Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

CHAPTER LXXXIII

As soon as those of the Privy Council had, with their attendants, left the house, and proceeded to join the Duke of York in the palace, the charitable damsel came to me, and conveyed me, undiscovered, through the hall and into the Cowgate, where she had provided a man, a friend of her own, one Charles Brownlee, who had been himself in the hands of the Philistines, to conduct me out of the town; and by him I was guided in safety through the Cowgate, and put into a house just without the same, where his mother resided.

"Here," said he, "it will be as well for you to bide out the daylight, and being now forth the town-wall, ye'll can gang where ye like unquestioned in the gloaming." And so saying he went away, leaving me with his mother, an ancient matron, with something of the remnant of ladyness about her, yet was she not altogether an entire gentlewoman, though at the first glimpse she had the look of one of the very highest degree.

Notwithstanding, however, that apparition of finery which was about her, she was in truth and in heart a sincere woman, and had, in the better days of her younger years, been, as she rehearsed to me, gentlewoman to the Countess of Argyle's mother, and was on a footing of cordiality with divers ladies of the bedchamber of what she called the three nobilities, meaning those of Scotland, England, and Ireland; so that I saw there might by her be opened a mean of espial into the camp of the adversaries. So I told her of my long severe malady, and the shock I had suffered by what I had seen of my martyred son, and entreated that she would allow me to abide with her until my spirits were more composed.

Mrs Brownlee having the compassion of a Christian, and the tenderness of her gentle sex, was moved by my story, and very readily consented. Instead therefore of going forth at random in the evening, as I was at one time mindet, I remained in her house; where indeed could I at that time flee in the hope of finding any place of refuge? But although this was adopted on the considerations of human reason, it was nevertheless a link in the chain of providential methods by which I was to achieve the fulfilment of my vow.

The house of Mrs Brownlee being, as I have intimated, nigh to the gate of the city, I saw from the window all that went into and came out therefrom; and the same afternoon I had visible evidence of the temper wherewith the Duke of York and his counsellors had been actuated that day at Holyrood, in consequence of the manner in which we had been delivered from prison; – for Jack Windsor, the poor sentinel who was on guard when we escaped by the window, was brought out, supported by two of his companions, his feet having been so crushed in the torturous boots before the Council, during his examination anent us, that he could scarcely mark them to the ground; his hands were also bound in cloths, through which the blood was still oozing, from the pressure of those dreadful thumbikins of iron, that were so often used in those days to screw accusations out of honest men. A sympathizing crowd followed the destroyed sufferer, and the sight for a little while afflicted me with sore regret. But when I considered the compassion that the people showed for him, I was filled with a strange satisfaction, deducing therefrom encouraging persuasions, that every new sin of the persecutors removed a prop from their own power, making its overthrow more and more inevitable.

While I was peering from the window in these reflections, I saw Quintin Fullarton, the grandson of John Fullarton of Dykedivots, in the street, and knowing that from the time of Bothwell-brigg he had been joined with that zealous and martyred youth, Richard Cameron, and was, as Robin Brown told me, among other acquaintances at Airsmoss, I entreated Mrs Brownlee to go after him and bid him come to me, – which he readily did, and we had a mournful communing for some time.

He told me the particulars of my gallant Joseph's death, and that it was by the command of Claverhouse himself that the brave stripling's head was cut off and sent in ignominy to Edinburgh; where, by order of the Privy Council, it was placed on the Netherbow.

"What I hae suffered from that man," said I, "Heaven may pardon, but I can neither forget nor forgive."

"The judgment time's coming," replied Quintin Fullarton; "and your part in it, Ringan Gilhaize, assuredly will not be forgotten, for in the heavens there is a Doer of justice and an Avenger of wrongs."

And then he proceeded to tell me, that on the following afternoon there was to be a meeting of the heads of the Cameronian societies, with Mr Renwick, in a dell of the Esk, about half a mile above Laswade, to consult what ought to be done, the pursuit and persecution being so hot against them, that life was become a burden, and their minds desperate.

"We hae many friens," said he, "in Edinburgh, and I am entrusted to warn them to the meeting, which is the end of my coming to the town; and maybe, Ringan Gilhaize, ye'll no objek yoursel to be there?"

"I will be there, Quintin Fullarton," said I; "and in the strength of the Lord I will come armed, with a weapon of more might than the sword and more terrible than the ball that flieth unseen."

"What mean you, Ringan?" said he, compassionately; for he knew of my infirmity, and thought that I was still fevered in the mind. But I told him, that for some time, feeling myself unable for warlike enterprises, I had meditated on a way to perplex our guilty adversaries, the which was to menace them with retaliation, for resistance alone was no longer enough.

"We have disowned Charles Stuart as our king," said I, "and we must wage war accordingly. But go your ways and execute your purposes; and by the time you return this way I shall have a paper ready, the sending forth of which will strike terror into the brazen hearts of our foes."

I perceived that he was still dubious of me; but nevertheless he promised to call as he came back; and, having gone away, I set myself down and drew up that declaration, wherein, after again calmly disowning the royal authority of Charles Stuart, we admonished our sanguinary persecutors, that, for self-preservation, we would retaliate according to our power, and the degree of guilt on such privy counsellors, lords of justiciary, officers and soldiers, their abettors and informers, whose hands should continue to be imbrued in our blood. And on the return of Quintin Fullarton, I gave the paper to him, that it might be seen and considered by Mr Renwick and others, previous to offering it to the consideration of the meeting.

He read it over very sedately, and folded it up and put it in the crown of his bonnet without saying a word; but several times, while he was reading, he cast his eyes towards me, and when he rose to go away he said, "Ringan Gilhaize, you have endured much; but verily, if this thing can be brought to pass, your own and all our sufferings will soon be richly revenged."

"Not revenged," said I; "revenge, Quintin Fullarton, becomes not Christian men. But we shall be the executioners of the just judgments of Him whose ministers are flaming fires, and pestilence, and war, and storms, and perjured kings."

With these words we parted; and next morning, by break of day, I rose, after the enjoyment of a solacing sleep, such as I had not known for many days, and searched my way across the fields towards Laswade. I did not, however, enter the clachan, but lingered among the woods till the afternoon, when, descending towards the river, I walked leisurely up the banks, where I soon fell in with others of the associated friends.

CHAPTER LXXXIV

The place where we met was a deep glen, the scroggy sides whereof were as if rocks, and trees and brambles, with here and there a yellow primrose and a blue hyacinth between, had been thrown by some wild architect into many a difficult and fantastical form. Over a ledge of rock fell the bright waters of the Esk, and in the clear linn the trouts shuttled from stone and crevice, dreading the persecutions of the angler, who, in the luxury of his pastime, heedeth not what they may in their cool element suffer.

It was then the skirt of the afternoon, about the time when the sweet breathing of flowers and boughs first begins to freshen to the gentle senses, and the shadows deepen in the cliffs of the rocks and darken among the bushes. The yellow sunbeams were still bright on the flickering leaves of a few trees, which here and there raised their tufty heads above the glen; but in the hollow of the chasm the evening had commenced, and the sobriety of the fragrant twilight was coming on.

As we assembled one by one, we said little to each other. Some indeed said nothing, nor even shook hands, but went and seated themselves on the rocks, round which the limpid waters were swirling with a soft and pleasant din, as if they solicited tranquillity. For myself, I had come with the sternest intents, and I neither noticed nor spoke to any one; but going to the brink of the linn, I sat myself down in a gloomy nook, and was sullen, that the scene was not better troubled into unison with the resentful mood of my spirit.

At last Mr Renwick came, and when he had descended into the dell, where we were gathered together, after speaking a few words of courtesy to certain of his acquaintance, he went to a place on the shelvy side of the glen, and took his station between two birch-trees.

"I will be short with you, friends," said he; "for here we are too nigh unto the adversaries to hazard ourselves in any long debate; and therefore I will tell you, as a man speaking the honesty that is within him, I neither can nor do approve of the paper that I understand some among you desire we should send forth. I have, however, according to what was exhibited to me in private, brought here a proclamation, such as those who are most vehement among us wish to propound; but I still leave it with yourselves to determine whether or not it should be adopted – entering, as I here do, my caveat as an individual against it. This paper will cut off all hope of reconciliation – we have already disowned King Charles, it is true; but this implies, that we are also resolved to avenge, even unto blood and death, whatsoever injury we may in our own persons and friends be subjected to suffer. It pledges us to a war of revenge and extermination; and we have to consider, before we wage the same, the strength of our adversary – the craft of his counsellors – and the malice with which their fears and their hatred will inspire them. For my own part, fellow-sufferers, I do doubt if there be any warrandice in the Scriptures for such a defiance as this paper contains, and I would fain entreat you to reflect, whether it be not better to keep the door of reconciliation open, than to shut it for ever, as the promulgation of this retaliatory edict will assuredly do."

The earnest manner in which Mr Renwick thus delivered himself had a powerful effect, and many thought as he did, and several rose and said that it was not Christian to bar the door on peace, and to shut out even the chance of contrition on the part of the King and his ministers.

I heard what they said – I listened to what they argued – and I allowed them to tell that they were willing to agree to more moderate counsels; but I could abide no more.

"Moderation! – You, Mr Renwick," said I, "counsel moderation – you recommend the door of peace to be still kept open – you doubt if the Scriptures warrant us to undertake revenge; and you hope that our forbearance may work to repentance among our enemies. Mr Renwick, you have hitherto been a preacher, not a sufferer; with you the resistance to Charles Stuart's government has been a thing of doctrine – of no more than doctrine, Mr Renwick – with us it is a consideration of facts. Judge ye therefore between yourself and us, – I say between yourself and us; for I ask no other judge to decide, whether we are not, by all the laws of God and man, justified in avowing, that we mean to do as we are done by.

"And, Mr Renwick, you will call to mind, that in this sore controversy, the cause of debate came not from us. We were peaceable Christians, enjoying the shade of the vine and fig-tree of the Gospel, planted by the care and cherished by the blood of our forefathers, protected by the laws, and gladdened in our protection by the oaths and the covenants which the King had sworn to maintain. The presbyterian freedom of worship was our property, – we were in possession and enjoyment, no man could call our right to it in question, – the King had vowed, as a condition before he was allowed to receive the crown, that he would preserve it. Yet, for more than twenty years, there has been a most cruel, fraudulent, and outrageous endeavour instituted, and carried on, to deprive us of that freedom and birthright. We were asking no new thing from Government, we were taking no step to disturb Government, we were in peace with all men, when Government, with the principles of a robber and the cruelty of a tyrant, demanded of us to surrender those immunities of conscience which our fathers had earned and defended; to deny the Gospel as it is written in the Evangelists, and to accept the commentary of Charles Stuart, a man who has had no respect to the most solemn oaths, and of James Sharp, the apostate of St Andrews, whose crimes provoked a deed, that but for their crimson hue, no man could have doubted to call a most foul murder. The King and his crew, Mr Renwick, are, to the indubitable judgment of all just men, the causers and the aggressors in the existing difference between his subjects and him. In so far, therefore, if blame there be, it lieth not with us nor in our cause.

"But, sir, not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of religious worship, Charles Stuart and his abettors have pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than they ever did any crime. I speak not to you, Mr Renwick, of your own outcast condition, – perhaps you delight in the perils of martyrdom; I speak not to those around us, who, in their persons, their substance, and their families, have endured the torture, poverty, and irremediable dishonour, – they may be meek and hallowed men, willing to endure. But I call to mind what I am and was myself. I think of my quiet home, – it is all ashes. I remember my brave first-born, – he was slain at Bothwell-brigg. Why need I speak of my honest brother; the waves of the ocean, commissioned by our persecutors, have triumphed over him in the cold seas of the Orkneys; and as for my wife, what was she to you? Ye cannot be greatly disturbed that she is in her grave. No, ye are quiet, calm, and prudent persons; it would be a most indiscreet thing of you, you who have suffered no wrong yourselves, to stir on her account; and then how unreasonable I should be, were I to speak of two fair and innocent maidens. – It is weak of me to weep, though they were my daughters. O men and Christians, brothers, fathers! but ye are content to bear with such wrongs, and I alone of all here may go to the gates of the cities, and try to discover which of the martyred heads mouldering there belongs to a son or a friend. Nor is it of any account whether the bones of those who were so dear to us, be exposed with the remains of malefactors, or laid in the sacred grave. To the dead all places are alike; and to the slave what signifies who is master. Let us therefore forget the past, – let us keep open the door of reconciliation, – smother all the wrongs we have endured, and kiss the proud foot of the trampler. We have our lives; we have been spared; the merciless blood-hounds have not yet reached us. Let us therefore be humble and thankful, and cry to Charles Stuart, O King live for ever! – for he has but cast us into a fiery furnace and a lion's den.

"In truth, friends, Mr Renwick is quite right. This feeling of indignation against our oppressors is a most imprudent thing. If we desire to enjoy our own contempt, and to deserve the derision of men, and to merit the abhorrence of Heaven, let us yield ourselves to all that Charles Stuart and his sect require. We can do nothing better, nothing so meritorious, nothing by which we can so reasonably hope for punishment here and condemnation hereafter. But if there is one man at this meeting, – I am speaking not of shapes and forms, but of feelings, – if there is one here that feels as men were wont to feel, he will draw his sword, and say with me, Woe to the house of Stuart! Woe to the oppressors! Blood for blood! Judge and avenge our cause, O Lord!"

CHAPTER LXXXV

The meeting, with one accord, agreed that the declaration should go forth; and certain of those who were ready writers, being provided with implements, retired apart to make copies, while Mr Renwick, with the remainder, joined together in prayer.

By the time he had made an end, the task of the writers was finished, and then lots were cast to see whom the Lord would appoint to affix the declaration on the trones and kirk doors of the towns where the rage of the persecutors burnt the fiercest, and He being pleased to choose me for one to do the duty at Edinburgh, I returned in the gloaming back to the house of Mrs Brownlee, to abide the convenient season which I knew in the fit time would be prepared. Nor was it long till the same was brought to pass, as I shall now briefly proceed to set down.

Heron Brownlee, who, as I have narrated, brought me to his mother's house, was by trade a tailor, and kept his cloth shop in the Canongate, some six doors lower down than St Mary's Wynd, just after passing the flesher's stocks below the Netherbow; for in those days, when the court was at Holyrood, that part of the town was a place of great resort to the gallants, and all such as affected a courtly carriage. And it happened that, on the morning after the meeting, a proclamation was sent forth, describing the persons and clothing of the prisoners who had escaped from the tolbooth with me, threatening grievous penalties to all who dared to harbour them. This Heron Brownlee seeing affixed on the cheek of the Netherbow, came and told me; whereupon, after conferring with him, it was agreed that he should provide for me a suit of town-like clothes, and at the second-hand, that they might not cause observance by any novelty. This was in another respect needful; for my health being in a frail state, I stood in want of the halesome cordial of fresh air, whereof I could not venture to taste but in the dusk of the evening.