HIDING WITH THE HEATHER-CAT.
As for me, when I had seen this, thinking it to be enough, I put spurs
to my little Galloway, and we were soon at speed over the moss-hags. My
beast was well acquainted with moss running, for it had not carried me
so often over the moor to Lochinvar for nothing. I heard tempestuous
crying, as of men that pursued, and, strangely and suddenly, behind me
the roar of battle sank into silence. Once I glanced back and saw many
footmen running and horsemen rising and falling in their saddles. But,
all being lost, I left the field of Ayrsmoss behind me as fast as I
might, and set my horse's head over the roughest and boggiest country,
keeping toward Dalmellington, for the wilderness was now to be my home.
For the time I had had enough of rebellion under arms. I was not
unfaithful to the cause, nor did I regret what I had done. But I judged
that, for some time to come, it were better for me not to see company,
for I had no pleasure in it.
Now, in further telling my tale I must put together all the incidents of
my fleeing to the heather--for that being a thing at the time very
frequently resorted to, it became at last a word in Scotland that "to
take to the heather was to be in the way of getting grace."
Now, when I sped away to the south-east from Ayrsmoss, the folk I loved
were all killed, and I had no hope or hold of any present resistance to
the King. But my Galloway sheltie, being nimble on its feet, took me
bravely over the moss-hags, carrying me lightly and willingly as if I
had been hare-coursing on the green holms of the Ken.
As I fled I kept glancing behind me and seeing the soldiers in red
clothes and flashing arms still pursuing after. I saw also our foot
(that had stood off when we charged, and only fired as they saw need)
scattering through the moss, and the enemy riding about the borders
wherever their horses could go, firing at them. Yet I think that not
many of them were hurt in the pursuit, for the moss at that place was
very boss, and full of bottomless bogs, like that from which Patrick
Laing drew the redoubtable persecutor Captain Crichton. This incident,
indeed, bred in the breasts of the dragoons a wholesome fear of the soft
boggish places, which made greatly in many instances for the
preservation of the wanderers, and in especial favoured me in my present
enterprise.
In a little after, two of the four dragoons that followed me, seeing
another man running like to burst through the moss, turned aside and
spurred their horses after him, leaving but two to follow me.
Yet after this I was harder put to it than ever, for the sun was
exceedingly hot above and the moss as difficult beneath. But I kept to
it, thinking that, after all, by comparison I was in none such an evil
case. For, though my head ached with the steel cap upon it and my horse
sweated, yet it must have been much more doleful for the heavy beasts
and completely accoutred dragoons toiling in the rear. So over the
broken places of the moor I went faster than they, though on the level
turf they would doubtless soon have ridden me down. But then, after all,
they were but riding to kill one Whig the more, while I to save my
neck--which made a mighty difference in the earnestness of our intents
on that day of swithering heat.
Many a time it came to me to cast myself from my beast and run to the
side, trusting to find a moss-hag where I might lie hidden up to my neck
among the water with my head among the rushes. I saw many good and safe
places indeed, but I remembered that my sheltie would be an
advertisement to the pursuers, so I held on my way. Besides, Donald had
been a good friend to me, and was the only one of our company that had
ever been on the bonny holms of Earlstoun. So that I was kindly
affectioned to the beast, and kept him to his work though the country
was very moorish and the sun hot on my head.
Once I was very nearly taken. For as I went, not knowing the way, I came
to a morass where in the midst there was a secure place, as it seemed to
me. I put Donald at it, and when I reached the knoll--lo, it was only
some nine or ten yards square--the bottomless swelter of shaking bogs
girding it in on the further side. Donald went to the girth at the first
stride on the other side, so that there was nothing for it but to
dismount and pull him out.
Then up came the dragoons, riding heavily and cursing the sun and me.
They rode round skirting the moss; for, seeing the evil case I was in,
they dared not come nearer for fear of the same or worse. They kept,
therefore, wide about me, crying, "Come out, dog, and be shot!"
Which, being but poor encouragement, I was in no wise eager to obey
their summons.
But by holding on to the heather of the moss--by the kind providence of
God, it was very long and tough--I managed to get Donald out of his
peril. He was a biddable enough beast, and, being a little deaf, he knew
not fear. For reesting and terror among horses are mostly but
over-sharpness in hearing, and an imagination that they were better
without. But Donald had no good hearing and no bad forebodings. So when
I pulled him among the long heather, and put his head down, he lay like
a scent-dog, cowered along by the side of the moss-hags. Then the pair
by the edge of the morass began to shoot at me, for the distance was
within reach of a pistol-ball. The first bullet that came clipped so
close to my left ear that it took away a lock of my hair, which,
contrary to my custom, had now grown longish.
All this time they ceased not for a moment to cry, "Come out, dog, and
be shot!" They were ill-mannered rampaging lowns with little sense, and
I desired no comings and goings with them. So in no long time I tired of
this, and also of lying still to be shot at. I bethought me that I might
show them a better of it, and afford some sport. So very carefully I
charged both my pistols, and the next time they came near, riding the
bog-edge to fire at me, I took careful aim and shot at the first of
them. The ball went through the calf of his leg, which caused him to
light off the far-side of his horse with a great roar.
"You have killed me," he cried over to me complainingly, as if he had
been a good friend come to pay me a visit, to whom I had done a
treachery. Then he cursed me very resentfully, because forsooth (as he
said) he was about to be made a sergeant in the company, and, what with
lying up with his wounded leg, some other (whom he mentioned) would get
the post by favour of the captain.
"See what you have done!" said he, holding up his leg.
But I took aim with the other pistol and sent a ball singing over his
head, very close.
"Trip it, my bonny lad," I cried, "or there will be a hole of the same
size in your thick head--which will be as good as a cornet's commission
to you in the place to which it will send you!"
Then I charged my pistols again and ordered them away. The trooper's
companion made bold to leave his horse and come towards me crawling upon
the moss. But I turned my pistols so straightly upon him, that he was
convinced that I must be a marksman by trade and so desisted from the
attempt.
All this made me proud past reasoning, and I mounted in their sight, and
made a work of fastening my accoutrements and tightening Donald's
girths.
"So good-day to you!" I cried to them, "and give my compliments to your
captain and tell him from me that he hath a couple of varlets in his
company very careful of their skins in this world--which is, maybe, as
well--seeing that in the next they are secure of getting them well
paid."
Now this was but the word of a silly boy, and I was sorry for taunting
the men before ever I rode away. But I set it down as it happened, that
all may come in its due place, nothing in this history being either
altered or extenuated.
So all that night I fled and the next day also, till I came into my own
country of the Glenkens, where near to Carsphairn I left Donald with a
decent man that would keep him safe for my mother's sake. For the little
beast was tired and done, having come so far and been ridden so hard.
Yet when I left him out in the grass-park, there was not so much as the
mark of a spur upon him, so willingly had he come over all the leagues
of heather-lands.
While life lasts shall I not forget Donald.
My father used often to tell us what Maxwell of Monreith said when he
lit off his grey horse at the stable-door and turned him out after
riding him home from Rullion Green: "Thou hast done thy day's work,
Pentland. There is a park for thee to fill thy belly in for the rest of
thy days. No leg shall ever cross thy back again!"
So when I came to my own in the better days, I made it my care that
Donald was not forgotten; and all his labour in the future, till death
laid him low, was no more than a gentle exercise to keep him from
over-eating himself on the meadow-lands of Afton.
After the great day of dule, when Cameron was put down at Ayrsmoss and I
escaped in the manner I have told of, I made my way by the little
ferry-port of Cree, which is a sweet and still little town, to Maryport,
on the other side of the Solway, and thence in another ship for the Low
Countries.
When we came within sight of the land we found that it was dismally
grey, wearisome looking, and flat. The ship-men called it the Hook of
Holland. But this was not thought right for the port of our destination,
so we put to sea again, where we were too much tossed about for the
comfort of my stomach. Indeed, every one on board of the ship felt the
inconvenience; and two exceedingly pious women informed me that it
interfered with their religious duties. It was upon a Thursday night, at
six o'clock, that we arrived at an outlandish place called, as I think,
Zurichsee, where we met with much inhumanity and uncourteousness.
Indeed, unless a Scots merchant, accustomed to adventuring to the Low
Countries, had been of our company, it might have gone hardly with us,
for the barbarous folk had some custom of ill-treating strangers who
arrive upon a day of carnival. They entered our bark and began to
ill-treat us even with blows and by taking from us what of money we had.
But mercifully they were restrained before I had put my sword into them,
which, in their own country and engaged in ungodliness, it had been no
little folly to do.
Then also it grieved us very sore that we had five soldiers who had come
from Scotland with us--the very scum of the land. They called themselves
Captain Somerville's band; but if, indeed, they were any soldiers of his
Majesty's, then God help their captain in his command, for such a pack
of unwashed ruffians it never was my hap to see.
Specially did these men disquiet us upon the Sabbath-day. So dreadful
were their oaths and curses that we feared the boat would sink because
of their iniquities. They carried themselves so exceeding wickedly--but
more, as I think, that we, who desired not their company, might take
note of them. For at least three of them were but sullen, loutish boys,
yet the others led them on, and praised them when they imitated their
blasphemies and sculduddery.
At last about eight o'clock in the evening we came to Rotterdam, where
we quartered with a good merchant, Mr. Donaldson, and in the morning we
went to a Mr. Hay's, where from that good man (whom may God preserve) we
met with inexpressible kindness.
Thence we went to Groningen, where many of the Covenant already were. To
be brief--that part of my life for the present not coming into the
history--I spent four years there, the most of it with a young man named
James Renwick, a good student, and one very full of great intents which
were to make Scotland strong against the House of Stuart. He came from
Minnyhive, a village on the borders of Galloway and Dumfries, and was a
very decent lad--though apt, before he learned modesty on the moors, to
take too much upon him. We were finally summoned home by a letter from
the United Societies, for they had made me a covenanted member of
standing because of Ayrsmoss, and the carrying of the banner at
Sanquhar.
While at Groningen I got a great deal of civility because of Sandy, my
brother, whose name took me everywhere. But I think that, in time, I
also won some love and liking on my own account. And while I was away, I
got many letters from Maisie Lennox, chiefly in the name of my mother,
who was not good at writing; for her father, though a lord of session,
would not have his daughters taught overly much, lest it made them vain
and neglectful of those things which are a woman's work, and ought to be
her pleasure so long as the world lasts.
But though I went to the University, I could not bring myself to think
that I had any call to the ministry. I went, therefore, for the name of
it, to the study of the law, but read instead many and divers books. For
the study of the law is in itself so dreary, that all other literature
is but entertainment by comparison. So that, one book being easy to
substitute for another, I got through a vast deal of excellent
literature while I studied law at the University of Groningen. So did
also, even as I, all the students of law whom I knew in Holland and
elsewhere, for that is their custom.
But when at last I was called home, I received a letter from the United
Societies, written in their name, from a place called Panbreck, where
their meeting was held. First it told me of the sadness that was on
Scotland, for the many headings, hangings, hidings, chasings,
outcastings, and weary wanderings. Then the letter called me, as the
branch of a worthy family, to come over and take my part, which, indeed,
I was somewhat loath to do. But with the letter there came a line from
Maisie Lennox, which said that they were in sore trouble at the
Earlstoun, sometimes altogether dispossessed, and again for a time
permitted to abide in safety. Yet for my mother's sake she asked me to
think of returning, for she thought that for me the shower was surely
slacked and the on-ding overpast. So I took my way to ship-board with
some desire to set my foot again on the heather, and see the hills of
Kells run blue against the lift of heaven, from the links of the Ken to
the headend of Carsphairn.
It was the high time of the killing when I came again to Scotland, and
landed at Newcastle. I made for Galloway on foot by the tops of the
Cheviots and the Border hills. Nor did I bide more than a night
anywhere, and that only in herds' huts. Till I saw, from the moors above
Lochinkit, the round top of the Millyea, which some ill-set people call
an ugly mountain, but which is to me the fairest hill that the sun
shines on. So at least it appeared, now returning from the Lowlands of
Holland, where one can make the highest hill with a spade in an
afternoon. Ay, for I knew that it looked on Earlstoun, where my mother
was--whom I greatly desired to see, as was most natural.
Yet it was not right that I should recklessly go near Earlstoun to bring
trouble on my mother without knowing how the land lay. So I came down
the west side of the water of Ken, by the doachs, or roaring linn, where
the salmon sulk and leap. And I looked at the house from afar till my
heart filled, thinking that I should never more dwell there, nor look
any more from my mother's window in the quiet hour of even, when the
maids were out milking the kye.
Even as I looked I could see the glint of scarlet cloth, and the sun
sparkling on shining arms, as the sentry paced from the wall-gate to the
corner of the wall and back again. Once I saw him go within the
well-house for a drink, and a great access of desire took me in my
stomach. I remembered the coolness that was there. For the day was
exceedingly hot, and I weary and weak with travel.