From the day on which the Covenant was signed, though I was owre young
to remember the change myself, I have heard it often said that a great
alteration took place in the morals and manners of the Covenanters. The
Sabbath was observed by them with far more than the solemnity of times
past; and there was a strictness of walk and conversation among them,
which showed how much in sincerity they were indeed regenerated
Christians. The company of persons inclined to the prelatic sect was
eschewed as contagious, and all light pastimes and gayety of heart were
suppressed, both on account of their tendency to sinfulness, and because
of the danger with which the Truth and the Word were threatened by the
Arminian Antichrist of the King's government.
But the more immediate effect of the renewal of the Solemn League and
Covenant was the preparation for defence and resistance, which the
deceitful policy of that false monarch, King Charles the First, taught
every one to know would be required. The men began to practise firing
at butts and targets, and to provide themselves with arms and munitions
of war; while, in order to maintain a life void of offence in all
temporal concerns, they were by ordinare obedient and submissive to
those in authority over them, whether holding jurisdiction from the
King, or in virtue of baronies and feudalities.
In this there was great wisdom; for it left the sin of the provocation
still on the heads of the King and his evil counsellors, in so much that
even, when the General Assembly, holden at Glasgow, vindicated the
independence and freedom of Christ's kingdom, by continuing to sit in
despite of the dissolution pronounced by King Charles' commissioner, the
Marquis Hamilton, and likewise by decreeing the abolition of prelacy as
an abomination, there was no political blame wherewith the people, in
their capacity of subjects to their earthly prince, could be wyted or
brought by law to punishment.
In the meantime, the King, who was as fey as he was false, mustered his
forces, and his rampant high-priest, Laud, was, with all the voices of
his prelatic emissaries, inflaming the honest people of England to wage
war against our religious freedom. The papistical Queen of Charles was
no less busy with the priesthood of her crafty sect, and aids and
powers, both of men and money, were raised wherever they could be had,
in order to reinstall the discarded episcopacy of Scotland.
The Covenanters, however, were none daunted, for they had a great ally
in the Lord of Hosts; and, with Him for their captain, they neither
sought nor wished for any alien assistance, though they sent letters to
their brethren in foreign parts, exhorting them to unite in the
Covenant, and to join them for the battle. General Lesley, in Gustavus
Adolphus' army, was invited by his kinsman, the Lord Rothes, to come
home, that, if need arose, he might take the temporal command of the
Covenanters.
The King having at last, according to an ancient practice of the English
monarchs, when war in old times was proclaimed against the Scots,
summoned his nobles to attend him with their powers at York, the
Covenanters girded their loins, and the whole country rung with the din
of the gathering of an host for the field.
One Captain Bannerman, who had been with Lesley in the armies of
Gustavus, was sent from Edinburgh to train the men in our part; and our
house being central for the musters of the three adjacent parishes, he
staid a night in the week with us at Quharist for the space of better
than two months, and his military discourse greatly instructed our
neighbours in the arts and stratagems of war.
He was an elderly man, of a sedate character, and had gone abroad with
an uncle from Montrose when he was quite a youth. In his day he had seen
many strange cities, and places of wonderful strength to withstand the
force of sieges. But, though bred a soldier, and his home in the camp,
he had been himself but seldom in the field of battle. In appearance he
was tall and lofty, and very erect and formal; a man of few words, but
they were well chosen; and he was patient and pains-taking; of a
contented aspect, somewhat hard-favoured, and seldom given to smile. To
little children he was, however, bland and courteous; taking a pleasure
in setting those that were of my age in battle array, for he had no
pastime, being altogether an instructive soldier; or, as William, my
third brother, used to say, who was a free out-spoken lad, Captain
Bannerman was a real dominie o' war.
Besides him, in our country-side, there was another officer, by name
Hepburn, who had also been bred with the great Gustavus, sent to train
the Covenanters in Irvine; but he was of a more mettlesome humour, and
lacked the needful douceness that became those who were banding
themselves for a holy cause; so that when any of his disciples were not
just so list and brisk as they might have been, which was sometimes the
case, especially among the weavers, he thought no shame, even on the
Golf-fields, before all the folks and onlookers, to curse and swear at
them as if he had been himself one of the King's cavaliers, and they no
better than ne'erdoweels receiving the wages of sin against the
Covenant. In sooth to say, he was a young man of a disorderly nature,
and about seven months after he left the town twa misfortunate creatures
gave him the wyte of their bairns.
Yet, for all the regardlessness of his ways and moral conduct, he was
much beloved by the men he had the training of; and, on the night before
he left the town, lies were told of a most respectit and pious officer
of the town's power, if he did not find the causey owre wide when he
was going home, after partaking of Captain Hepburn's pay-way supper. But
how that may have been is little of my business at present to
investigate; for I have only spoken of Hepburn, to notify what happened
in consequence of a brag he had with Bannerman, anent the skill of their
respective disciples, the which grew to such a controversy between them,
that nothing less would satisfy Hepburn than to try the skill of the
Irvine men against ours, and the two neighbouring parishes of Garnock
and Stoneyholm. Accordingly a day was fixt for that purpose, and the
Craiglands-croft was the place appointed for this probation of
soldiership.
On the morning of the appointed day the country folk assembled far and
near, and Nahum Chapelrig, at the head of the lads of his clachan, was
the first on the field. The sight to my young eyes was as the greatest
show of pageantry that could be imagined; for Nahum had, from the time
of the covenanting, been gathering arms and armour from all quarters,
and had thereby not only obtained a glittering breastplate for himself,
but three other coats of mail for the like number of his fellows; and
when they were coming over the croft, with their fife and drum, and the
banner of the Covenant waving aloft in the air, every one ran to behold
such splendour and pomp of war; many of the women, that were witnesses
among the multitude, wept at such an apparition of battles dazzling our
peaceful fields.
My father, with my five brothers, headed the Covenanters of our parish.
There was no garnish among that band. They came along with austere looks
and douce steps, and their belts were of tanned leather. The hilts of
many of their swords were rusty, for they had been the weapons of their
forefathers in the raids of the Reformation. As my father led them to
their station on the right flank of Nahum Chapelrig's array, the crowd
of onlookers fell back, and stood in silence as they passed by.
Scarcely had they halted, when there was a rushing among the onlookers,
and presently the townsmen, with Hepburn on horseback, were seen coming
over the brow of the Gowan-brae. They were scant the strength of the
country folk by more than a score; but there was a band of sailor boys
with them that made the number greater; so that, when they were all
drawn up together forenent the countrymen, they were more than man for
man.
It is not to be suppressed nor denied, that, in the first show of the
day, Hepburn got far more credit and honour than old sedate Bannerman;
for his lads were lighter in the heel, glegger in the eye, and brisker
in the manoeuvres of war: moreover, they were all far more similar in
their garb and appearance, which gave them a seeming compactness that
the countrymen had nothing like. But when the sham contest began, it was
not long till Bannerman's disciples showed the proofs of their master's
better skill to such a mark, that Hepburn grew hot, and so kindled his
men by reproaches, that there was like to have been fighting in true
earnest; for the blood of the country folk was also rising. Their eyes
grew fierce, and they muttered through their teeth.
Old Ebenezer Muir, who was among the multitude, observing that their
blood was heating, stepped forward, and lifting up his hand, cried,
"Sirs, stop;" and both sides instanter made a pause. "This maunna be,"
said he. "It may be sport to those who are by trade soldiers to try the
mettle o' their men, but ye're a covenanted people, obligated by a
grievous tyranny to quit your spades and your looms only for a season;
therefore be counselled, and rush not to battle till need be, which may
the Lord yet prevent."
Hepburn uttered an angry ban, and would have turned the old man away by
the shoulder; but the combatants saw they were in the peril of a
quarrel, and many of them cried aloud, "He's in the right, and we're
playing the fool for the diversion o' our adversaries." So the townsmen
and the country folk shook hands; but instead of renewing the contest,
Captain Bannerman proposed that they should all go through their
discipline together, it being manifest that there were little odds in
their skill, and none in their courage. The which prudent admonition
pacified all parties, and the remainder of the day was spent in
cordiality and brotherly love. Towards the conclusion of the exercises,
worthy Mr Swinton came on the field; and when the business of the day
was over, he stepped forward, and the trained men being formed around
him, the onlookers standing on the outside, he exhorted them in prayer,
and implored a blessing on their covenanted union, which had the effect
of restoring all their hearts to a religious frame and a solemnity
befitting the spirituality of their cause.