THE GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS.
But on the morrow I, who desired to see the ways of the Compellers,
learned a lesson that ended my scholarship days with them. James
Johnstone seemed somewhat moved by the matter of the bairns, but by the
morning light he had again hardened his heart, like Pharaoh, more
bitterly than before. For he was now on his own land, and because his
thought was that the King would hold him answerable for the behaviour
and repute of his people, he became more than ordinarily severe. This he
did, being a runnagate from the wholesome ways of the Covenant; and,
therefore, the more bitter against all who remained of that way.
He drove into the yards of the farm-towns, raging like a tiger of the
Indies, now calling on the names of the goodman of the house, and now
upon other suspected persons. And if they did not run out to him at the
first cry, he would strike them on the face with the basket hilt of his
shable till the blood gushed out. It was a sick and sorry thing to see,
and I think his Majesty's troopers were ashamed; all saving the
Johnstone's own following, who laughed as at rare sport.
But I come now to tell what I saw with my own eyes of the famous matter
of Andrew Herries, which was the cause of my cousin of Lochinvar leaving
their company and riding with me and Hugh Kerr all the way to Edinburgh.
As, indeed, you shall presently hear. And the manner of its happening
was as follows. We were riding full slowly along the edge of a boggy
loch in the parish of Hutton, and, as usual, quartering the ground for
Whig refugees, of whom it was suspected that there were many lurking in
the neighbourhood. We had obtained no success in our sport, and
Westerhall was a wild man. He ran about crying "Blood and wounds!" which
was a favourite oath of his, and telling what he would do to those who
dared to rebel, and harbour preachers and preachers' brats on his
estate. For we had heard that the lass who had bearded us on the
brae-face by the school, with her little brother Alec in her hand, was
the daughter of Roger Allison, a great preacher of the hill-folk who had
come to them over from Holland, to draw them together into some of their
ancient unity and power.
Westerhall, then, knew not as yet in whose house she was dwelling, but
only that she had been received by one of his people. But this, if it
should come to Claverhouse's ears, was enough to cause him to set a fine
upon the Johnstone--so strict as against landlords were the laws
concerning intercommuning with rebels or rebels' children on their
estates. This was indeed the cause of so many of the lairds, who at
first were all on the side of the Covenant, turning out Malignants and
persecutors. And more so in the shire of Dumfries than in Galloway,
where the muirs are broader, the King's arm not so long, and men more
desperately dour to drive.
All of a sudden, as we went along the edge of a morass, we came upon
something that stayed us. It was, as I say, in Hutton parish, a very
pleasant place, where there is the crying of many muir-fowl, and the
tinkle of running water everywhere. All at once a questing dragoon held
up his arm, and cried aloud. It was the signal that he had found
something worthy of note. We all rode thither--I, for one, praying that
it might not be a poor wanderer, too wearied to run from before the face
of the troopers' wide-spreading advance.
However, it was but a newly-made grave in the wilderness, hastily dug,
and most pitifully covered with green fresh-cut turves, in order to give
it the look of the surrounding morass. It had very evidently been made
during the darkness of the night, and it might have passed without
notice then. But now, in the broad equal glare of the noon-tide, it lay
confessed for what it was--a poor wandering hill-man's grave in the
wild.
"Who made this?" cried Westerhall. "Burn me on the deil's brander, but
I'll find him out!"
"Hoot," said Clavers, who was not sharp set that day, perhaps having had
enough of Westerhall's dealing with the bairns yesterday, "come away,
Johnstone; 'tis but another of your Eskdale saints. Ye have no lack of
them on your properties, as the King will no doubt remember. What
signifies a Whig Johnstone the less? There's more behind every dyke, and
then their chief is aye here, able and willing to pay for them!"
This taunt, uttered by the insolent scorning mouth of Claverhouse, made
Westerhall neither to hold nor bind. Indeed the fear of mulet and fine
rode him like the hag of dreams.
"Truth of God!" cried he; for he was a wild and blasphemous man, very
reckless in his words; "do so to me, and more also, if I rack not their
limbs, that gied the clouts to wrap him in. I'se burn the bed he lay in,
bring doon the rafter and roof-tree that sheltered him--aye, though it
were the bonny hoose o' St. Johnstone itsel', an' lay the harbourer of
the dead Whig cauld i' the clay, gin it were the mither that bore me!
Deil reestle me gin I keep not this vow."
Now, the most of the men there were upon occasion bonny swearers, not
taking lessons in the art from any man; but to the Johnstone they were
as children. For, being a runnagate Covenanter, and not accustomed in
his youth to swear, he had been at some pains to learn the habit with
care, thinking it a necessary accomplishment and ornament to such as did
the King's business, especially to a captain of horse. Which, indeed, it
hath ever been held, but in moderation and with discretion. Westerhall
had neither, being the man he was.
"Fetch the Whig dog up!" he commanded.
The men hesitated, for it was a job not at all to their stomachs, as
well it might not be that hot day, with the sun fierce upon them
overhead.
"Tut, man," said Clavers, "let him lie. What more can ye do but smell
him? Is he not where you and I would gladly see all his clan? Let the
ill-favoured Whig be, I say!"
"I shall find out who sheltered him on my land. Howk him up!" cried
Westerhall, more than ever set in his mad cruelty at Colonel Graham's
words. So to the light of the merciless day they opened out the loose
and shallow grave, and came on one wrapped in a new plaid, with winding
sheets of pure linen underneath. These were all stained and soaked with
the black brew of the moss, for the man had been buried, as was usual at
the time, hastily and without a coffin. But the sleuthhound instinct of
the Johnstone held good. "Annandale for the hunt, Nithsdale for the
market, and Gallowa' for the fecht!" is ever a true proverb.
"Let me see wha's aucht the sheet?" he said.
So with that, Westerhall unwound the corner and held it up to the light.
"Isobel Allison!" he exclaimed, holding the fine linen up to the light,
and reading the name inwoven, as was then the custom when a bride did
her providing. "The widow Herries, the verra woman--ain dam's sister to
the Whig preacher--sant amang the hill-folk. Weel ken I the kind o' her.
To the hill, lads, and we will burn the randy oot, even as I said. I'll
learn the Hutton folk to play wi' the beard o' St. Johnstone."
"Foul Annandale thief!" said I, but stilly to myself, for who was I to
stand against all of them? Yet I could see that, save and except the
chief's own ragged tail, there were none of the soldiers that thought
this kind of work becoming.
Ere he mounted, Westerhall took the poor, pitiful body, and with his
foot despitefully tumbled it into a moss-hole.
"I'll show them what it is to streek dead Whigs like honest men, and row
them dainty in seventeen hunder linen on my land!" cried Westerhall.
And indeed it seemed a strange and marvellous Providence to me, that
young Isobel Allison, when she wove in that name with many hopes and
prayers, the blood of her body flushing her cheek with a maiden's shy
expectation, should have been weaving in the ruin of her house and the
breaking of her heart.
Now the cot of the widow Herries was a bonny place. So I believe, but of
its beauty I will not speak. For I never was back that way again--and
what is more, I never mean to be.
We came to the gavel end of the house. Westerhall struck it with his
sword.
"We'll sune hae this doon!" he said to us that followed. Then louder he
cried, "Mistress, are ye within?" as the custom of the country is.
A decent woman with a white widow's cap on her head was scraping out a
dish of hen's meat as we rode to the door. When she saw us on our horses
about the close, the wooden bowl fell from her hands and played clash on
the floor.
"Aye, my bonny woman," quoth Westerhall, "this comes o' keeping Whigs
aboot your farm-toon. Whatna Whig rebel was it ye harboured? Oot wi't,
Bell Allison! Was it the brither o' ye, that cursed spawn o' the low
country? Doon on your knees an' tell me, else it is your last hour on
the earth."
The poor woman fell on her knees and clasped her hands.
"O Westerha'!" she stammered, "I'll no lee till ye. It was but a puir
Westland man that we kenned not the name o'. We fand him i' the fields,
and for very God's pity brocht him hame to our door and laid him on the
bed. He never spak' 'yea' or 'nay' to us all the time he abode in our
hoose-place, and so passed without a word late yestreen."
"Lying Whig!" cried Westerhall, "who was it that found him? Whatna yin
o' your rebel sons--chasing up hill and doon dale after your blackguard
brither, was it that brocht him hame?"
"I kenna wha it was that brocht him. It was a wee bit lass that fand him
when she was playin' i' the moss wi' her brither."
"I ken your wee bit lasses," said Westerhall; "she's a bonny sprig o'
that braw plant o' grace, Roger Allison, wha's heid shall yet look
blythe on the West Port o' Edinburgh, wi' yin o' his cantin' thief's
hands on ilka side o't."
The poor woman said no word, but out from the chamber door came our
little lass of yesterday and stood beside her.
"Wha's plaidie is this?" again quoth Westerhall, holding up the plaid in
which the dead man had been wrapped, like an accusation in his hand; "to
the hill, boys, and lay hand on this honest woman's honest sons. King
Charles wull hae something to say to them, I'm thinkin'."
With that he leapt from his horse, throwing the reins to the widow.
"Hae, haud my horse," he said, "an' gin ye stir an inch, ye'll get an
ounce o' lead in you, ye auld shakin' limb o' Sawtan."