On arriving in Irvine, we went to the shop of Archibald Macrusty, a
dealer in iron implements, and I bought from him two swords without
hilts, which he sold, wrapt in straw-rope, as scythe-blades,--a method
of disguise that the ironmongers were obligated to have recourse to at
that time, on account of the search now and then made for weapons by the
soldiers, ever from the time that Claverhouse came to disarm the people;
and when I had bought the two blades we went to Bailie Girvan's shop,
which was a nest of a' things, and bought two hilts, without any
questions being asked; for the bailie was a discreet man, with a warm
heart to the Covenant, and not selling whole swords, but only hilts and
hefts, it could not be imputed to him that he was guilty of selling arms
to suspected persons.
Being thus provided with two swords, we went into James Glassop's
public, where, having partaken of some refreshment, we remained solemnly
sitting by ourselves till towards the gloaming, when, recollecting that
it would be a comfort to us in the halts of our undertaking, I sent out
my son to buy a Bible, and while he was absent I fell asleep.
On awaking from my slumber I felt greatly composed and refreshed. I
reflected on the events of the day, and the terrible truths that had
broken in upon me, and I was not moved with the same stings of
desperation that, on my coming to myself, had shot like fire through my
brain; so I began to consider of the purpose whereon I was bowne, and
that I had formed no plan, nor settled towards what airt I should direct
my steps. But I was not the less determined to proceed, and I said to my
son, who was sitting very thoughtful with THE BOOK lying on the table
before him,--
"Open the Bible, and see what the Lord instructs us to do at this time."
And he opened it, and the first words he saw and read were those of the
nineteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah,--
"O inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and espy; ask him that fleeth,
and her that escapeth, and say, What is done?"
So I rose, and bidding my son close the Book, and bring it with him, we
went out, with our sword-hilts, and the blades still with the straw-rope
about them in our hands, into the street together, where we had not long
been when a soldier on horseback passed us in great haste; and many
persons spoke to him as he rode by, inquiring what news he had brought;
but he was in trouble of mind, and heeded them not till he reached the
door of the house where the captain of the soldiers then in Irvine was
abiding.
When he had gone into the house and delivered his message, he returned
to the street, where by that time a multitude, among which we were, had
assembled, and he told to the many, who inquired, as it were, with one
voice,--That Mr Cargill, and a numerous party of the Cameronians, had
passed that afternoon through Galston, and it was thought they meditated
some disturbance on the skirts of Kilmarnock, which made the commander
of the King's forces in that town send for aid to the captain of those
then in Irvine.
As soon as I heard the news, I resolved to go that night to Kilmarnock,
and abide with my sister-in-law, the widow of my brother Jacob, by whose
instrumentality I thought we might hear where the Cameronians then were.
For, although I approved not of their separation from the general
presbyterian kirk of Scotland, nor was altogether content with their
declaration published at Sanquhar, there was yet one clause which, to
my spirit, impoverished of all hope, was as food and raiment; and that
there may be no perversion concerning the same in after times, I shall
here set down the words of the clause, and the words are these:--
"Although we be for government and governors such as the Word of God and
our Covenant allows, yet we for ourselves, and all that will adhere to
us, do, by thir presents, disown Charles Stuart, that has been reigning
(or rather tyrannizing as we may say) on the throne of Britain these
years bygone, as having any right or title to, or interest in, the crown
of Scotland for government, he having forfeited the same several years
since by his perjury and breach of Covenant both to God and His kirk;"
and further, I did approve of those passages wherein it was declared,
that he "should have been denuded of being king, ruler, or magistrate,
or having any power to act or to be obeyed as such:" as also, "we being
under the standard of our Lord Jesus Christ, Captain of Salvation, do
declare a war with such a tyrant and usurper, and all the men of his
practices, as enemies to our Lord."
Accordingly, on hearing that the excommunicated and suffering society of
the Cameronians were so near, I resolved, on receiving the soldier's
information, and on account of that recited clause of the Sanquhar
declaration, to league myself with them, and to fight in their avenging
battles; for, like me, they had endured irremediable wrongs, injustice,
and oppressions, from the persecutors, and for that cause had, like me,
abjured the doomed and papistical race of the tyrannical Stuarts. With
my son, therefore, I went toward Kilmarnock, in the hope and with the
intent expressed; and though the road was five long miles, and though I
had not spoken more to him all day, nor for days, and weeks, and months
before, than I have set down herein, we yet continued to travel in
silence.
The night was bleak, and the wind easterly, but the road was dry, and my
thoughts were eager; and we hastened onward, and reached the widow's
door, without the interchange of a word in all the way.
"Wha do ye want?" said my son, "for naebody hae lived here since the
death of aunty."
I was smote upon the heart, by these few words, as it were with a
stone; for it had not come into my mind to think of inquiring how long
the eclipse of my reason had lasted, nor of what had happened among our
friends in the interim. This shock, however, had a salutary effect in
staying the haste which was still in my thoughts, and I conversed with
my son more collectedly than I could have done before it, and he told me
of many things very doleful to hear, but I was thankful to learn that
the end of my brother's widow had been in peace, and not caused by any
of those grievous unchances which darkened the latter days of so many of
the pious in that epoch of the great displeasure.
But the disappointment of finding that Death had barred her door against
us, made it needful to seek a resting-place in some public, and as it
was not prudent to carry our blades and hilts into any such place of
promiscuous resort, we went up the town, and hid them by the star-light
in a field at a dyke-side, and then returning as wayfarers, we entered a
public, and bespoke a bed for the night.
While we were sitting in that house by the kitchen fire, I bethought me
of the Bible which my son had in his hand, and told him that it would do
us good if he would read a chapter; but just as he was beginning, the
mistress said,--
"Sirs, dinna expose yoursels; for wha kens but the enemy may come in
upon you. It's an unco thing now-a-days to be seen reading the Bible in
a change-house."
So, being thus admonished, I bade my son put away the Book, and we
retired from the fireside and sat by oursels in the shadow of a corner;
and well it was for us that we did so, and a providential thing that the
worthy woman had been moved to give us the admonition; for we were not
many minutes within the mirk and obscurity into which we had removed,
when two dragoons, who had been skirring the country, like blood-hounds,
in pursuit of Mr Cargill, came in and sat themselves down by the fire.
Being sorely tired with their day's hard riding, they were wroth and
blasphemous against all the Covenanters for the trouble they gave them;
and I thought when I heard them venting their bitterness, that they
spoke as with the voice of the persecutors that were the true cause of
the grievances whereof they complained; for no doubt it was a hateful
thing to persons dressed in authority not to get their own way, yet I
could not but wonder how it never came into the minds of such persons
that if they had not trodden upon the worm it would never have turned.
As for the Cameronians they were at war with the house of Stuart, and
having disowned King Charles, it was a thing to be looked for, that all
of his sect and side would be their consistent enemies. So I was none
troubled by what the soldiers said of them, but my spirit was chafed
into the quick to hear the remorselessness of their enmity against all
the Covenanters and presbyterians, respecting whom they swore with the
hoarseness of revenge, wishing in such a frightful manner the whole of
us in the depths of perdition, that I could no longer hear them without
rebuking their cruel hatred and most foul impiety.