AN INCIDENT
The dinner-hour of Scotland Sixty Years since was two o'clock. It was
therefore about four o'clock of a delightful autumn afternoon that Mr.
Gilfillan commenced his march, in hopes, although Stirling was eighteen
miles distant, he might be able, by becoming a borrower of the night
for an hour or two, to reach it that evening. He therefore put forth his
strength, and marched stoutly along at the head of his followers, eyeing
our hero from time to time, as if he longed to enter into controversy
with him. At length unable to resist the temptation, he slackened his
pace till he was alongside of his prisoner's horse, and after marching a
few steps in silence abreast of him, he suddenly asked,--'Can ye say wha
the carle was wi' the black coat; and the mousted head, that was wi' the
Laird of Cairnvreckan?'
'A Presbyterian clergyman,' answered Waverley.
'Presbyterian!' answered Gilfillan contemptuously: 'a wretched Erastian,
or rather an obscured Prelatist,--a favourer of the black Indulgence;
ane of thae dumb dogs that canna bark: they tell ower a clash o' terror
and a clatter o' comfort in their sermons, without ony sense, or savour,
or life.--Ye've been fed in siccan a fauld, belike?'
'No; I am of the Church of England,' said Waverley.
And they're just neighbour-like,' replied the Covenanter; 'and nae
wonder they gree sae weel. Wha wad hae thought the goodly structure
of the Kirk of Scotland, built up by our fathers in 1642, wad hae been
defaced by carnal ends and, the corruptions of the time;--aye, wha wad
hae thought the carved work of the sanctuary would hae been sae soon cut
down!'
To this lamentation, which one or two of the assistants chorussed with a
deep groan, our hero thought it unnecessary to make any reply. Whereupon
Mr. Gilfillan, resolving that he should be a hearer at least, if not a
disputant, proceeded in his Jeremiad.
'And now is it wonderful, when, for lack of exercise anent the call to
the service of the altar and the duty of the day, ministers fall into
sinful compliances with patronage, and indemnities, and oaths, and
bonds, and, other corruptions,--is it wonderful, I say, that you, sir,
and other sic-like unhappy persons, should labour to build up your auld
Babel of iniquity, as in the bluidy persecuting saint-killing times? I
trow, gin ya werena blinded wi' the graces and favours, and services and
enjoyments, and employments and inheritances, of this wicked world, I
could prove to you, by the Scripture, in what a filthy rag ye put your
trust; and that your surplices, and your copes and vestments, are but
cast-off-garments of the muckle harlot, that sitteth upon seven hills,
and drinketh of the cup of abomination. But, I trow, ye are deaf
as adders upon that side of the head; aye, ye are deceived with her
enchantments, and ye traffic with her merchandise, and ye are drunk with
the cup of her fornication!'
How much longer this military theologist might have continued his
invective, in which he spared nobody but the scattered remnant of
HILL-FOLK, as he called them, is absolutely uncertain. His matter was
copious, his voice powerful, and his memory strong; so that there was
little chance of his ending his exhortation till the party had reached
Stirling, had not his attention been attracted by a pedlar who had
joined the march from a cross-road, and who sighed or groaned with great
regularity at all fitting pauses of his homily.
'And what may ya be, friend?' said the Gifted Gilfillan.
'A puir pedler, that's bound for Stirling, and craves the protection of
your honour's party in these kittle times. Ah! your honour has a notable
faculty in searching and explaining the secret,--aye, the secret and
obscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the land;
aye, your honour touches the root o' the matter.'
'Friend,' said Gilfillan, with a more complacent voice than he had
hitherto used, 'honour not me. I do not go out to park-dikes, and to
steadings, and to market-towns, to have herds and cottars and
burghers pull off their bonnets to me as they do to Major Melville o'
Cairnvreckan, and ca' me laird, or captain, or honour;--no; my sma'
means, whilk are not aboon twenty thousand merk, have had the blessing
of increase, but the pride of heart has not increased with them; nor do
I delight to be called captain, though I have the subscribed commission
of that gospel-searching nobleman, the Earl of Glencairn, in whilk I am
so designated. While I live, I am and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan,
who will stand up for the standards of doctrine agreed on by the
ance-famous Kirk of Scotland, before she trafficked with the accursed
Achan, while he has a plack in his purse, or a drap o' bluid in his
body.'
'Ah,' said the pedlar, 'I have seen your land about Mauchlin--a fertile
spot! your lines have fallen in pleasant places!--And siccan a breed o'
cattle is not in ony laird's land in Scotland.'
'Ye say right,--ye say right, friend,' retorted Gilfillan eagerly, for
he was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject,--'ye say right;
they are the real Lancashire, and there's no the like o' them even at
the Mains of Kilmaurs;' and he then entered into a discussion of their
excellences, to which our readers will probably be as indifferent as
our hero. After this excursion, the leader returned to his theological
discussions, while the pedlar, less profound upon those mystic points,
contented himself with groaning, and expressing his edification at
suitable intervals.
'What a blessing it would be to the puir blinded popish nations among
whom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths! I hae been
as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant;
and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and
maist feck o' Germany; and oh! it would grieve your honour's soul to see
the murmuring, and the singing, and massing, that's in the kirk, and the
piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon
the Sabbath!'
This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant, and
the Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamore's Raid, and
the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and Shorter
Catechism, and the Excommunication at Torwood, and the slaughter of
Archbishop Sharp. This last topic, again, led him into the lawfulness of
defensive arms, on which subject he uttered much more sense than could
have been expected from some other parts of his harangue, and attracted
even Waverley's attention, who had hitherto been lost in his own sad
reflections. Mr. Gilfillan then considered the lawfulness of a private
man's standing forth as the avenger of public oppression, and as he was
labouring with great earnestness the cause of Mas James Mitchell, who
fired at the Archbishop of St. Andrews some years before the prelate's
assassination on Magus Muir, an incident occurred which interrupted his
harangue.
The rays of the sun were lingering on the very verge of the horizon, as
the party ascended a hollow and somewhat steep path, which led to the
summit of a rising ground. The country was unenclosed, being part of a
very extensive heath or common; but it was far from level, exhibiting
in many places hollows filled with furze and broom; in others little
dingles of stunted brushwood. A thicket of the latter description
crowned the hill up which the party ascended. The foremost of the band,
being the stoutest and most active, had pushed on, and having surmounted
the ascent, were out of ken for the present. Gilfillan, with the pedlar,
and the small party who were Waverley's more immediate guard, were
near the top of the ascent, and the remainder straggled after them at a
considerable interval.
Such was the situation of matters, when the pedlar, missing, as he said,
a little doggie which belonged to him, began to halt and whistle for the
animal. This signal, repeated more than once, gave offence to the rigour
of his companion, the rather because it appeared to indicate inattention
to the treasures of theological and controversial knowledge which was
pouring out for his edification. He therefore signified gruffly, that he
could not waste his time in waiting for a useless cur.
'But if your honour wad consider the case of Tobit'--
'Tobit!' exclaimed Gilfillan, with great heat; 'Tobit and his dog baith
are altogether heathenish and apocryphal, and none but a prelatist or
a papist would draw them into question. I doubt I hae been mista'en in
you, friend.'
'Very likely,' answered the pedlar, with great composure; 'but
ne'ertheless, I shall take leave to whistle again upon puir Bawty,'
This last signal was answered in an unexpected manner; for six or eight
stout Highlanders, who lurked among the copse and brushwood, sprang
into the hollow way, and began to lay about them with their claymores.
Gilfillan, un-appalled at this undesirable apparition, cried out
manfully, 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!' and, drawing his
broadsword, would probably have done as much credit to the good old
cause as any of its doughty champions at Drumclog, when, behold! the
pedlar, snatching a musket from the person who was next him, bestowed
the butt of it with such emphasis on the head of his late instructor in
the Cameronian creed, that he was forthwith levelled to the ground. In
the confusion which ensued, the horse which bore our hero was shot
by one of Gilfillan's party, as he discharged his firelock at random.
Waverley fell with, and indeed under, the animal, and sustained some
severe contusions. But he was almost instantly extricated from the
fallen steed by two Highlanders, who, each seizing him by the arm,
hurried him away from the scuffle and from the high-road. They ran with
great speed, half supporting and half dragging our hero, who could,
however, distinguish a few dropping shots fired about the spat which
he had left. This, as he afterwards learned, proceeded from Gilfillan's
party, who had now assembled, the stragglers in front and rear having
joined the others. At their approach the Highlanders drew off, but not
before they had rifled Gilfillan and two of his people, who remained on
the spot grievously wounded. A few shots were exchanged betwixt them
and the Westlanders; but the latter, now without a commander, and
apprehensive of a second ambush, did not make any serious effort to
recover their prisoner, judging it more wise to proceed on their journey
to Stirling, carrying with them their wounded captain and comrades.