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THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SWANSTON EDITION
VOLUME XXII
_Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five
Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies
have been printed, of which only Two Thousand
Copies are for sale._
_This is No._ ..........
[Illustration: R. L. S. SPEARING FISH IN THE BOW OF THE SCHOONER
"EQUATOR"]
THE WORKS OF
ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON
VOLUME TWENTY-TWO
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND
WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL
AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM
HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN
AND COMPANY MDCCCCXII
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS
THE PENTLAND RISING
PAGE
I. THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT 3
II. THE BEGINNING 6
III. THE MARCH OF THE REBELS 8
IV. RULLION GREEN 13
V. A RECORD OF BLOOD 17
SKETCHES
I. THE SATIRIST 25
II. NUITS BLANCHES 27
III. THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES 30
IV. NURSES 34
V. A CHARACTER 37
COLLEGE PAPERS
I. EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824 41
II. THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY 45
III. DEBATING SOCIETIES 53
IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS 58
V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE 63
NOTES AND ESSAYS CHIEFLY OF THE ROAD
I. A RETROSPECT 71
II. COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK 80
III. ROADS 90
IV. NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS OF YOUNG CHILDREN 97
V. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES 103
VI. AN AUTUMN EFFECT 112
VII. A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY 132
VIII. FOREST NOTES 142
CRITICISMS
I. LORD LYTTON'S "FABLES IN SONG" 171
II. SALVINI'S MACBETH 180
III. BAGSTER'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS" 186
AN APPEAL TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND 199
THE CHARITY BAZAAR 213
THE LIGHT-KEEPER 217
ON A NEW FORM OF INTERMITTENT LIGHT FOR LIGHTHOUSES 220
ON THE THERMAL INFLUENCE OF FORESTS 225
ESSAYS OF TRAVEL
I. DAVOS IN WINTER 241
II. HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS 244
III. ALPINE DIVERSIONS 248
IV. THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS 252
STEVENSON AT PLAY
INTRODUCTION BY LLOYD OSBOURNE 259
WAR CORRESPONDENCE FROM STEVENSON'S NOTE-BOOK 263
THE DAVOS PRESS
MORAL EMBLEMS, ETC.: FACSIMILES
ADVERTISEMENT OF BLACK CANYON
BLACK CANYON, OR WILD ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST
NOT I, AND OTHER POEMS
MORAL EMBLEMS
ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: EDITION DE LUXE
ADVERTISEMENT OF MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION
MORAL EMBLEMS: SECOND COLLECTION
A MARTIAL ELEGY FOR SOME LEAD SOLDIERS
ADVERTISEMENT OF THE GRAVER AND THE PEN
THE GRAVER AND THE PEN
MORAL TALES
ROBIN AND BEN; OR, THE PIRATE AND THE APOTHECARY
THE BUILDER'S DOOM
JUVENILIA AND OTHER PAPERS
THE PENTLAND RISING
A PAGE OF HISTORY
1666
A cloud of witnesses ly here, Who for Christ's interest did appear.
_Inscription on Battle-field at Rullion Green._
EDINBURGH
ANDREW ELLIOT, 17 PRINCES STREET
1866
_Facsimile of original Title-page_
THE PENTLAND RISING
I
THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT
"Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost see,
This tomb doth show for what some men did die."
_Monument, Greyfriars' Churchyard, Edinburgh_, 1661-1668.[1]
Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the memory
whereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the deep tragedies
which followed it. It is, as it were, the evening of the night of
persecution--a sort of twilight, dark indeed to us, but light as the
noonday when compared with the midnight gloom which followed. This fact,
of its being the very threshold of persecution, lends it, however, an
additional interest.
The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were "out of measure
increased," says Bishop Burnet, "by the new incumbents who were put in
the places of the ejected preachers, and were generally very mean and
despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard;
they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly vicious.
They ... were indeed the dreg and refuse of the northern parts. Those of
them who arose above contempt or scandal were men of such violent
tempers that they were as much hated as the others were despised."[2] It
was little to be wondered at, from this account, that the country-folk
refused to go to the parish church, and chose rather to listen to outed
ministers in the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their
persecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the
parishioners' names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of twenty
shillings Scots to the name of each absenter. In this way very large
debts were incurred by persons altogether unable to pay. Besides this,
landlords were fined for their tenants' absences, tenants for their
landlords', masters for their servants', servants for their masters',
even though they themselves were perfectly regular in their attendance.
And as the curates were allowed to fine with the sanction of any common
soldier, it may be imagined that often the pretexts were neither very
sufficient nor well proven.
When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, and household
utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers, proportionate to his
wealth, were quartered on the offender. The coarse and drunken privates
filled the houses with woe; snatched the bread from the children to feed
their dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the scruples, and blasphemed
the religion of their humble hosts; and when they had reduced them to
destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down the roof-tree which was
consecrated to the peasants by the name of Home. For all this attention
each of these soldiers received from his unwilling landlord a certain
sum of money per day--three shillings sterling, according to _Naphtali._
And frequently they were forced to pay quartering money for more men
than were in reality "cessed on them." At that time it was no strange
thing to behold a strong man begging for money to pay his fines, and
many others who were deep in arrears, or who had attracted attention in
some other way, were forced to flee from their homes, and take refuge
from arrest and imprisonment among the wild mosses of the uplands.[3]
One example in particular we may cite:
John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was, unfortunately for
himself, a Nonconformist. First he was fined in four hundred pounds
Scots, and then through cessing he lost nineteen hundred and
ninety-three pounds Scots. He was next obliged to leave his house and
flee from place to place, during which wanderings he lost his horse. His
wife and children were turned out of doors, and then his tenants were
fined till they too were almost ruined. As a final stroke, they drove
away all his cattle to Glasgow and sold them.[4] Surely it was time that
something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to overthrow such
tyranny.
About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person calling himself
Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to revolt. He displayed
some documents purporting to be from the northern Covenanters, and
stating that they were prepared to join in any enterprise commenced by
their southern brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir James
Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share in the matter. "He
was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk, and that was very
often," said Bishop Burnet. "He was a learned man, but had always been
in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He told me he had
no regard to any law, but acted, as he was commanded, in a military
way."[5]
This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed which gave
spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen, lit the flame of
insubordination, and for the time at least recoiled on those who
perpetrated it with redoubled force.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Theater of Mortality," p. 10; Edin. 1713.
[2] "History of My Own Times," beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert
Burnet, p. 158.
[3] Wodrow's "Church History," Book II. chap. i. sect. 1.
[4] Crookshank's "Church History," 1751, second ed. p. 202.
[5] Burnet, p. 348.
II
THE BEGINNING
I love no warres, If it must be
I love no jarres, Warre we must see
Nor strife's fire. (So fates conspire),
May discord cease, May we not feel
Let's live in peace: The force of steel:
This I desire. This I desire.
T. JACKSON, 1651.[6]
Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and three
other soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dairy and demanded
the payment of his fines. On the old man's refusing to pay, they forced
a large party of his neighbours to go with them and thresh his corn. The
field was a certain distance out of the clachan, and four persons,
disguised as countrymen, who had been out on the moors all night, met
this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four soldiers to work
for the ruin of their friend. However, chilled to the bone by their
night on the hills, and worn out by want of food, they proceeded to the
village inn to refresh themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the
room where they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about
to roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too much for
them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the scene of this gross
outrage, and at first merely requested that the captive should be
released. On the refusal of the two soldiers who were in the front room,
high words were given and taken on both sides, and the other two rushed
forth from an adjoining chamber and made at the countrymen with drawn
swords. One of the latter, John M'Lellan of Barscob, drew a pistol and
shot the corporal in the body. The pieces of tobacco-pipe with which it
was loaded, to the number of ten at least, entered him, and he was so
much disturbed that he never appears to have recovered, for we find long
afterwards a petition to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him.
The other soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was rescued,
and the rebellion was commenced.[7]
And now we must turn to Sir James Turner's memoirs of himself; for,
strange to say, this extraordinary man was remarkably fond of literary
composition, and wrote, besides the amusing account of his own
adventures just mentioned, a large number of essays and short
biographies, and a work on war, entitled "Pallas Armata." The following
are some of the shorter pieces: "Magick," "Friendship," "Imprisonment,"
"Anger," "Revenge," "Duells," "Cruelty," "A Defence of some of the
Ceremonies of the English Liturgie--to wit--Bowing at the Name of Jesus,
The frequent repetition of the Lord's Prayer and Good Lord deliver us,
Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets, Cannonicall Coats," etc. From
what we know of his character we should expect "Anger" and "Cruelty" to
be very full and instructive. But what earthly right he had to meddle
with ecclesiastical subjects it is hard to see.
Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information concerning
Gray's proceedings, but as it was excessively indefinite in its
character, he paid no attention to it. On the evening of the 14th,
Corporal Deanes was brought into Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that he
had been shot while refusing to sign the Covenant--a story rendered
singularly unlikely by the after conduct of the rebels. Sir James
instantly despatched orders to the cessed soldiers either to come to
Dumfries or meet him on the way to Dairy, and commanded the thirteen or
fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine next morning to his
lodging for supplies.
On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with 50 horse
and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who commanded, with a
considerable troop, entered the town, and surrounded Sir James Turner's
lodging. Though it was between eight and nine o'clock, that worthy,
being unwell, was still in bed, but rose at once and went to the window.
Neilson and some others cried, "You may have fair quarter."
"I need no quarter," replied Sir James; "nor can I be a prisoner, seeing
there is no war declared." On being told, however, that he must either
be a prisoner or die, he came down, and went into the street in his
night-shirt. Here Gray showed himself very desirous of killing him, but
he was overruled by Corsack. However, he was taken away a prisoner,
Captain Gray mounting him on his own horse, though, as Turner naively
remarks, "there was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a
farre better one of mine." A large coffer containing his clothes and
money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the rebels. They
robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian minister of Dumfries, of his
horse, drank the King's health at the market cross, and then left
Dumfries.[8]
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Fuller's "Historie of the Holy Warre," fourth ed. 1651.
[7] Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 17.
[8] Sir J. Turner's "Memoirs," pp. 148-50.
III
THE MARCH OF THE REBELS
"Stay, passenger, take notice what thou reads,
At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads;
Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want,
Because with them we signed the Covenant."
_Epitaph on a Tombstone at Hamilton._[9]
On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the Council at
Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this "horrid rebellion." In
the absence of Rothes, Sharpe presided--much to the wrath of some
members; and as he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were
most energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the guards round
the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced to take the
oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to give in their
names. Sharpe, surrounded with all these guards and precautions,
trembled--trembled as he trembled when the avengers of blood drew him
from his chariot on Magus Muir,--for he knew how he had sold his trust,
how he had betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their
chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst thunderbolts be
forged. But even in his fear the apostate Presbyterian was unrelenting,
unpityingly harsh; he published in his manifesto no promise of pardon,
no inducement to submission. He said, "If you submit not you must die,"
but never added, "If you submit you may live!"[10]
Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At Carsphairn they were
deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in a fit of oblivion, neglected
to leave behind him the coffer containing Sir James's money. Who he was
is a mystery, unsolved by any historian; his papers were evidently
forgeries--that, and his final flight, appear to indicate that he was an
agent of the Royalists, for either the King or the Duke of York was
heard to say, "That, if he might have his wish, he would have them all
turn rebels and go to arms."[11]
Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and marched onwards.
Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn, frequently at the
best of which their halting-place could boast. Here many visits were
paid to him by the ministers and officers of the insurgent force. In his
description of these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity,
admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying
souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury, mistake, or
folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to hear. He appears,
notwithstanding all this, to have been on pretty good terms with his
cruel "phanaticks," as the following extract sufficiently proves:
"Most of the foot were lodged about the church or churchyard, and order
given to ring bells next morning for a sermon to be preached by Mr.
Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and Major M'Cullough invited me to heare 'that
phanatick sermon' (for soe they merrilie called it). They said that
preaching might prove an effectual meane to turne me, which they
heartilie wished. I answered to them that I was under guards, and that
if they intended to heare that sermon, it was probable I might likewise,
for it was not like my guards wold goe to church and leave me alone at
my lodgeings. Bot to what they said of my conversion, I said it wold be
hard to turne a Turner. Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I
said, if I did not come to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they might fine
me in fortie shillings Scots, which was double the suome of what I had
exacted from the phanatics."[12]
This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the month. The
following is recounted by this personage with malicious glee, and
certainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof of how chaff is mixed with
wheat, and how ignorant, almost impious, persons were engaged in this
movement; nevertheless we give it, for we wish to present with
impartiality all the alleged facts to the reader:
"Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank gaue me a visite; I
called for some ale purposelie to heare one of them blesse it. It fell
Mr. Robinsone to seeke the blessing, who said one of the most bombastick
graces that ever I heard in my life. He summoned God Almightie very
imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for that was his language). 'And
if,' said he, 'thou wilt not be our Secondarie, we will not fight for
thee at all, for it is not our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt
not fight for our cause and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to
fight for it. They say,' said he, 'that Dukes, Earles, and Lords are
coming with the King's General against us, bot they shall be nothing bot
a threshing to us.' This grace did more fullie satisfie me of the folly
and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench my thirst."[13]
Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse, or in
some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now taken the
command, would review the horse and foot, during which time Turner was
sent either into the alehouse or round the shoulder of the hill, to
prevent him from seeing the disorders which were likely to arise. He
was, at last, on the 25th day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark,
permitted to behold their evolutions. "I found their horse did consist
of four hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth and
upwards.... The horsemen were armed for most part with suord and
pistoll, some onlie with suord. The foot with musket, pike, sith
(scythe), forke, and suord; and some with suords great and long." He
admired much the proficiency of their cavalry, and marvelled how they
had attained to it in so short a time.[14]
At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this great
wapinshaw, they were charged--awful picture of depravity!--with the
theft of a silver spoon and a nightgown. Could it be expected that while
the whole country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare
opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues--that among a thousand
men, even though fighting for religion, there should not be one Achan in
the camp? At Lanark a declaration was drawn up and signed by the chief
rebels. In it occurs the following:
"The just sense whereof"--the sufferings of the country--"made us
choose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than
to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities of others, and
tortured with the fears of our own approaching misery."[15]
The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony the epitaph
at the head of this chapter seems to refer.
A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark to
Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the wearied army
stopped. But at twelve o'clock the cry, which served them for a trumpet,
of "Horse! horse!" and "Mount the prisoner!" resounded through the
night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from their well-earned rest
to toil onwards in their march. The wind howled fiercely over the
moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain descended. Chilled to the bone,
worn out with long fatigue, sinking to the knees in mire, onward they
marched to destruction. One by one the weary peasants fell off from
their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked moor, or to seek some
house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak. One by one at first,
then in gradually increasing numbers, at every shelter that was seen,
whole troops left the waning squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves
from the ferocity of the tempest. To right and left nought could be
descried but the broad expanse of the moor, and the figures of their
fellow-rebels seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards
through the sinking moss. Those who kept together--a miserable
few--often halted to rest themselves, and to allow their lagging
comrades to overtake them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for
assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onward again, through the wind,
and the rain, and the darkness--onward to their defeat at Pentland, and
their scaffold at Edinburgh. It was calculated that they lost one half
of their army on that disastrous night-march.
Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles from
Edinburgh, where they halted for the last time.[16]
FOOTNOTES:
[9] "A Cloud of Witnesses," p. 376.
[10] Wodrow, pp. 19, 20.
[11] "A Hind Let Loose," p. 123.
[12] Turner, p. 163.
[13] Turner, p. 198.
[14] _Ibid._ p. 167.
[15] Wodrow, p. 29.
[16] Turner, Wodrow, and "Church History" by James Kirkton, an outed
minister of the period.
IV
RULLION GREEN
"From Covenanters with uplifted hands,
From Remonstrators with associate bands,
Good Lord, deliver us!"
_Royalist Rhyme_, KIRKTON, p. 127.
Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four days before
Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants in Haddington,
beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores, standing round some
object on the ground. It was at the two-mile cross, and within that
distance from their homes. At last, to their horror, they discovered
that the recumbent figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained
winding-sheet.[17] Many thought that this apparition was a portent of
the deaths connected with the Pentland Rising.
On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they left
Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they arrived about sunset.
The position was a strong one. On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of
the Pentlands are two hillocks, and between them lies a narrow band of
flat marshy ground. On the highest of the two mounds--that nearest the
Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body--was the greater part
of the cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the other Barscob and the
Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre Colonel Wallace and the weak,
half-armed infantry. Their position was further strengthened by the
depth of the valley below, and the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion
Burn.
The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights and blue
shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely into the rich
plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the leafless,
snow-sprinkled trees, and fading gradually into shadow in the distance.
To the south, too, they beheld a deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and
bracken; the course of the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot
of its gorge; the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into
blue indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire
hills. In sooth, that scene was fair, and many a yearning glance was
cast over that peaceful evening scene from the spot where the rebels
awaited their defeat; and when the fight was over, many a noble fellow
lifted his head from the blood-stained heather to strive with darkening
eyeballs to behold that landscape, over which, as over his life and his
cause, the shadows of night and of gloom were falling and thickening.
It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry was
raised: "The enemy! Here come the enemy!"
Unwilling to believe their own doom--for our insurgents still hoped for
success in some negotiations for peace which had been carried on at
Colinton--they called out, "They are some of our own."
"They are too blacke" (_i.e._ numerous), "fie! fie! for ground to draw
up on," cried Wallace, fully realising the want of space for his men,
and proving that it was not till after this time that his forces were
finally arranged.[18]
First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse sent
obliquely across the hill to attack the left wing of the rebels. An
equal number of Learmont's men met them, and, after a struggle, drove
them back. The course of the Rullion Burn prevented almost all pursuit,
and Wallace, on perceiving it, despatched a body of foot to occupy both
the burn and some ruined sheep walls on the farther side.
Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot of the
hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then despatched a mingled
body of infantry and cavalry to attack Wallace's outpost, but they also
were driven back. A third charge produced a still more disastrous
effect, for Dalzell had to check the pursuit of his men by a
reinforcement.
These repeated checks bred a panic in the Lieutenant-General's ranks,
for several of his men flung down their arms. Urged by such fatal
symptoms, and by the approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed
in overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the insurgent
army. In the increasing twilight the burning matches of the firelocks,
shimmering on barrel, halbert, and cuirass, lent to the approaching army
a picturesque effect, like a huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into
the darkness.
Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud, "The God of
Jacob! The God of Jacob!" and prayed with uplifted hands for
victory.[19]
But still the Royalist troops closed in.
Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined to capture
him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged forward, presenting his
pistols. Paton fired, but the balls hopped off Dalzell's buff coat and
fell into his boot. With the superstition peculiar to his age, the
Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered bullet-proof by
enchantment, and, pulling some small silver coins from his pocket,
charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell, seeing this, and supposing, it is
likely, that Paton was putting in larger balls, hid behind his servant,
who was killed.[20]
Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped
in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor--tightening, closing,
crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils.
The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and
though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a general
flight was the result.
But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or wail the
death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed themselves for the peace, the
liberty, and the religion of their fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in
the field of death for long, and when at last they were buried by
charity, the peasants dug up their bodies, desecrated their graves, and
cast them once more upon the open heath for the sorry value of their
winding-sheets!
_Inscription on stone at Rullion Green_
HERE AND NEAR TO THIS PLACE LYES THE REVEREND M^R JOHN CROOKSHANK AND
M^R ANDREW M^CCORMICK MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL AND ABOUT FIFTY OTHER
TRUE COVENANTED PRESBYTERIANS WHO WERE KILLED IN THIS PLACE IN THEIR
OWN INOCENT SELF DEFENCE AND DEFFENCE OF THE COVENANTED WORK OF
REFORMATION BY THOMAS DALZEEL OF BINS UPON THE 28 OF NOVEMBER 1666.
REV. 12. 11. ERECTED SEPT. 28 1738.
_Back of stone_:
A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here,
Who for Christ's Interest did appear,
For to restore true Liberty,
O'erturned then by tyranny.
And by proud Prelats who did Rage
Against the Lord's own heritage.
They sacrificed were for the laws
Of Christ their king, his noble cause.
These heroes fought with great renown
By falling got the Martyr's crown.[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Kirkton, p. 244.
[18] Kirkton.
[19] Turner.
[20] Kirkton.
[21] Kirkton.
V
A RECORD OF BLOOD
"They cut his hands ere he was dead,
And after that struck off his head.
His blood under the altar cries
For vengeance on Christ's enemies."
_Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of Clermont._[22]
Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the Potterrow, on
the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of cheering and the march
of many feet beneath his window. He gazed out. With colours flying, and
with music sounding, Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his
banners were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners were marched within
his ranks. The old man knew it all. That martial and triumphant strain
was the death-knell of his friends and of their cause, the rust-hued
spots upon the flags were the tokens of their courage and their death,
and the prisoners were the miserable remnant spared from death in battle
to die upon the scaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had he
lived longer he would have seen increasing torment and increasing woe;
he would have seen the clouds, then but gathering in mist, cast a more
than midnight darkness over his native hills, and have fallen a victim
to those bloody persecutions which, later, sent their red memorials to
the sea by many a burn. By a merciful Providence all this was spared to
him--he fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had passed since
Rullion Green, the aged minister of God was gathered to his fathers.[23]
When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to Sir Alexander
Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his house. Disliking their
occupation, the soldiers gave him an ugly time of it. All the night
through they kept up a continuous series of "alarms and incursions,"
"cries of 'Stand!' 'Give fire!'" etc., which forced the prelate to flee
to the Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was
denied him at home.[24] Now, however, when all danger to himself was
past, Sharpe came out in his true colours, and scant was the justice
likely to be shown to the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate
was by. The prisoners were lodged in Haddo's Hole, a part of St. Giles'
Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart, to his credit be it
spoken, they were amply supplied with food.[25]
Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarter which had
been given on the field of battle should protect the lives of the
miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest lawyer, gave no
opinion--certainly a suggestive circumstance,--but Lord Lee declared
that this would not interfere with their legal trial; "so to bloody
executions they went."[26] To the number of thirty they were condemned
and executed; while two of them, Hugh M'Kail, a young minister, and
Neilson of Corsack, were tortured with the boots.
The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their bodies were
dismembered and distributed to different parts of the country; "the
heads of Major M'Culloch and the two Gordons," it was resolved, says
Kirkton, "should be pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two
Hamiltons and Strong's head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain
Arnot's sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. The armes of all the ten,
because they hade with uplifted hands renewed the Covenant at Lanark,
were sent to the people of that town to expiate that crime, by placing
these arms on the top of the prison."[27] Among these was John Neilson,
the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner's life at Dumfries; in return
for which service Sir James attempted, though without success, to get
the poor man reprieved. One of the condemned died of his wounds between
the day of condemnation and the day of execution. "None of them," says
Kirkton, "would save their life by taking the declaration and renouncing
the Covenant, though it was offered to them.... But never men died in
Scotland so much lamented by the people, not only spectators, but those
in the country. When Knockbreck and his brother were turned over, they
clasped each other in their armes, and so endured the pangs of death.
When Humphrey Colquhoun died, he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but
like a heavenly minister, relating his comfortable Christian
experiences, and called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm,
and read John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration of all. But
most of all, when Mr. M'Kail died, there was such a lamentation as was
never known in Scotland before; not one dry cheek upon all the street,
or in all the numberless windows in the mercate place." [28]
The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and its author:
"Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor think on the
world's consolations. Farewell to all my friends, whose company hath
been refreshful to me in my pilgrimage. I have done with the light of
the sun and the moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting
love, everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that sits
upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the Lord, O my soul,
that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the blood of His Son, and healed
all my diseases. Bless Him, O all ye His angels that excel in strength,
ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!"
[29]
After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth in the
following words of touching eloquence:
"And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my
intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father
and mother, friends and relations! Farewell the world and all delights!
Farewell meat and drink! Farewell sun, moon, and stars!--Welcome God and
Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant!
Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of all consolation! Welcome
glory! Welcome eternal life! Welcome Death!"[30]
At Glasgow too, where some were executed, they caused the soldiers to
beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing ears. Hideous
refinement of revenge! Even the last words which drop from the lips of a
dying man--words surely the most sincere and the most unbiassed which
mortal mouth can utter--even these were looked upon as poisoned and as
poisonous. "Drown their last accents," was the cry, "lest they should
lead the crowd to take their part, or at the least to mourn their
doom!"[31] But, after all, perhaps it was more merciful than one would
think--unintentionally so, of course; perhaps the storm of harsh and
fiercely jubilant noises, the clanging of trumpets, the rattling of
drums, and the hootings and jeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the
last they heard on earth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when
the river of death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of
the angels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had reached.
Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of the
peasantry, though these were confined to the shire of Mid-Lothian,
pursued, captured, plundered, and murdered the miserable fugitives who
fell in their way. One strange story have we of these times of blood and
persecution: Kirkton the historian and popular tradition tell us alike
of a flame which often would arise from the grave, in a moss near
Carnwath, of some of those poor rebels: of how it crept along the
ground; of how it covered the house of their murderer; and of how it
scared him with its lurid glare.
Hear Daniel Defoe:[32]
"If the poor people were by these insupportable violences made
desperate, and driven to all the extremities of a wild despair, who can
justly reflect on them when they read in the Word of God 'That
oppression makes a wise man mad'? And therefore were there no other
original of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising of
Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions of those
times might have justified to all the world, nature having dictated to
all people a right of defence when illegally and arbitrarily attacked in
a manner not justifiable either by laws of nature, the laws of God, or
the laws of the country."
Bear this remonstrance of Defoe's in mind, and though it is the fashion
of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to contemn, the noble
band of Covenanters,--though the bitter laugh at their old-world
religious views, the curl of the lip at their merits, and the chilling
silence on their bravery and their determination, are but too rife
through all society,--be charitable to what was evil and honest to what
was good about the Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty,
for country and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two
hundred years ago.
EDINBURGH, 28_th November_ 1866.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] "Cloud of Witnesses," p. 389; Edin. 1765.
[23] Kirkton, p. 247.
[24] Kirkton, p. 254.
[25] _Ibid._ p. 247.
[26] _Ibid._ pp. 247, 248.
[27] _Ibid._ p. 248.
[28] Kirkton, p. 249.
[29] "Naphtali," p. 205; Glasgow, 1721.
[30] Wodrow, p. 59.
[31] Kirkton, p. 246.
[32] Defoe's "History of the Church of Scotland."
SKETCHES
SKETCHES
I
THE SATIRIST
My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and insight. He was by
habit and repute a satirist. If he did occasionally condemn anything or
anybody who richly deserved it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped,
it was simply because he condemned everything and everybody. While I was
with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook my reverence for
Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of the Almighty Himself,
on the score of one or two out of the ten commandments. Nothing escaped
his blighting censure. At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or
lowered my estimation of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and
could only marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I had
not before observed A's false hair, B's selfishness, or C's boorish
manners? I and my companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple
of gods among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear
openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I half expected
that these miserable beings, like the people of Lystra, would recognise
their betters and force us to the altar; in which case, warned by the
fate of Paul and Barnabas, I do not know that my modesty would have
prevailed upon me to decline. But there was no need for such churlish
virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no divinity in
our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in the way of observing
than healing their infirmities, we were content to pass them by in
scorn.
I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from interest,
but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the case. To
understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose yourself walking down the
street with a man who continues to sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of
vitriol. You would be much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of
his victims; and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm until
his bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the crowd, you would
run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting liquor. Now my
companion's vitriol was inexhaustible.
It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I was being
anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that made me fall to
criticising the critic, whenever we had parted.
After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough into his
neighbours to find that the outside is false, without caring to go
farther and discover what is really true. He is content to find that
things are not what they seem, and broadly generalises from it that they
do not exist at all. He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they
are; and, on the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue
altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is wholly good;
but he has not even suspected that there is another equally true, to
wit, that no man is wholly bad. Like the inmate of a coloured star, he
has eyes for one colour alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his
nostrils are plugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils
before going about the streets of the plague-struck city.
Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the knowledge of
good like the infection of a horrible disease, and batten and grow fat
in the real atmosphere of a lazar-house. This was my first thought; but
my second was not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise,
wise in his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want
light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not wish to see
the good, because he is happier without it. I recollect that when I
walked with him, I was in a state of divine exaltation, such as Adam and
Eve must have enjoyed when the savour of the fruit was still unfaded
between their lips; and I recognise that this must be the man's habitual
state. He has the forbidden fruit in his waistcoat pocket, and can make
himself a god as often and as long as he likes. He has raised himself
upon a glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has touched the summit of
ambition; and he envies neither King nor Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest,
content in an elevation as high as theirs, and much more easily
attained. Yes, certes, much more easily attained. He has not risen by
climbing himself, but by pushing others down. He has grown great in his
own estimation, not by blowing himself out, and risking the fate of
Aesop's frog, but simply by the habitual use of a diminishing glass on
everybody else. And I think altogether that his is a better, a safer,
and a surer recipe than most others.
After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I detect a
spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I have been comparing
myself with our satirist, and all through, I have had the best of the
comparison. Well, well, contagion is as often mental as physical; and I
do not think my readers, who have all been under his lash, will blame me
very much for giving the headsman a mouthful of his own sawdust.
II
NUITS BLANCHES
If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless night, it
should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly child that woke from
his few hours' slumber with the sweat of a nightmare on his brow, to lie
awake and listen and long for the first signs of life among the silent
streets. These nights of pain and weariness are graven on my mind; and
so when the same thing happened to me again, everything that I heard or
saw was rather a recollection than a discovery.
Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I listened
eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral quiet. But nothing came,
save, perhaps, an emphatic crack from the old cabinet that was made by
Deacon Brodie, or the dry rustle of the coals on the extinguished fire.
It was a calm; or I know that I should have heard in the roar and
clatter of the storm, as I have not heard it for so many years, the wild
career of a horseman, always scouring up from the distance and passing
swiftly below the window; yet always returning again from the place
whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher power, he had
retraced his steps to gain impetus for another and another attempt.
As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the rumbling of a
carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and passed within a few
streets of the house, and died away as gradually as it had arisen. This,
too, was as a reminiscence.
I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black belt of the
garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here and there a
lighted window. How often before had my nurse lifted me out of bed and
pointed them out to me, while we wondered together if, there also, there
were children that could not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were
signs of those that waited like us for the morning.
I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep well of
the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as it used to be in the
old days that the feverish child might be the better served, a peep of
gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But where I was, all was
darkness and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking of the clock that
came ceaselessly up to my ear.
The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of reproduction on
the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of that time for which, all
night through, I waited and longed of old. It was my custom, as the
hours dragged on, to repeat the question, "When will the carts come in?"
and repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose in the
street that I have heard once more this morning. The road before our
house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. I know not, and I never
have known, what they carry, whence they come, or whither they go. But I
know that, long ere dawn, and for hours together, they stream
continuously past, with the same rolling and jerking of wheels and the
same clink of horses' feet. It was not for nothing that they made the
burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really the first
throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it pleases you as much to
hear them as it must please a shipwrecked seaman once again to grasp a
hand of flesh and blood after years of miserable solitude. They have the
freshness of the daylight life about them. You can hear the carters
cracking their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one
another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh horse-laughter
comes up to you through the darkness. There is now an end of mystery and
fear. Like the knocking at the door in _Macbeth_,[33] or the cry of the
watchman in the _Tour de Nesle_, they show that the horrible caesura is
over and the nightmares have fled away, because the day is breaking and
the ordinary life of men is beginning to bestir itself among the
streets.
In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by the officious
knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years older than I had
dreamed myself all night.
FOOTNOTE:
[33] See a short essay of De Quincey's.
III
THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES
It is all very well to talk of death as "a pleasant potion of
immortality"; but the most of us, I suspect, are of "queasy stomachs,"
and find it none of the sweetest.[34] The graveyard may be cloak-room to
Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive vestibule
in itself, however fair may be the life to which it leads. And though
Enoch and Elias went into the temple through a gate which certainly may
be called Beautiful, the rest of us have to find our way to it through
Ezekiel's low-bowed door and the vault full of creeping things and all
manner of abominable beasts. Nevertheless, there is a certain frame of
mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote, at least an
alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else. It was
in obedience to this wise regulation that the other morning found me
lighting my pipe at the entrance to Old Greyfriars', thoroughly sick of
the town, the country, and myself.
Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying a spade in
hands still crusted with the soil of graves. Their very aspect was
delightful to me; and I crept nearer to them, thinking to pick up some
snatch of sexton gossip, some "talk fit for a charnel,"[35] something,
in fine, worthy of that fastidious logician, that adept in coroner's
law, who has come down to us as the patron of Yaughan's liquor, and the
very prince of gravediggers. Scots people in general are so much wrapped
up in their profession that I had a good chance of overhearing such
conversation: the talk of fishmongers running usually on stockfish and
haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I could repeat stories and speeches
that positively smell of the graveyard. But on this occasion I was
doomed to disappointment. My two friends were far into the region of
generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their electorship.
Politics had engulfed the narrower economy of gravedigging. "Na, na,"
said the one, "ye're a' wrang." "The English and Irish Churches,"
answered the other, in a tone as if he had made the remark before, and
it had been called in question--"The English and Irish Churches have
_impoverished_ the country."