But although in the exploit of Mysie Gilmour, and Robin Finnie with his
confederates, we had a tasting of mirth and merriment, to the effect of
lessening the dread and fear in which our simple country folk held his
Majesty's ungracious fine-levers, the cavalier captains and soldiers,
still there was a gradual ingrowth of the weight of the oppression,
wherewith we were laden more as bondsmen and slaves than as subjects;
and, in the meantime, the spirit of that patriarch, my apostolic
grandfather, was gathering to heart and energy within the silent
recesses of my afflicted bosom.
I heard the murmuring, deep and sad, of my neighbours, at the insult and
the contumely which they were obligated to endure from the irresponsible
licentiousness of military domination,--but I said nothing; I was
driven, with my pious wife and our simple babies, from my own hearth by
the lewd conversation of the commissioned freebooters, and obligated to
make our home in an outhouse, that we might not be molested in our
prayers by their wicked ribaldry,--but I said nothing; I saw my honest
neighbours plundered--their sons insulted--and their daughters put to
shame,--but I said nothing; I was a witness when our godly minister,
after having been driven with his wife and family out to the mercy of
the winter's wind, was seized in the very time while he was worshipping
the Maker of us all, and taken like a malefactor to prison,--but I said
nothing; and I was told the story of the machinations against his
innocent virgin daughter, when she was left defenceless among us,--and
still I said nothing. Like the icy winter, tyranny had so encrusted my
soul that my taciturnity seemed as hard, impenetrable, cold and cruel as
the frozen river's surface, but the stream of my feelings ran stronger
and fiercer beneath; and the time soon came when, in proportion to the
still apathy that made my brother and my friends to wonder how I so
quietly bore the events of so much, my inward struggles burst through
all outward passive forms, and, like the hurling and the drifting ice,
found no effectual obstacle to its irresistible and natural destination.
Mrs Swinton, the worthy lady of that saint, our pastor, on hearing what
had been plotted against the chaste innocence of her fair and blooming
child, came to me, and with tears, in a sense the tears of a widow, very
earnestly entreated of me that I would take the gentle Martha to her
cousin, the Laird of Garlins, in Dumfries-shire, she having heard that
some intromissions, arising out of pacts and covenants between my wife's
cousin and the Laird of Barscob, obligated me to go thither. This was on
the Monday after the battering that the cavalier got from Zachariah
Smylie's black ram; and I, reasonably thinking that there was judgment
in the request, and that I might serve, by my compliance, the helpless
residue, and the objects of a persecuted Christian's affections, I
consented to take the damsel with me as far as Garlins, in Galloway; the
which I did.
When I had left Martha Swinton with her friends, who, being persons of
pedigree and opulence, were better able to guard her, I went to the end
of my own journey; and here, from what ensued, it is needful I should
relate that, in this undertaking, I left my own house under the care of
my brother, and that I was armed with my grandfather's sword.
It happened that, on Tuesday the 13th November 1666, as I was returning
homeward from Barscob, I fell in with three godly countrymen, about a
mile south of the village of Dalry, in Galloway, and we entered into a
holy and most salutary conversation anent the sufferings and the
fortitude of God's people in that time of trouble. Discoursing with
great sobriety on that melancholious theme, we met a gang of Turner's
blackcuffs, driving before them, like beasts to the slaughter, several
miserable persons to thrash out the corn, that it might be sold, of one
of my companions, who, being himself a persecuted man, and unable to pay
the fine forfeited by his piety, had some days before been forced to
flee his house.
On seeing the soldiers and their prey coming towards us, the poor man
would have run away; but we exhorted him not to be afraid, for he might
pass unnoticed, and so he did; for, although those whom the military
rabiators were driving to thrash his corn knew him well, they were
enabled to bear up, and were so endowed with the strength of martyrdom,
that each of them, only by a look, signified that they were in the
spirit of fellowship with him.
After they had gone by, his heart, however, was so afflicted that so
many worthy persons should be so harmed for his sake, that he turned
back, and, in despite of all our entreaties, went to them, while we went
forward to Dalry, where we entered a small public, and, having ordered
some refreshment, for we were all weary, we sat meditating on what could
be the upshot of such tyranny.
While we were so sitting, a cry got up that our companion was seized by
the soldiers, and that they were tormenting him on a red-hot gridiron
for not having paid his fine.
My blood boiled at the news. I rose, and those who were with me
followed, and we ran to the house--his own house--where the poor man
was. I beseeched two of the soldiers who were at the door to desist from
their cruelty; but while I was speaking, other two that were within came
raging out, like curs from a kennel, and flew at me; and one of them
dared to strike me with his nieve in the mouth. My grandfather's sword
flew out at the blow, and the insulter lay wounded and bleeding at my
feet. My companions in the same moment rushed on the other soldiers,
dashed their teeth down their throats, and, twisting their firelocks
from their hands, set the prisoner free.
In this there was rashness, but there was also redemption and glory. We
could not stop at what we had done;--we called on those who had been
brought to thrash the corn to join with us, and they joined;--we
hastened to the next farm;--the spirit of indignation was there before
us, and master and man, and father and son, there likewise found that
the hilts of their fathers' covenanted swords fitted their avenging
grasps. We had now fired the dry stubble of the land--the flame
spread--we advanced, and grew stronger and stronger. The hills, as it
were, clapped their hands, and the valleys shouted of freedom. From all
sides men and horse came exulting towards us; the gentleman and the hind
knew no distinction. The cry was, "Down with tyranny--we are and we will
make free!" The fields rejoiced with the multitude of our feet as we
advanced towards Dumfries, where Turner lay. His blackcuffs flung down
their arms and implored our mercy. We entered Dumfries, and the
Oppressor was our prisoner.