A keen frost had succeeded the snow, and the wind blew piercingly cold;
but the gloom had passed away. The starry eyes of the heavens were all
wakefully bright, and the moon was moving along the fleecy edge of a
cloud, like a lonely barque that navigates amidst the foaming perils of
some dark inhospitable shore. At the time, however, I was in no frame of
thought to note these things, but I know that such was then the aspect
of that night; for as often yet, as the freezing wind sweeps over the
fields strewed with snow, and the stars are shining vigilantly, and the
moon hastily travels on the skirts of the cloud, the passion of that
hour, at the sight thereof, revives in my spirit; and the mourning
women, and the perished child in the arms of Mr Witherspoon, appear like
palpable imagery before the eyes of my remembrance.
The speed with which I ran soon exhausted my strength.--I began to
reflect on the unavailing zeal with which I was then hastening to the
succour of those for whom my soul was suffering more than the tongue of
the eloquent orator can express.--I stopped to collect my reason and my
thoughts, which, I may well say, were scattered, like the wrack that
drifts in the tempestuous air.--I considered, that I knew not a footstep
of the road, that dangers surrounded me on all sides, and that the
precipitation of my haste might draw me into accidents, whereby the very
object would be lost which I was so eager to gain; and the storm within
me abated, and the distraction of my bosom, which had so well nigh
shipwrekt my understanding, was moderated, like the billows of the ocean
when the blasts are gone by; so that, after I was some four or five
miles away from yon house of martyrdom and mourning, a gracious
dispensation of composure was poured into my spirit, and I was thereby
enabled to go forward in my journey with the circumspection so needful
in that woful time.
But in proportion as my haste slackened, and the fiery violence of the
fears subsided wherewith I was hurried on, the icy tooth of the winter
grew feller in the bite, and I became in a manner almost helpless. The
mind within me was as if the faculty of its thinking had been frozen up,
and about the dawn of morning I walked in a willess manner, the blood in
my veins not more benumbed in its course than was the fluency of my
spirit in its power of resolution.
I had now, from the time that our covenanted host was scattered on
Rullion-green, travelled many miles; and though like a barque drifting
rudderless on the ocean tides, as the stream flows and the blast blows,
I had held no constant course, still my progress had been havenward, in
so much that about sunrise I found myself, I cannot well tell how, on
the heights to the south of Castlemilk, and the city of Glasgow, with
her goodly array of many towers, glittering in the morning beams, lay in
sight some few miles off on the north. I knew it not; but a herd that I
fell in with on the hill told me what town it was, and the names of
divers clachans, and the houses of men of substance in the lowlands
before me.
Among others he pointed out to me Nether Pollock in the midst of a
skirting of trees, the seat and castle of that godly and much-persecuted
Christian and true Covenanter, Sir George Maxwell, the savour of whose
piety was spread far and wide; for he had suffered much, both from sore
imprisonment and the heavy fine of four thousand pounds imposed upon
him, shortly after that conclave of Satan, Middleton's sederunt of the
privy-council at Glasgow, where prelatic cruelty was brought to bed of
her first-born, in that edict against the ministers at the beginning of
the Persecution, whereof I have described the promulgation as it took
place at Irvine.
Being then hungered and very cold, after discoursing with the poor herd,
who was a simple stripling in the ignorance of innocence, I resolved to
bend my way toward Nether Pollock, in the confident faith that the
master thereof, having suffered so much himself, would know how to
compassionate a persecuted brother. And often since I have thought that
there was something higher than reason in the instinct of this
confidence; for indeed, had I reasoned from what was commonly said--and,
alas! owre truly--that the covenanted spirit was bent, if not broken, I
would have feared to seek the gates of Sir George Maxwell, lest the love
he had once borne to our cause had been converted, by his own sufferings
and apprehensions, into dread or aversion. But I was encouraged of the
spirit to proceed.
Just, however, as I parted from the herd, he cried after me, and pointed
to a man coming up the hill at some distance, with a gun in his hand,
and a bird-bag at his side, and two dogs at his heel, saying, "Yon'er's
Sir George Maxwell himsel ganging to the moors. Eh! but he has had his
ain luck to fill his pock so weel already."
Whereupon I turned my steps towards Sir George, and, on approaching him,
beseeched him to have compassion on a poor famished fugitive from the
Pentlands.
He stopped, and looked at me in a most pitiful manner, and shook his
head, and said, with a tender grief in his voice, "It was a hasty
business, and the worst of it no yet either heard nor over; but let us
lose no time, for you are in much danger if you tarry so near to
Glasgow, where Colonel Drummond came yesterday with a detachment of
soldiers, and has already spread them over the country."
In saying these words, the worthy gentleman opened his bag, which,
instead of being filled with game, as the marvelling stripling had
supposed, contained a store of provisions.
"I came not for pastime to the moor this morning," said he, presenting
to me something to eat, "but because last night I heard that many of the
outcasts had been seen yesterday lurking about thae hills, and as I
could not give them harbour, nor even let them have any among my
tenants, I have come out with some of my men, as it were to the
shooting, in order to succour them. But we must not remain long
together. Take with you what you may require, and go away quickly; and I
counsel you not to take the road to Paisley, but to cross with what
speed you can to the western parts of the shire, where, as the people
have not been concerned in the raid, there's the less likelihood of
Drummond sending any of his force in that direction."
Accordingly, being thus plentifully supplied by the providence of that
Worthy, my strength was wonderfully recruited, and my heart cheered.
With many thanks I then hastened from him, praying that his private
charitable intents might bring him into no trouble. And surely it was a
thing hallowing to the affections of the afflicted Scottish nation to
meet with such Christian fellowship. For to the perpetual renown of many
honourable West Country families be it spoken, both master and men were
daily in the moors at that time succouring the persecuted, like the
ravens that fed Elijah in the wilderness.
After parting from Sir George Maxwell, I continued to bend my course
straight westward, and having crossed the road from Glasgow to Paisley,
I directed my steps to the hillier parts of the country, being minded,
according to the suggestions of that excellent person, to find my way by
the coast-side into the shire of Ayr. But though my anxiety concerning
my family was now sharpened as it were with the anguish of fire, I began
to reason with myself on the jeopardy I might bring upon them, were I to
return while the pursuit was so fierce; and in the end I came to the
determination only to seek to know how it fared with them, and what had
become of my brother in the battle, trusting that in due season the Lord
would mitigate the ire and the cruelty that was let loose on all those
who had joined in the Protestation and renewed the Covenant at Lanerk.