“Dinna fear, gudeman! dinna fear! There’s nae blood shed in sic a cause that can ever be shed in vain. Na, na! that blood will argue better at the bar o’ Heaven for poor distressed Scotland than all the prayers of all the living. We hae done muckle, but we’ll do mair yet—muckle blood has been wantonly and diabolically shed, and our’s may rin wi’ the rest—we’ll no thraw’t wantonly and exultingly away; but, when our day comes, we’ll gie it cheerfully—as cheerfully, gudeman, as ever ye paid your mail to a kind landlord, even though the season had been hard and stormy. We had aince enough of this warld’s wealth, and to spare; but we hae naething now but our blood, and we’ll part wi’ that as cheerfully as the rest. And it will tell some day! and ye may live to see it yet. But enough, gudeman; we have all resolved, that, whatever the consequence may be, to live no more on your bounty—therefore, do not urge it—but give us all your hand—Farewell!—and may God bless you in all your actings and undertakings!—There is little chance that we shall ever meet again—We have no reward to give but our blessing and good wishes; but, whenever a knee here present is bowed at the footstool of grace, you will be remembered.”
Walter could not bear thus to part with them, and to give them up as it were to certain destruction. He argued as well as he could on the imprudence of the step they were going to take—of the impossibility of their finding a retreat so inaccessible in all the bounds of the south of Scotland, and the prospect that there was of the persecution soon relaxing. But when he had said all that he could say, a thin spare old man, with grey dishevelled locks, and looks, Walter said, as stern as the adders that he had lately been eating, rose up to address him. There was that in his manner which commanded the most intense attention.
“Dost thou talk of our rulers relaxing?” said he. “Blind and mistaken man! thou dost not know them. No; they will never relax till their blood shall be mixed with their sacrifices. That insatiate, gloomy, papistical tyrant and usurper, the Duke of York, and his commissioner, have issued laws and regulations more exterminating than ever. But yesterday we received the woeful intelligence, that, within these eight days, one hundred and fifty of our brethren have suffered by death or banishment, and nearly one–half of these have been murdered, even without the sham formality of trial or impeachment, nor had they intimation of the fate that awaited them. York hath said in full assembly, ‘that neither the realm nor the mother–church can ever be safe, until the south of Scotland is again made a hunting forest;’ and his commissioner hath sworn by the living God, ‘that never a whig shall again have time or warning to prepare for Heaven, for that hell is too good for them.’ Can we hope for these men relaxing? No! The detestable and bloody Clavers, that wizard! that eater of toads! that locust of the infernal pit, hems us in closer and closer on one side, and that Muscovite beast on the other! They thirst for our blood; and our death and tortures are to them matter of great sport and amusement. My name is Mackail! I had two brave and beautiful sons, and I had but two; one of these had his brains shot out on the moss of Monyhive without a question, charge, or reply. I gathered up his brains and shattered skull with these hands, tied them in my own napkin, and buried him alone, for no one durst assist me. His murderers stood by and mocked me, cursed me for a dog, and swore if I howled any more that they would send me after him. My eldest son, my beloved Hew, was hung like a dog at the Market–cross of Edinburgh. I conversed with him, I prayed with him in prison, kissed him, and bade him farewell on the scaffold! My brave, my generous, my beautiful son! I tell thee, man, thou who preachest up peace and forbearance with tyrants, should ever the profligate Charles, or his diabolical brother—should ever the murderer Clavers, or any of his hell–hounds of the north, dare set foot in Heaven, one look from the calm benignant face of my martyred son would drive them out howling!”
All this time the old man shed not a tear; his voice was wildly solemn, but his looks were mixed with madness. He had up his hand to swear, to pray, or to prophecy, Walter knew not which, but he was restrained by his associates, and led aside, so that Walter saw no more of him; but he said he could not get him out of his mind for many a day, for sic another desperate auld body he had never seen.
These harangues took up much of the time that they had to spare, but ere they parted Walter persuaded them, probably by his strong homely reasoning, to remain where they were. He said, since they persisted in refusing to take more of his flock, there was an extensive common beyond the height, called Gemsope, which had been a royal forest, where many gentlemen and wealthy farmers had sheep that fed promiscuously; and considering their necessitous circumstances, he thought it no evil, and he advised them to go and take from that glen as many as would serve to support nature for a time;—that for his part he had many a good wedder and dinmont there, and was willing to run his risk, which would then fall equal on a number, and only on such as were rich and could well bear it. In this plan, after some scruples which were overborne by the majority, they at length fully and thankfully acquiesced.
That same day, on his way homeward, Walter heard the wonderful relation of the apparition of his beloved daughter in the Hope at midnight; he learned that Clavers would be there in a few days, and he had sent away above 100 men to steal sheep—all these things made him thoughtful and uneasy after he had reached his home, wet and fatigued.—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsope this,” he said, sighing, not recollecting what he said or to whom he said it. He could trust his wife with any of his family concerns, but as long as she continued to be so much influenced by the curate Clerk, the sworn enemy of his poor persecuted flock, he durst not give her a hint of their retreat.
Walter became still more and more perplexed from all that he heard from his wife, as well as from every one else—he found that, in truth, there was some mysterious thing about his house—the whole family seemed convinced of it—there were many things seen, heard, and done there that he could in nowise account for in a rational way, and though he resisted the general belief for a good while, that the house was haunted, circumstances at length obliged him to yield to the torrent, and he believed as faithfully in the Brownie of Bodsbeck as any of them all.
1 This curious protest is still extant, and shows the true spirit of the old Covenanters or Cameronians, as they have since been called, better than any work remaining. It is called in the title page, “An informatory Vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented Remnant of the suffering Anti–popish, Anti–prelatic, Anti–erastian, Anti–sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland.” It is dated at Leadhills in 1687, and is the conjoint work of Mr James Renwick, and Mr Alexander Shiels, author of The Hind let loose. The following is an extract from it, p. 107:—
“And in like manner we do hereby disclaim all unwarrantable practices committed by any few persons reputed to be of us, whereby the Lord hath been offended, his cause wronged, and we all made to endure the scourge of tongues; for which things we have desired to make conscience of mourning before the Lord, both in public and private. As the unwarrantable manner of killing that curate at the Corsephairn, though he was a man of death both by the laws of God and man, and the fact not materially murder; it being gone about contrary to our declaration, common or competent consent, (the conclusion and deed being known only to three or four persons) in a rash and not a Christian manner, and also other offences being committed at the time; which miscarriages have proven a mean to stop and retard lawful, laudable, and warrantable proceeding, both as to matter and manner.”
These other offences committed at the time, unquestionably refer to the slaughter of the Highland soldiers; about which, there was great stir and numerous conjectures in the country; although, owing to the revolution that immediately followed, the perpetrators were never taken, nor the cause tried in a court of justice, nor indeed was the incident ever generally known.
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