The testimony of the regard and respect which we showed to Mr Swinton in
following him to the prison-door, was wickedly reported against us as a
tumult and a riot, wearing the aspect of rebellion; and accordingly, on
the second day after he was sent from Irvine to Glasgow, a gang of
Turner's worst troopers came to live at heck and manger among us. None
suffered more from those ruthless men than did my brother's house and
mine; for our name was honoured among the true and faithful, and we had
committed the unpardonable sin against the prelacy of harbouring our
minister and his destitute family, when they were driven from their home
in a wild and wintry night.
We were both together, with old Zachariah Smylie, fined each in a heavy
sum.
Thinking that by paying the money down we should rid ourselves and our
neighbours of the presence and burden of the devouring soldiery, our
friends, to enable us, made a gathering among them, and brought us the
means, for we had not a sufficiency of our own. But this, instead of
mitigating the oppression, became a reason with the officer set over us
to persecute us still more; for he pretended to see in that
neighbourliness the evidences of a treasonous combination; so that he
not only took the money, but made a pretext of the readiness with which
it was paid to double his severity. Sixteen domineering camp reprobates
were quartered on four honest families, and five of them were on mine.
What an example their conduct and conversation was at my sober hearth I
need not attempt to describe. For some days they rampaged as if we had
been barbarians, and the best in the house was not good enough for their
ravenous wastrie;--but I was resolved to keep a uniform and steady
abstinence from all cause of offence. So seeing they were passing from
insolence into a strain of familiarity towards my wife and her two
servant-lasses, we gave up the house and made our abode in the barn.
This silent rebuke for some time was not without a wholesome effect; and
in the end they were so far tamed into civility by our blameless and
peaceful demeanour that I could discern more than one of them beginning
to be touched with the humanity of respect for our unmerited punishment.
But their officer, Lieutenant Swaby, an Englisher by birth, and a sinner
by education, was of an incorrigible depravity of heart. He happened to
cast his eye on Martha Swinton, the minister's eldest daughter, then but
in her sixteenth year, and notwithstanding the sore affliction that she
was in, with her mother, on account of her godly father's uncertain
fate, he spared no stratagem to lure her to his wicked will. She was,
however, strengthened against his arts and machinations; but her
fortitude, instead of repressing the rigour of his persecutions, only
made him more audacious, in so much that she was terrified to trust
herself unguarded out of the house,--and the ire of every man and woman
was rising against the sensual Swaby, who was so destitute of grace and
human charity. But out of this a mean was raised, that in the end made
him fain to be removed from among us.
For all the immoral bravery of the rampant soldiery, and especially of
their libertine commander, they had not been long among us till it was
discerned that they were as much under the common fears and
superstitions as the most credulous of our simple country folk, in so
much that what with our family devotions and the tales of witches and
warlocks with which every one, as if by concert, delighted to awe them,
they were loth to stir out of their quarters after the gloaming. Swaby,
however, though less under those influences than his men, nevertheless
partook largely of them, and would not at the King's commands, it was
thought, have crossed the kirk-stile at midnight.
But though he was thus infirm with the dread of evil spirits, he was not
daunted thereby from ill purposes; and having one day fallen in with old
Mysie Gilmour on the road, a pawkie carlin of a jocose nature, he
entered into a blethering discourse with her anent divers things, and
from less to more, propounded to honest Mysie that she should lend a
cast of her skill to bring about a secret meeting between him and the
bonny, defenceless Martha Swinton.
Mysie Gilmour was a Christian woman, and her soul was troubled with the
proposal to herself, and for the peril with which she saw her minister's
daughter environed. But she put on the mask of a light hypocrisy, and
said she would maybe do something if he fee'd her well, making a tryst
with him for the day following; purposing in the meanwhile, instead of
furthering his wicked ends, to devise, with the counselling of some of
her acquaintances, in what manner she could take revenge upon the
profligate prodigal for having thought so little of her principle,
merely because she was a lanerly widow bent with age and poortith.
Among others that she conferred with was one Robin Finnie, a lad who,
when a callan, had been drummer to the host that Nahum Chapelrig led in
the times of the civil war to the raid of Dunse-hill. He was sib to
herself, had a spice of her pawkrie, and was moreover, though not
without a leavening of religion, a fellow fain at any time for a spree;
besides which he had, from the campaigns of his youth, brought home a
heart-hatred and a derisive opinion of the cavaliers, taking all seasons
and occasions to give vent to the same, and he never called Swaby by any
other name than the cavalier.
Between Mysie and Robin, with some of his companions, a paction was made
that she should keep her tryst with Swaby, and settle on a time and
place for him to come to the delusion of expecting to find Martha
Swinton; Robin covenanting that between him and his friends the
cavalier should meet with a lemane worthy of his love. Accordingly, at
the time appointed, when she met Swaby on the road where they had
foregathered the day before, she trysted him to come to her house on
Hallowe'en, which happened to be then at hand, and to be sure no to
bring his sword, or any weapon that might breed mischief.
After parting from him, the cavalier going one way and the carlin the
other, Robin Finnie threw himself in his way, and going up to him with a
seeming respectfulness, said,--
"Ye were speaking, sir, to yon auld wife; I hope ye hae gi'en her nae
offence?"
The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed the
gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirpling
homeward--"The devil! is she one of that sort?"
"I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robin
with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her
liking."
Swaby halted, and again looked towards the old woman, who was then
nearly out of sight. Robin at the same time moved onward.
"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with you
about the old--"
"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I would
na for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o'
her cantrips."
"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low and
apprehensive voice.
"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin very
seriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world
were I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a pious
wife, sir,--deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to be
hang'd if she was a witch,--an' it could be proven upon her."
But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the
contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil take
her, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."
"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal.
Surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsome
young lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever,
that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;--and what I hae heard tell
of was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain,
that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye were
sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that
ye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your
judgment,--the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye
could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her
to the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae
farther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye
respek yoursel."
In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the
clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore
state o' dread and wonderment.