A DESIRABLE GENERAL MEETING.
The next morning dawned colder and more chilly. The catch of the autumn
of the year was in the air, and it nipped shrewdly till the sun looked
over the hills in the east. This was to be the great day of the
Societies' general meeting, which had been summoned in the wilds of
Shalloch-on-Minnoch.[10]
[Footnote 10: Now, because men so readily forget, I may repeat how that
the United Societies had grown in strength since Ayrsmoss, and now
needed only a head to make a stand for the cause. It was a strange way
of the Providence of God, that it should come about that these little
meetings for prayer in remote places of the land, should grow to be so
mighty a power for the pulling down of strongholds. At this time, though
every appearance in arms had been put down at Pentland, at Bothwell, and
at Ayrsmoss, yet the Blue Banner itself had never been put down. And
even now many a Malignant in the south and west trembled at the great
and terrible name of the "Seven Thousand."
The proclamations of the Societies, which were affixed to every kirk
door and market cross in the south, caused many a persecutor and
evil-wisher to quake and be silent. And the word that God was building
for Himself a folk on the hills of Scotland reached even to the Low
Countries, and kept the Prince of Orange and his counsellors watching
with eager eyes those things which were done by the Remnant over seas,
till the appointed hour should come. Heading and hanging would not last
for ever, and such is the binding power of persecution that for each one
cut off by prison, or the hangman's cord, ten were sworn in to do the
will of the Societies. Till this present time most fatal dissension and
division among themselves had been their undoing. But there was one
coming, now a willow wand of a student of Groningen in Holland, who
should teach the Societies to be a wall of fire about their faith and
their land.
To their conventions came commissioners from all parts of Scotland, but
mainly from the southern and western shires, as well as from the Merse,
and out of the bounds of Fife.]
Though the morn had dawned caller, with a white rime of frost lying on
the grass and for a little space making grey the leaves of the trees,
the day of the great conventicle was one of great and lowering heat. My
mother was set to go--and Kate McGhie also. Wat must needs therefore
accompany them, and I had a letter from Groningen which I behoved to
read. With Anton Lennox, stout of heart even in his sickness, abode my
lass, Maisie Lennox--of whom (though I looked to be back on the morrow)
I took leave with reluctance and with a heavy and sinking heart.
For us who were used to making a herd's track across the hills, it was
not a long step over the moors from Macaterick to the foot of the
Craigfacie of Shalloch, where the General Meeting of the Societies was
to take place. But it was a harder matter for my mother.
She needed help over every little brink of a peat brow, and as we passed
Tonskeen, where there is a herd's house in the wild, far from man and
very quiet with God, I ran to get her a staff, which the shepherd's good
wife gladly gave. For there was little that would be refused to a
wanderer in these parts, when on his way to the Societies' Meeting.[11]
[Footnote 11: So grateful and inspiring were these gatherings, that many
went to their death recalling the grace and beauty of these
meetings--"desirable general meetings"--they were in deed and sooth, at
least as I remember them.--(W. G., Afton, 1702.)]
Soon we left the strange, unsmiling face of Loch Macaterick behind, and
took our way towards the rocky clint, up which we had to climb. We went
by the rocks that are called the Rig of Carclach, where there is a pass
less steep than in other places, up to the long wild moor of the
Shalloch-on-Minnoch. It was a weary job getting my mother up the steep
face of the gairy, for she had so many nick-nacks to carry, and so many
observes to make.
But when we got to the broad plain top of the Shalloch Hill it was
easier to go forward, though at first the ground was boggy, so that we
took off our stockings and walked on the driest part. We left the burn
of Knocklach on our left--playing at keek-bogle among the heather and
bent--now standing stagnant in pools, now rindling clear over slaty
stones, and again disappearing altogether underground like a hunted
Covenanter.
As soon as we came over the brow of the hill, we could see the folk
gathering. It was wonderful to watch them. Groups of little black dots
moved across the green meadows in which the farmsteading of the
Shalloch-on-Minnoch was set--a cheery little house, well thatched, and
with a pew of blue smoke blowing from its chimney, telling of warm
hearts within. Over the short brown heather of the tops the groups of
wanderers came, even as we were doing ourselves--past the lonely copse
at the Rowantree, by the hillside track from Straiton, up the little
runlet banks where the heather was blushing purple, they wended their
ways, all setting towards one place in the hollow. There already was
gathered a black cloud of folk under the rickle of stones that runs
slidingly down from the steep brow of Craigfacie.
As we drew nearer we could see the notable Session Stone, a broad flat
stone overhanging the little pourie burn that tinkles and lingers among
the slaty rocks, now shining bone-white in the glare of the autumn sun.
I never saw a fairer place, for the heights about are good for sheep,
and all the other hills distant and withdrawn. It has not, indeed, the
eye-taking glorious beauty of the glen of Trool, but nevertheless it
looked a very Sabbath land of benediction and peace that day of the
great Societies' Meeting.
Upon the Session Stone the elders were already greeting one another,
mostly white-headed men with dinted and furrowed faces, bowed and broken
by long sojourning among the moss-hags and the caves.
When we came to the place we found the folk gathering for prayer, before
the conference of the chosen delegates of the societies. The women sat
on plaids that had been folded for comfort. Opposite the Session Stone
was a wide heathery amphitheatre, where, as on tiers of seats, rows of
men and women could sit and listen to the preachers. The burnie's voice
filled up the breaks in the speech, as it ran small and black with the
drought, under the hollow of the bank. For, as is usual upon our moors,
the rain and storm of the night had not reached this side of the hill.
I sat down on a lichened stone and looked at the grave, well-armed men
who gathered fast about the Session Stone, and on the delegates' side of
the water. It was a fitting place for such a gathering, for only from
the lonely brown hills above could the little cup of Conventicle be
seen, nestling in the lap of the hill. And on all the moor tops that
looked every way, couching torpid and drowsed in the hot sun, were to be
seen the sentinels--pacing the heather like watchmen going round and
telling the towers of Zion, the sun flashing on their pikes and musket
barrels as they turned sharply, like men well-disciplined.
The only opening was to the south-west, but even there nothing but the
distant hills of Colmonell looked in, blue and serene. Down in the
hollow there was a glint of melancholy Loch Moan, lying all abroad among
its green wet heather and stretches of yellow bent.
What struck me as most surprising in this assembly was the entire
absence of anything like concealment. From every quarter, up from the
green meadows of the Minnoch Valley, over the scaurs of the Straiton
hills, down past the craigs of Craigfacie, over from the deep howe of
Carsphairn, streams of men came walking and riding. The sun glinted on
their war-gear. Had there been a trooper within miles, upon any of the
circle of the hills, the dimples of light could not have been missed.
For they caught the sun and flecked the heather--as when one looks upon
a sparkling sea, with the sun rising over it and each wave carrying its
own glint of light with it upon its moving crest.
As I looked, the heart within me became glad with a full-grown joy. So
long had we of the Religion hidden like foxes and run like hares, that
we had forgotten that there were so many in the like case, only needing
drawing together to be the one power in the land. But the time, though
at hand, was not yet.
I asked of a dark long-haired man who stood near us, what was the
meaning of such a gathering. He looked at me with a kind of pity, and I
saw the enthusiasm flash from his eye.
"The Seven Thousand!" he said; "ken ye not the Seven Thousand upon the
hills of Scotland, that never bowed the knee to Baal?"
"Pardon me, friend," said I, "long hiding on the mountains has made me
ignorant. But who are the Seven Thousand?"
"Have ye indeed hidden on the mountains and ken not that? Did ye never
hear of them that wait for the time appointed?"
I told him no.
"Then," said he, "who may you be that kens so little?"
I said that I was William Gordon, younger son of the persecuted house of
the Gordons of Earlstoun.
"O, the Bull's brother!" said he, shortly, and turned him about to go
away. But Spitfire Wat was at his side, and, taking the dark man by the
elbow, presently halted him and span him round so that he faced us.
"And who are you that speaks so lightly of my cousin of Earlstoun?" he
asked.
I think Wat had forgotten that he was not now among his Cavalier
blades--who, to do them justice, are ready to put every pot-house
quarrel to the arbitrament of the sword, which is after all a better way
than disputation and the strife of tongues.
The dark man smiled. "Ye are hot, young sir," he said bitterly. "These
manners better befit the guard-room of Rob Grier of Lag than a gathering
of the Seven Thousand. But since ye ask my name, I am poor unworthy
Robin Hamilton, on whom the Lord hath set His hand."
Then we knew that this dark-browed man was Sir Robert Hamilton, who with
my brother Sandy had been the Societies' Commissioner to the Low
Counties, and who was here at Shalloch-on-Minnoch to defend his action.
He was also brother of Jean Hamilton, Sandy's wife, and of a yet more
sombre piety.
Then, though I knew well that he had been the rock on which the Covenant
ship split at Bothwell, and a stone of stumbling in our counsels ever
since, yet, because he looked so weary and broken with toils, travels,
and watchings, my heart could not choose but go out to him.
As he looked and said nothing, a more kindly light came into his eye as
he gazed at Wat. "Ye will be Black Bess of Lochinvar's son--a tacked-on
Covenant man. But I doubt not a kindly lad, for all ye are so brisk with
your tongue and ready with your blade. I have seen the day when it would
have done me a pleasure to step out with you, in days that were full of
the pride of the flesh. I do not blame you. To fight first and ask
wherefore after, is the Gordon all over. But do not forget that this
day, here on the wild side of the Shalloch-on-Minnoch, there are
well-nigh a thousand gentlemen of as good blood as your own. Homespun
cloth and herds' plaidies cover many a man of ancient name this day,
that never thought to find himself in arms against the King, even for
the truth's sake."
Robert Hamilton spoke with such an air of dignity and sadness, that Wat
lifted his hand to his blue bonnet in token that he was pacified. And
with a kindly nod the stranger turned among the throng that now filled
all the spacious place of meeting.