It was a peaceful Sabbath day. In a hollow among the hills above
Closeburn a great gathering of men and women and children was assembled
to keep the feast. On a low table covered with a fair white cloth stood
the sacred elements. Behind the table I saw my friend of the cave at
the Linn standing with a look of rapture on his face. The gathered
people were singing a psalm, when, suddenly, there was a loud alarm.
The posted sentinels came hot-foot with cruel tidings on their lips.
But it was too late. From north and south and east and west, on horses
at the gallop, poured the dragoons--Claver'se's men, Lag's men, Winram's
men, Dalzell's men, all with the blood-lust in their eyes--and in a
moment that peaceful hollow was a bloody shambles. Muskets rattled on
every side; men, women and children fell. Through and through that
defenceless company the wild troopers rode, spurring their horses to
their sickening task, trampling the women and children underfoot,
shooting the men with their bullets or beating them down with the stocks
of their muskets. Screams and wild blasphemy rent the air that but a
moment before had been fragrant with the melodies of love and adoration.
Lag himself I saw spur his charger over a tangled mass of dead and dying
right at the sacred table. The horse leaped, spurning to the ground the
Bread and Wine, and the man of blood, swinging his sword high, brought
it down upon the head of the sainted minister, who fell cleft to the
chin. And I, by whose failure such deeds of blood had been made
possible, lay bound, a prisoner, hand and foot.
*CHAPTER XXXVII*
*"OUT OF THE SNARE OF THE FOWLERS"*
A blaze of light as though the sun had sprung full armoured to the
height of heaven smote upon my eyes. I opened them, but in that
brilliant glare I could see nothing, though I heard voices about me:
"Wha' think ye he can be?"
"He hasna got a kent face," a woman's voice replied. "Some puir gangrel
body nae doot. But what can he be daein' off the high road?"
I let the light filter through a chink between my eyelids, and when I
could bear its full brightness I opened them and looked around me. A
little group of five people bent over me--an old man, holding a lantern,
an old woman, and three young men whom I took to be their sons.
As I looked round there came to me out of the depths some memory of the
happenings of the night. I wondered dimly if the tragedy of which I had
been witness were reality, or dream. Who could these people be? Were
they some chance Samaritans who had come upon me bound hand and foot,
and delivered me from the hands of the persecutors? As I wondered I
heard the old woman say to her husband:
"Think ye he can be a hill-man? sic another as we found in the laigh
field after Rullion Green."
Hill-man! hill-man! the words burned themselves into my torpid brain. I
gathered all my strength, and raising myself so suddenly that they fell
away from me startled, I cried, "For the love of God, tell me, are you
hill-folks?"
"What o' that, what o' that?" asked the old man cautiously.
Then I threw discretion to the winds. "Tell me," I cried, my voice
breaking, "are you hill-men, for I bring tidings that will brook no
delay."
They gathered round me again and looked at me with anxious eyes.
"Got wi' it, lad," cried the old man, almost as excited as myself, and
with what speed I could I told them all. Breathlessly they listened.
"God in heaven, save us," groaned the old man as I finished, and then,
turning to his sons he cried: "Boys, it's yours to carry the message
through. Awa' wi' ye! Post men at the cross-roads, scatter the news far
and wide, and the Cause may yet be saved."
Like hounds from the leash the lads sprang away into the darkness. With
failing sight I saw them go, then I sank back again wearily and knew no
more.
Long afterwards I was conscious in a dim kind of way of being lifted
from the ground and borne gently over what seemed to be an interminable
distance; but I was too drowsy and fatigued to care what was happening
to me. When I opened my eyes I found myself lying on a soft bed in a
small farm kitchen. A glowing fire was on the hearth and its pleasant
warmth pervaded the room. The good man of the house brought me a drink
of something hot, which put new life in my veins and I was my own man
again.
I would fain have talked to my rescuers, but they forbade me, and I sank
once more into a drowse, but ere I slept I heard, as I had heard so
often in the old house at Daldowie, the good man opening the Book and
saying, "Let us worship God by singing to His praise a part of the 124th
Psalm."
I slept deeply, and when I awoke it was late in the Sabbath afternoon.
When they heard me stir the kindly folk showed themselves assiduous in
those little courtesies which mean so much to a weary man. When I
essayed to rise the old man was at my bedside to lend me aid, and when I
had risen he brought me water wherewith to wash myself. The cool liquid
took the stains of travel from my face and hands, and at the same time
purged me of weariness. On my left arm, where the torture had been
applied, was an ugly red sore all blisters at its edges. I looked at it
with a kind of pride. It was the brand of the Covenant upon me. The
old man bound it with a buttered cloth, to my great comfort.
The blind was drawn down over the window so that the light within was
restful. I took my seat upon the settle and the farmer's wife spread a
meal before me, and as I ate they questioned me. From them I gathered
that when they came upon me lying in a stupor in the fields, they were
themselves upon their way to the hill-meeting. They had some ten miles
to travel, and as they had to measure their speed by the speed of the
good-wife, they had set out soon after midnight. I asked anxiously
whether they had news of what had taken place, and whether their sons
had succeeded in spreading the alarm sufficiently widely to prevent the
Covenanters assembling. To this the old man replied:
"I dinna ken for certain, but ye may tak' it frae me that the troopers
found naething but an empty nest. We'll be hearin' later on, for the
lads will be back ere long." He stirred the peats with a stick, and
continued: "Man, it's wonderfu', wonderfu'; a' foreordained. If I were
a meenister what a graun' sermon I could mak' o't!"
By and by night fell. The good-wife lighted the candles, and when
another hour had elapsed the three lads returned. There was joy on
their faces; and there was joy in every heart in that little house when
they told us how their mission had sped. With the help of many others
they had spread a warning so far afield that no Covenanter came within a
mile of the assembly place. Then they told us how, when their task was
fulfilled, they had watched unseen the cavalcades of the dragoons
invading from every point of the compass the quiet sanctuary among the
hills. And they told too, with some glee, of the wrath of the soldiery
when after riding like hell-hounds full tilt from every side they
plunged into the hollow only to find that their prey had escaped them.
Early next morning I arose, and would have taken my departure, but the
good man forbade me.
"If ye maun go, ye maun," he said, "but it will be kittle work
travellin' by day. The dragoons are like to be sair upset after the
botchery o' yesterday and nae doot they'll be scourin' the country
lusting for bluid. So, ye'd better bide here till nicht comes and the
hawks are a' sleepin', and ye'll win through to yer journey's end in
safety."
His words were wise, and, though I knew that my continued absence might
cause Mr. Corsane anxiety, I decided to take his advice. When the night
fell and the moment of farewell came, the old man took me by the hand:
"God keep ye," he said. "Ye ha'e done a great thing for the Covenant.
Years hence, when these troublous days are a' by, the story will be told
roond mony a fireside o' the great race ye ran and the deliverance ye
brocht to the persecuted."
With the sound of kindly blessings following me through the darkness, I
set out and, long ere the dawn, was safely concealed once more in the
cave above the Linn.
Mr. Corsane gave me a hearty welcome. I assured him that I had
delivered his message in good time, and then told him of all the events
which had followed. My story filled him with astonishment. He himself
had been warned by Covenanting sentries who challenged him as he was
stealing in the early dawn towards the trysting-place, and he had
returned to the cave and waited in a tumult of anxiety. But little had
he imagined that I had brought the news.
"I never doubted your loyalty," he said, "but this deed of yours has
thirled you to the Covenant for ever," and he laid his hands upon my
shoulders and let them rest there for a little space.
*CHAPTER XXXVIII*
*THE PASSING OF ANDREW AND JEAN*
The land was in the iron grip of winter. No longer was there any work
for me in the fields, so that I was driven to spend nights and days in
idleness. For a man to rest from his labours may be a pleasant thing
for one weary, whose heart is at ease; but my inactivity of body served
but to fan the embers of my hopes, and I was tortured by lively flames
of hope which would flare up within me only to expire vacuously choked
by the cold ashes of reality. Mary was dead; my life was desolate!
On a morning in mid December I crawled out upon the sandstone ledge
above the pool. The air was crisp and dry, so that my breath issued
from my mouth like a cloud of smoke; and, as I breathed, the chill of
the atmosphere bit into my blood. The sky above me was blue, like a
piece of polished and highly tempered steel; and only a few irresolute
beams of sunlight filtered through the gaunt branches of the trees on
the heights above me. The stream, where it poured into the pool, was
festooned with dependent sword-points of ice; and the pool itself,
except in the centre where the slow-moving waters still refused the
fetters of winter, was shackled in ice. A robin was perched on a tree
above me--his buckler the one spark of warmth, his song the one note of
cheer.
I had paced up and down the narrow ledge several times when I heard the
sound of footsteps. In the clear air they rang like iron upon iron.
Alert, I listened to discover their direction. They came from down the
stream. Someone was making his way along the course of the rivulet
towards the pool. Could it be a dragoon on a quest at a venture, or was
our retreat discovered? Quickly I hurried round the edge of the pool.
There was no time to slip into the cave without discovery--the footsteps
were too close at hand. A spear of ice, and a stout heart could hold
the defile below the pool through which the intruder must pass before he
could reach the cave. If I held the gorge, the minister would have time
to make good his escape. His life was of greater worth than mine.
A glow pervaded me: the lust of combat was upon me. Life was sweet: but
to die fighting was to die a death worth while, and the poignard of ice
which I held in my hand was a man's weapon. I peeped into the defile:
the further end was blocked by the body of a man who, with face bent
downward, was choosing his footsteps with care. It was no soldier in
the trappings of war--but a countryman. The man raised his face and I
could have shouted for joy: it was Hector! He saw me at once, and waved
a hand to me, and, hot with expectation, I awaited his coming. Soon he
had squeezed his way through, and stood beside me. I offered my hand in
welcome, and as I did so remembered that it still held my murderous
weapon. I dropped it on the instant and it fell into the pool, its
sharp end cutting a star-like hole in the sheet of ice. The packman
laughed as he took my hand.
"So, so," he said, "ye thocht I was a trooper. A puir weapon yon! Gi'e
me 'Trusty,'" and he struck the rocks with the head of his stick so that
they rang. "And hoo is a' wi' ye?" he continued--"and the meenister?"