be ready for friend or foe. He was right. Mrs. Wallace uttered a
little scream of joy as her son leaped into the room.
"Whaur's Quentin?" asked Black.
The question was scarcely put when the shepherd himself bounded up the
stair.
"They've gotten sight o' me, I fear," he said. "Have ye a garret,
wummin--onywhere to hide?"
"No' a place in the hoose big enough for a moose to hide in," said Mrs.
Black with a look of dismay.
As she spoke a confused noise of voices and hurrying steps was heard in
the street. Another moment and they were at the foot of the stair. The
three men seized the poker, tongs, and shovel. Mrs. Black opened her
back window and pointed to the churchyard.
"Yer only chance!" she said.
Andrew Black leaped out at once. Wallace followed like a harlequin.
Quentin Dick felt that there was no time for him to follow without being
seen. Dropping his poker he sprang through the doorway, and, closing
the door on himself, began to thunder against it, just as an officer
leading some of the town-guard reached the landing.
"Open, I say!" cried Quentin furiously, "I'm _sure_ the rebels cam in
here. Dinna be keepin' the gentlemen o' the gaird waitin' here. Open,
I say, or I'll drive the door in!"
Bursting the door open, as though in fulfilment of his threat, Quentin
sprang in, and looking hastily round, cried, as if in towering wrath,
"Whaur are they? Whaur are thae pestiferous rebels?"
"There's nae rebels here, gentlemen," said Mrs. Black. "Ye're welcome
to seek."
"They maun hae gaen up the next stair," said Quentin, turning to the
officer.
"And pray, who are you, that ye seem so anxious to catch the rebels?"
"Wha am I?" repeated Quentin with glaring eyes, and a sort of grasping
of his strong fingers that suggested the idea of tearing some one to
pieces. "Div 'ee no see that I'm a shepherd? The sufferin's than I hae
gaen through an' endured on accoont o' thae rebels is past--But c'way,
sirs, they'll escape us if we stand haverin' here."
So saying the bold man dashed down the stair and into the next house,
followed by the town-guards, who did not know him. The prisoners'
guards were fortunately searching in another direction. A strict search
was made in the next house, at which Quentin assisted. When they were
yet in the thick of it he went quietly down-stairs and walked away from
the scene, as he expressed it, "hotchin'"--by which he meant chuckling.
But poor Andrew Black and Will Wallace were not so fortunate. A search
which was made in the outer churchyard resulted in their being
discovered among the tombs, and they were forthwith conducted to the
Tolbooth prison.
When Ramblin' Peter, after many narrow escapes, reached the farm in
Dumfries in a half-famished state, he sat down among the desolate ruins
and howled with grief. Having thus relieved his feelings, he dried his
eyes and proceeded in his usual sedate manner to examine things in
detail. He soon found that his master had been wrong in supposing that
the hidy-hole had been discovered or destroyed. As he approached the
outer end of the tunnel a head suddenly appeared above ground, and as
suddenly vanished.
"Hallo!" exclaimed Peter in surprise.
"Hallo!" echoed the head, and reappeared blazing with astonishment. "Is
that you, Peter?"
"Ay, McCubine, that's me. I thought ye was a' deid. Hae ye ony
parritch i' the hole? I'm awfu' hungry."
"C'way in, lad: we've plenty to eat here, an guid company as weel--the
Lord be thankit."
The man led the way--familiar enough to Peter; and in the hidy-hole he
found several persons, some of whom, from their costume, were evidently
ministers. They paid little attention to the boy at first, being
engaged in earnest conversation.
"No, no, Mr. Cargill," said one. "I cannot agree with you in the stern
line of demarcation which you would draw between us. We are all the
servants of the most high God, fighting for, suffering for, the truth as
it is in Jesus. It is true that rather than bow to usurped power I
chose to cast in my lot with the ejected; but having done that, and
suffered the loss of all things temporal, I do not feel called on to
pronounce such absolute condemnation on my brethren who have accepted
the Indulgence. I know that many of them are as earnest followers of
Christ as ourselves--it may be more so--but they think it right to bow
before the storm rather than risk civil war; to accept what of
toleration they can get, while they hope and pray for more."
"In that case, Mr. Welsh," replied Cargill, "what comes of their
testimony for the truth? Is not Christ King in his own household?
Charles is king in the civil State. The oath which he requires of every
minister who accepts the Indulgence distinctly recognises him--the
king--as lord of the conscience, ruler of the spiritual kingdom of this
land. To take such an oath is equivalent to acknowledging the justice
of his pretensions."
"They do not see it in that light," returned Mr. Welsh. "I agree with
your views, and think our Indulged brethren in the wrong; but I counsel
forbearance, and cannot agree with the idea that it is our duty to
refuse all connection with them, and treat them as if they belonged to
the ranks of the malignants. See what such opinions have cost us
already in the overwhelming disaster at Bothwell Brig."
"Overwhelming disaster counts for nothing in such a cause as this,"
rejoined Cargill gravely. "The truth has been committed to us, and we
are bound to be valiant for the truth--even to death. Is it not so, Mr.
Cameron?"
The young man to whom the old Covenanter turned was one of the most
noted among the men who fought and died for the Covenant. An earnest
godly young minister, he had just returned from Holland with the
intention of taking up the standard which had been almost dropped in
consequence of the hotter persecutions which immediately followed the
battle of Bothwell Bridge.
"Of course you know that I agree with you, Mr. Cargill. When you
licensed me to preach the blessed Gospel, Mr. Welsh, you encouraged me
to independent thought. Under the guidance, I believe, of the Holy
Spirit, I have been led to see the sinfulness of the Indulgence, and I
am constrained to preach against it. Truly my chief concern is for the
salvation of souls--the bringing of men and women and children to the
Saviour; but after that, or rather along with that, to my mind, comes
the condemnation of sin, whether public or private. Consider what the
Indulgence and persecution together have done now. Have they not
well-nigh stopped the field-preaching altogether, so that, with the
exception of yourselves and Mr. Thomas Douglas and a few others, there
is no one left to testify? Part of my mission has been to go round
among the ministers on this very point, but my efforts have been in vain
as far as I have yet gone. It has been prophesied," continued Cameron
with a sad smile, "that I shall yet lose my head in this cause. That
may well be, for there is that in my soul which will not let me stand
still while my Master is dishonoured and sin is triumphant. As to the
King, he may, so far as I know, be truly descended from the race of our
kings, but he has so grievously departed from his duty to the people--by
whose authority alone magistrates exist--and has so perjured himself,
usurped authority in Church matters, and tyrannised in matters civil,
that the people of Scotland do no longer owe him allegiance; and
although I stand up for governments and governors, such as God's Word
and our covenants allow, I will surely--with all who choose to join me--
disown Charles Stuart as a tyrant and a usurper."
The discussion had continued so long that the ministers, as if by mutual
consent, dropped it after this point, and turned to Ramblin' Peter, who
was appeasing his hunger with a huge "luggie o' parritch." But the poor
boy had no heart to finish his meal on learning that Marion Clark and
Isabel Scott--of whom he was very fond--had been captured by the
soldiers and sent to Edinburgh. Indeed nothing would satisfy him but
that he should return to the metropolis without delay and carry the bad
news to his master.
That same night, when darkness rendered it safe, Cargill, Cameron,
Welsh, and Douglas, with some of their followers, left Black's place of
concealment, and went off in different directions to risk, for a brief
space, the shelter of a friendly cottage, where the neighbours would
assemble to hear the outlawed ministers while one of them kept watch, or
to fulfil their several engagements for the holding of conventicles
among the secret places of the hills.
CHAPTER TEN.
FIERCER AND FIERCER.
After his escape, Quentin Dick, hearing of the recapture of his
comrades, and knowing that he could not in any way help them, resolved
to go back to Dumfries to make inquiries about the servant lassies
Marion and Isabel, being ignorant of the fact that Ramblin' Peter had
been sent on the same errand before him.
Now, although the one was travelling to, and the other from, Edinburgh,
they might easily have missed each other, as they travelled chiefly at
night in order to escape observation. But, hearing on the way that the
much-loved minister, Mr. Welsh, was to preach in a certain locality,
they both turned aside to hear him, and thus came together.
A price of 500 pounds sterling had been set on the head of Mr. Welsh,
and for twenty years he had been pursued by his foes, yet for that long
period he succeeded in eluding his pursuers--even though the resolute
and vindictive Claverhouse was among them,--and in continuing his work
of preaching to the people. Though a meek and humble man, Welsh was
cool, courageous, and self-possessed, with, apparently, a dash of humour
in him--as was evidenced by his preaching on one occasion in the middle
of the frozen Tweed, so that either he "might shun giving offence to
both nations, or that two kingdoms might dispute his crime!"
The evening before the meeting at which Quentin and Peter unwittingly
approached each other, Mr. Welsh found himself at a loss where to spend
the night, for the bloodhounds were already on his track. He boldly
called at the house of a gentleman who was personally unknown to him,
but who was known to be hostile to field-preachers in general, and to
himself in particular. As a stranger Mr. Welsh was kindly received.
Probably in such dangerous times it was considered impolite to make
inquiry as to names. At all events the record says that he remained
unknown. In course of conversation his host referred to Welsh and the
difficulty of getting hold of him.
"I am sent," said Welsh, "to _apprehend rebels_. I know where Mr. Welsh
is to preach to-morrow, and will give you the rebel by the hand."
Overjoyed at this news the gentleman agreed to accompany him to the
meeting on the morrow. Arriving next day at the rendezvous, the
congregation made way for the minister and his host. The latter was
then invited to take a seat, and, to his great amazement, his guest of
the previous night stood up and preached. At the close of the sermon
Mr. Welsh held out his hand to his host.
"I promised," he said, "to give you Mr. Welsh by the hand."
"Yes," returned the gentleman, who was much affected, as he grasped the
hand, "and you said that you were sent to apprehend rebels. Let me
assure you that I, a rebellious sinner, have been apprehended this day."
It was at this interesting moment that Quentin and Peter recognised each
other, and, forgetting all other points of interest, turned aside to
discuss their own affairs.
"Then there's nae use o' my gaun ony farer," said the shepherd
thoughtfully.
"Nane whatever," said Peter; "ye'd best c'way back t' toon wi' me.
Ye'll be safer there nor here, an' may chance to be o' service to the
lassies."
Alas for the poor lassies! They were in the fangs of the wolves at that
very time. In that council-room where, for years, the farce of "trial"
and the tragedy of cruel injustice had been carried on, Marion Clark and
Isabel Scott were standing before their civil and clerical inquisitors.
The trial was nearly over. Proceeding upon their mean principle of
extracting confession by the method of entrapping questions, and thus
obtaining from their unsuspecting victims sufficient evidence--as they
said--to warrant condemnation, they had got the poor serving-maids to
admit that they had attended field-preachings; had conversed with some
whom the Government denounced as rebels; and other matters which
sufficed to enable them to draw up a libel. Those two innocent girls
were then handed over to the Justiciary Court, before which they were
charged with the crime of receiving and corresponding with Mr. Donald
Cargill, Mr. Thomas Douglas, Mr. John Welsh, and Mr. Richard Cameron;
with the murderers of Archbishop Sharp; and with having heard the said
ministers preach up treason and rebellion!
When the indictment was read to them the poor things meekly admitted
that it was correct, except in so far as it called the ministers rebels
and asserted that they preached up treason. The jury were exceedingly
unwilling to serve on the trial, but were compelled to do so under
threat of fine. After deliberating on the evidence they found the girls
both guilty, by their own confession, of holding the opinions charged
against them, but that as actors, or receivers of rebels, the charge was
not proven.
Upon this they were condemned to die, but before leaving the court
Isabel Scott said impressively: "I take all witness against another at
you to your appearance before God, that your proceeding against us this
day is only for owning Christ, His Gospel, and His members." [See _A
Cloud of Witnesses_, page 122 (edition 1871.)] They were then led back
to prison.
When Quentin and Peter arrived in Edinburgh, two days later, they passed
under the West Port, which was decorated with the shrivelled heads and
hands of several martyrs, and made their way to the Grassmarket, which
they had to traverse in going towards Candlemaker Row. Here they found
a large crowd surrounding the gallows-tree which did such frequent
service there. Two female figures were swinging from the beam.
"The auld story," said the shepherd in a low sad voice. "What was their
crime?" he inquired of a bystander.
"They tried to serve the Lord, that was a'," replied the man bitterly.
"But they ended their coorse bravely. Ane sang the 84th Psalm and the
ither spake of God's great love an' free grace to her and to sinfu'
man."
"Puir things!" exclaimed Quentin with tremulous voice. "It's ower noo.
They're fairly inside o' the celestial gates."
The sight was all too common in those dark days to induce delay, but the
two friends had to pass near the gallows, and naturally looked up in
passing.
"Quentin!" gasped Peter, stretching out both hands towards the martyrs,
whose now soulless frames were hanging there, "it's--it's Marion an'--"
A low wail followed, as the poor boy fell over in a swoon.
The shepherd's heart almost stood still, and his great chest quivered
for a moment as he gazed, but he was a man of strong will and iron
mould. Stooping, he picked up his little friend and carried him
silently away.
Their grief was, however, diverted to other channels on reaching the
abode of Mrs. Black, for there they found her and Mrs. Wallace and Jean
in deepest sorrow over the terrible news just brought to them by Jock
Bruce.
Andrew Black, he told them, had been sent a prisoner to the Bass Rock,
and Will Wallace, with two hundred others, had been banished to the
plantations in Barbadoes, where they were to be sold as slaves.
Quentin sat down, covered his face with both hands, and groaned aloud on
hearing this. Peter, who had recovered by that time, looked about him
with the expressionless face of one whose reason has been unseated.
Observing that Jean was sitting apart, sobbing as if her heart would
break, he went quietly to her, and, taking one of her hands, began to
stroke it gently. "Dinna greet, Jean," he said; "the Lord will deliver
them. Marion aye telt me that, an' I believe she was richt."
Truly these unfortunate people needed all the consolation that the Word
could give them, for banishment to the plantations usually meant
banishment for life, and as to the hundreds who found a prison on the
bleak and rugged Bass Rock at the mouth of the Forth, many of these also
found a grave.
After the battle of Bothwell Bridge the persecutions which had been so
severe for so many years were continued with intensified bitterness.
Not only were all the old tyrannical laws carried into force with
increased severity, but new and harsher laws were enacted. Among other
things the common soldiers were given the right to carry these laws into
effect--in other words, to murder and plunder according to their own
will and pleasure. And now, in 1680, began what has been termed _the
killing-time_; in which Graham of Claverhouse (afterwards Viscount
Dundee), Grierson of Lagg, Dalziel, and others, became pre-eminently
notorious for their wanton cruelty in slaughtering men, women, and even
children.
On 22nd June 1680 twenty armed horsemen rode up the main street of the
burgh of Sanquhar. The troop was headed by Richard Cameron and his
brother Michael, who, dismounting, nailed to the cross a paper which the
latter read aloud. It was the famous "Declaration of Sanquhar," in
which Charles Stuart was publicly disowned.
While the fields of Scotland were being traversed and devastated by a
lawless banditti, authorised by a lawless and covenant-breaking king and
Government, those indomitable men who held with Cameron and Cargill
united themselves more closely together, and thus entered into a new
bond pledging themselves to be faithful to God and to each other in
asserting their civil and religious rights, which they believed could
only be secured by driving from the throne that "perfidious
covenant-breaking race, untrue both to the most high God and to the
people over whom for their sins they were set."
If the Cameronians were wrong in this opinion then must the whole nation
have been wrong, when, a few years later, it came to hold the same
opinion, and acted in accordance therewith! As well might we find fault
with Bruce and Wallace as with our covenanting patriots.
Be this as it may, Richard Cameron with his followers asserted the
principle which afterwards became law--namely, that the House of Stuart
should no longer desecrate the throne. He did not, however, live to see
his desire accomplished.
At Airsmoss--in the district of Kyle--with a band of his followers,
numbering twenty-six horse and forty foot, he was surprised by a party
of upwards of one hundred and twenty dragoons under command of Bruce of
Earlshall. The Cameronians were headed by Hackston of Rathillet, who
had been present at the murder of Sharp, though not an active
participator. Knowing that no mercy was to be expected they resolved to
fight. Before the battle Cameron, engaging in a brief prayer, used the
remarkable words: "Lord, take the ripe, but spare the green." The issue
against such odds was what might have been expected. Nearly all the
Covenanters were slain. Richard Cameron fell, fighting back to back
with his brother. Some of the foot-men escaped into the moss. Hackston
was severely wounded and taken prisoner. Cameron's head and hands were
cut off and taken to Edinburgh, where they were cruelly exhibited to his
father--a prisoner at the time. "Do ye know them?" asked the wretch who
brought them. The old man, kissing them, replied, "Ay, I know them!
They are my son's--my own dear son's! It is the Lord; good is the will
of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and
mercy to follow us all our days." A wonderful speech this from one
suffering under, perhaps, the severest trial to which poor human nature
can be subjected. Well might be applied to him the words--slightly
paraphrased--"O man, great was thy faith!"
Hackston was taken to Edinburgh, which he entered on a horse with his
head bare and his face to the tail, the hangman carrying Cameron's head
on a halter before him. The indignities and cruelties which were
perpetrated on this man had been minutely pre-arranged by the Privy
Council. We mention a few in order that the reader may the better
understand the inconceivable brutality of the Government against which
the Scottish Covenanters had to contend. Besides the barbarities
connected with poor Cameron's head and hands, it was arranged that
Hackston's body was to be drawn backward on a hurdle to the cross of
Edinburgh, where, in the first place, his right hand was to be struck
off, and after some time his left hand. Thereafter he was to be hanged
up and cut down alive; his bowels to be taken out and his heart shown to
the people by the hangman, and then to be burnt in a fire on the
scaffold. Afterwards his head was to be cut off, and his body, divided
into four quarters, to be sent respectively to Saint Andrews, Glasgow,
Leith, and Burntisland.
In carrying out his fiendish instructions the bungling executioner was a
long time mangling the wrist of Hackston's right arm before he succeeded
in separating the hand. Hackston quietly advised him to be more careful
to strike in the joint of the left. Having been drawn up and let fall
with a jerk, three times, life was not extinct, for it is said that when
the heart was torn out it moved after falling on the scaffold.
Several others who had been with Cameron were betrayed at this time, by
apostate comrades, tried under torture, and executed; and the
persecution became so hot that field-preaching was almost extinguished.
The veteran Donald Cargill, however still maintained his ground.
This able, uncompromising, yet affectionate and charitable man had
prepared a famous document called the "Queensferry Paper," of which it
has been said that it contains "the very pith of sound constitutional
doctrine regarding both civil and ecclesiastical rights." Once,
however, he mistook his mission. In the presence of a large
congregation at Torwood he went so far as to excommunicate Charles the
Second; the Dukes of York, Lauderdale, and Rothes; Sir Cú McKenzie and
Dalziel of Binns. That these despots richly deserved whatever
excommunication might imply can hardly be denied, but it is equally
certain that prolonged and severe persecution had stirred up poor
Cargill upon this occasion to overstep his duty as a teacher of love to
God and man.