Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner,
saying to Jamieson,--
"I aye thought, Johnnie, that some day ye would get a cast o' grace, and
the Lord has been bountiful to you at last, in putting it in your power
to be aiding in such a Samaritan work. But," he added, turning to me,
"it's no just in my power to do for you what I could wis; for, to keep
peace in the house, I'm at times, like many other married men, obligated
to let the gudewife tak her ain way; for which reason, I doubt ye'll hae
to mak your bed here in the mill."
While he was thus speaking, we heard the tongue of Mrs Paton ringing
like a bell.
"For Heaven's sake, Johnnie Jamieson," cried the miller, "gang out and
stop her frae coming hither till I get the poor man hidden in the loft."
Jamieson ran out, leaving us together, and the miller placing a ladder,
I mounted up into the loft, where he spread sacks for a bed to me, and
told me to lie quiet, and in the dusk he would bring me something to
eat. But before he had well descended, and removed the ladder from the
trap-door, in came his wife.
"Noo, Sauners Paton," she exclaimed, "ye see what I hae aye prophesied
to you is fast coming to pass. The King's forces are at Cartsdyke, and
they'll be here the morn, and what's to come o' you then, wi' your
covenanted havers? But, Sauners Paton, I hae ae thing to tell ye, and
that's no twa; ye'll this night flit your camp; ye'll tak to the hills,
as I'm a living woman, and no bide to be hang't at your ain door, and to
get your right hand chappit aff, and sent to Lanerk for a show, as they
say is done an doing wi' a' the Covenanters."
"Naebody, Kate, will meddle wi' me, dinna ye be fear't," replied the
miller; "I hae done nae ill, but patiently follow't my calling at home,
so what hae I to dread?"
"Did na ye sign the remonstrance to the laird against the curate's
coming; ca' ye that naething? Ye'll to the caves this night, Sauners
Paton, if the life bide in your body. What a sight it would be to me to
see you put to death, and maybe to fin a sword of cauld iron running
through my ain body, for being colleague wi' you; for ye ken that it's
the law now to mak wives respondable for their gudemen."
"Kate Warden," replied the miller, with a sedate voice, "in sma' things
I hae ne'er set mysel vera obdoorately against you."
"Na! if I e'er heard the like o' that!" exclaimed Mrs Paton. "A
cross-graint man, that has just been as a Covenant and Remonstrance to
happiness, submitting himsel in no manner o' way, either to me or those
in authority over us, to talk o' sma' things! Sauners Paton, ye're a
born rebel to your King, and kintra, and wife. But this night I'll put
it out of your power to rebel on me. Stop the mill, Sauners Paton, and
come out, and tak the door on your back. I hae owre meikle regard for
you to let you bide in jeopardy ony langer here."
"Consider," said Sauners, a little dourly, as if he meditated rebellion,
"that this is the season of December; and where would ye hae me to gang
in sic a night?"
"A grave in the kirk-yard's caulder than a tramp on the hills. My jo,
ye'll hae to conform; for positeevely, Sauners Paton, I'm positive, and
for this night, till the blast has blawn by, ye'll hae to seek a refuge
out o' the reach of the troopers' spear.--Hae ye stoppit the mill?"
The mistress was of so propugnacious a temper, that the poor man saw no
better for't than to yield obedience so far, as to pull the string that
turned off the water of the mill-lade from the wheel.
"Noo," said he, "to pleasure you, Kate, I hae stoppit the mill, and to
pleasure me, I hope ye'll consent to stop your tongue; for, to be plain
wi' you, frae my ain house I'll no gang this night; and ye shall hae't
since ye will hae't, I hae a reason of my ain for biding at hame, and at
hame I will bide;--na, what's mair, Kate, it's a reason that I'll no
tell to you."
"Dear pity me, Sauners Paton!" cried his wife; "ye're surely grown o'
late an unco reasonable man. But Leddy Stuart's quadrooped bird they ca'
a parrot, can come o'er and o'er again ony word as weel as you can do
reason; but reason here or reason there, I'll ne'er consent to let you
stay to be put to the sword before my e'en; so come out o' the mill and
lock the door."
To this the honest man made no immediate answer; but, after a short
silence, he said,--
"Kate, my queen, I'll no say that what ye say is far wrang; it may be as
weel for me to tak a dauner to the top o' Dunrod; but some providing
should be made for a sojourn a' night in the wilderness. The sun has
been set a lucky hour, and ye may as weel get the supper ready, and a
creel wi' some vivers prepared."
"Noo, that's like yoursel, Sauners Paton," replied his wife; "and surely
my endeavour shall not be wanting to mak you comfortable."
At these words Jamieson came also into the mill, and said, "I hope,
miller, the wife has gotten you persuaded o' your danger, and that ye'll
conform to her kind wishes." By which I discernt, that he had purposely
egget her on to urge her gudeman to take the moors for the advantage of
me.
"O, aye," replied the miller; "I could na but be consenting, poor queen,
to lighten her anxieties; and though for a season," he added, in a way
that I well understood, "the eyes above may be closed in slumber, a
watch will be set to gi'e the signal when it's time to be up and ready;
therefore let us go into the house, and cause no further molestation
here."
The three then retired, and, comforted by the words of this friendly
mystery, I confided myself to the care of the defenceless sleeper's
ever-wakeful Sentinel, and for several hours enjoyed a refreshing
oblivion from all my troubles and fears.
Considering the fatigue I had undergone for so many days and nights
together, my slumber might have been prolonged perhaps till morning, but
the worthy miller, who withstood the urgency of his terrified wife to
depart till he thought I was rested, soon after the moon rose came into
the mill and wakened me to make ready for the road. So I left my couch
in the loft, and came down to him; and he conducted me a little way from
the house, where, bidding me wait, he went back, and speedily returned
with a small basket in his hand of the stores which the mistress had
provided for himself.
Having put the handle into my hand, he led me down to a steep shoulder
of a precipice nigh the sea-shore, where, telling me to follow the path
along the bottom of the hills, he shook me with a brotherly affection by
the hand, and bade me farewell,--saying, in a jocose manner, to lighten
the heaviness with which he saw my spirit was oppressed,--that the
gudewife would make baith him and Johnnie Jamieson suffer in the body
for the fright she had gotten. "For ye should ken," said he, "that the
terror she was in was a' bred o' Johnnie's pawkerie. He knew that she
was aye in a dread that I would be laid hands on ever since I signed the
remonstrance to the laird; and Johnnie thought, that if he could get her
to send me out provided for the hills, we would find a way to make the
provision yours. So, Gude be wi' you, and dinna be overly downhearted,
when ye see how wonderfully ye are ta'en care o'."
Being thus cherished, cheered, and exhorted, by the worthy miller of
Inverkip, I went on my way with a sense of renewed hope dawning upon my
heart. The night was frosty, but clear, and the rippling of the sea
glittered as with a sparkling of gladness in the beams of the moon then
walking in the fulness of her beauty over those fields of holiness whose
perennial flowers are the everlasting stars. But though for a little
while my soul partook of the blessed tranquillity of the night, I had
not travelled far when the heaven of my thoughts was overcast. Grief
for my brother in the hands of the oppressors, and anxiety for the
treasures of my hearth, whose dangers were doubtless increased by the
part I had taken in the raid, clouded my reason with many fearful
auguries and doleful anticipations. All care for my own safety was lost
in those overwhelming reflections, in so much that when the morning air
breathed upon me as I reached the brow of Kilbride-hill, had I been then
questioned as to the manner I had come there, verily I could have given
no account, for I saw not, neither did I hear, for many miles, aught,
but only the dismal tragedies with which busy imagination rent my heart
with affliction, and flooded my eyes with the gushing streams of a
softer sorrow.
But though my journey was a continued experience of inward suffering, I
met with no cause of dread, till I was within sight of Kilwinning.
Having purposed not to go home until I should learn what had taken place
in my absence, I turned aside to the house of an acquaintance, one
William Brekenrig, a covenanted Christian, to inquire, and to rest
myself till the evening. Scarcely, however, had I entered on the path
that led to his door when a misgiving of mind fell upon me, and I halted
and looked to see if all about the mailing was in its wonted state. His
cattle were on the stubble--the smoke stood over the lumhead in the lown
of the morning--the plough lay unyoked on the croft, but it had been
lately used, and the furrows of part of a rig were newly turned. Still
there was a something that sent solemnity and coldness into my soul. I
saw nobody about the farm, which at that time of the day was strange and
unaccountable; nevertheless I hastened forward, and coming to a
park-yett, I saw my old friend leaning over it with his head towards me.
I called to him by name, but he heeded me not; I ran to him and touched
him, but he was dead.
The ground around where he had rested himself and expired was covered
with his blood; and it was plain he had not been shot long, for he was
warm, and the stream still trickled from the wound in his side.
I have no words to tell what I felt at the sight of this woful murder;
but I ran for help to the house; and just as I turned the corner of the
barn, two soldiers met me, and I became their prisoner.
One of them was a ruthless reprobate, who wanted to put me to death; but
the other beggit my life: at the moment, however, my spirit was as it
were in the midst of thunders and a whirlwind.
They took from me my pistols and my grandfather's sword and I could not
speak; they tied my hands behind me with a cutting string, and I thought
it was a dream. The air I breathed was as suffocating as sulphur; I
gasped with the sandy thirst of the burning desert, and my throat was as
the drowth of the parched earth in the wilderness of Kedar.
Soon after this other soldiers came from another farm, where they had
been committing similar outrages, and they laughed and were merry as
they rehearsed their exploits of guilt. They taunted me and plucked me
by the lip; but their boasting of what they had done flashed more
fiercely over my spirit than even these indignities, and I inwardly
chided the slow anger of the mysterious Heavens for permitting the rage
of those agents of the apostate James Sharp and his compeers, whom a
mansworn king had so cruelly dressed with his authority.
But even in the midst of these repinings and bitter breathings, it was
whispered into the ears of my understanding, as with the voice of a
seraph, that the Lord in all things moveth according to His established
laws; and I was comforted to think that in the enormities whereof I was
a witness and partaker, there was a tempering of the hearts of the
people, that they might become as swords of steel, to work out the
deliverance of the land from the bloody methods of prelatic and
arbitrary domination; in so much, that when the soldiers prepared to
return to their quarters in Irvine, I walked with them--their captive,
it is true; but my steps were firm, and they marvelled to one another at
the proudness of my tread.
There was at the time a general sorrowing throughout the country, at the
avenging visitations wherewith all those who had been in the raid, or
who had harboured the fugitives, were visited. Hundreds that sympathised
with the sufferings of their friends, flocked to the town to learn who
had been taken, and who were put to death or reserved for punishment.
The crowd came pressing around as I was conducted up the gait to the
tolbooth; the women wept, but the men looked doure, and the children
wondered whatfor an honest man should be brought to punishment. Some
who knew me, cheered me by name to keep a stout heart; and the soldiers
grew fear't for a rescue, and gurled at the crowd for closing so closely
upon us.
As I was ascending the tolbooth-stair, I heard a shriek; and I looked
around, and beheld Michael, my first-born, a stripling then only twelve
years old, amidst the crowd, stretching out his hands and crying, "O, my
father, my father!"
I halted for a moment, and the soldiers seemed to thaw with compassion;
but my hands were tied,--I was a captive on the threshold of the
dungeon, and I could only shut my eyes and bid the stern agents of the
persecutors go on. Still the cry of my distracted child knelled in my
ear, and my agony grew to such a pitch, that I flew forward up the
steps, and, in the dismal vaults within, sought refuge from the misery
of my child.