Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters Part 24

At last the sweet melody of the psalm died away, and I arose and went towards the airt from which it had come; but as I advanced, the noise of the roaring waters grew louder and deeper, till they were as the breaking of the summer waves along the Ardrossan sh.o.r.e, and presently I found myself on the brink of a cliff, over which the river tumbled into a rugged chasm, where the rocks were skirted with leafless brambles and hazel, and garmented with ivy.

On a green sloping bank, at a short distance below the waterfall, screened by the rocks and trees on the one side, and by the rising ground on the other, about thirty of the Lord's flock, old and young, were seated around the feet of an aged grey-haired man, who was preaching to them,--his left hand resting on his staff,--his right was raised in exhortation,--and a Bible lay on the ground beside him.

I stood for the s.p.a.ce of a minute looking at the mournful yet edifying sight,--mournful it was, to think how G.o.d's people were so afflicted, that they durst not do their Heavenly King homage but in secrecy,--and edifying, that their constancy was of such an enduring nature that persecution served but to test it, as fire does the purity of gold.

As I was so standing on the rock above the linn, the preacher happened to lift his eyes towards me, and the hearers who were looking at him, turned round, and hastily rising, began to scatter and flee away. I attempted to cry to them not to be afraid, but the sound of the cataract drowned my voice. I then ran as swiftly as I could towards the spot of wors.h.i.+p, and reached the top of the sloping bank just as a young man was a.s.sisting Mr Swinton to mount a horse which stood ready saddled, tied to a tree; for the preacher was no other than that G.o.dly man; but the courteous reader must from his own kind heart supply what pa.s.sed at our meeting.

Fain he was at that time to have gone no farther on with the exercise, and to have asked many questions of me concerning the expedition to the Pentlands; but I importuned him to continue his blessed work, for I longed to taste the sweet waters of life once more from so hallowed a fountain; and, moreover, there was a woman with a baby at her bosom, which she had brought to be baptized from a neighbouring farm, called the Killochenn,--and a young couple of a composed and sober aspect, from the Back-o'-the-world, waiting to be joined together, with his blessing, in marriage.

When he had closed his sermon and done these things, I went with him, walking at the side of his horse, discoursing of our many grievous anxieties; and he told me that, after being taken to Glasgow and confined in prison there like a malefactor for thirteen days, he had been examined by the Bishop's court, and through the mediation of one of the magistrates, a friend of his own, who had a soft word to say with the Bishop, he was set free with only a menace, and an admonishment not to go within twenty miles of his own parish, under pain of being dealt with according to the edict.

Conversing in this manner, and followed by divers of those who had been solaced with his preaching, for the most part pious folk belonging to the town of Inverkip, we came to a bridge over the river.

"Here, Ringan," said he, "we must part for the present, for it is not meet to create suspicion. There are many of the faithful, no doubt, in thir parts, but it's no to be denied that there are likewise goats among the sheep. The Lady of Dunrod, where I am now going, is, without question, a precious vessel free of crack or flaw, but the Laird is of a courtly compliancy, and their neighbour, Carswell, she tells me, is a man of the dourest idolatry, his mother having been a papistical woman, and his father, through all the time of the First King Charles, an eydent ettler for preferment."

So we then parted, he going his way to Dunrod Castle, and one of the hearers, a farmer hard by, offering me shelter for the night, I went with him.

CHAPTER LIX

The decent, thoughtful, elderly man, who so kindly invited me to his house, was by name called Gideon Kemp; and as we were going towards it together, he told me of divers things that worthy Mr Swinton had not time to do; among the rest, that the preaching I had fallen in with at the linn, which should thenceforth be called the Covenanters' Linn, was the first taste of Gospel-fother that the scattered sheep of those parts had tasted for more than eight months.

"What's to come out o' a' this oppression," said he, "is wonderful to think o'. It's no in the power of nature that ony government or earthly inst.i.tution framed by the wit and will of man can withstand a whole people. The prelates may persecute, and the King's power may back their iniquities, but the day and the hour cannot be far off when both the power and the persecutors will be set at nought, and the sense of what is needful and right, no what is fantastical and arbitrary, govern again in the counsels of this realm. I say not this in the boast of prediction and prophecy, but as a thing that must come to pa.s.s; for no man can say, that the peaceful wors.h.i.+pping according to the Word is either a sin, a shame, or an offence against reason; but the extortioning of fines, and the desolation of families, for attending the same, is manifestly guilt of a dark dye, and the Judge of Righteousness will avenge it."

As we were thus walking sedately towards his dwelling, I observed and pointed out to him a la.s.sie coming running towards us. It was his daughter; and when she came near, panting and out of breath with her haste she said--

"O, father ye manna gang hame;--twa of Carswell's men hae been speering for you and they had swords and guns. They're o'er the hill to the linn, for wee Willie telt them ye were gane there to a preaching."

"This comes," says the afflicted Gideon, "of speaking of secret things before bairns; wha could hae thought, that a creature no four years old would have been an instrument of discovery?--It'll no be safe now for you to come hame wi' me, which I'm wae for, as ye're sae sorely weary't; but there's a frien o' ours that lives ayont the Holmstone-hill, aboon the auld kirk; I'll convey you thither, and she'll gi'e you a shelter for the night."

So we turned back, and again crossed the bridge before spoken of, and held our course towards the house of Gideon Kemp's wife's stepmother.

But it was not ordained that I was yet to enjoy the protection of a raftered dwelling; for just as we came to the Daff-burn, down the glen of which my G.o.dly guide was mindet to conduct me, as being a less observable way than the open road, he saw one of Ardgowan's men coming towards us, and that family being of the progeny of the Stuarts, were inclined to the prelatic side.

"Hide yoursel," said he, "among the bushes."

And I den't myself in a nook of the glen, where I overheard what pa.s.sed.

"I thought, Gideon," said the lad to him, "that ye would hae been at the conventicle this afternoon. We hae heard o't a'; and Carswell has sworn that he'll hae baith doited Swinton and Dunrod's leddy at Glasgow afore the morn, or he'll mak a tawnle o' her tower."

"Carswell shouldna crack sae croose," replied Gideon Kemp; "for though his castle stands proud in the green valley, the time may yet come when horses and carts will be driven through his ha', and the foul toad and the cauld snail be the only visitors around the unblest hearth o'

Carswell."

The way in which that gifted man said these words made my heart dinle; but I hae lived to hear that the spirit of prophecy was a.s.suredly in them: for, since the Revolution, Carswell's family has gone all to drift, and his house become a wastege;--folk say, a new road that's talked o' between Inverkip and Greenock is to go through the very middle o't, and so mak it an awful monument of what awaits and will betide all those who have no mercy on their fellow-creatures, and would exalt themselves by abetting the strength of the G.o.dless and the wrength of the oppressors.

Ardgowan's man was daunted by the words of Gideon Kemp, and replied in a subdued manner, "It's really a melancholious thing to think that folk should hae gane so wud about ministers and religion;--but tak care of yoursel, Gideon, for a party of soldiers hae come the day to Cartsd.y.k.e to take up ony of the Rullion-green rebels that hae fled to thir parts, and they catcht, I hear, in a public in the Stenners, three men, and have sent them to Glasgow to be hanged."

I verily thought my heart would at this have leapt out of my bosom.

"Surely," replied Gideon Kemp, "the wrath of government is no so unquenchable, that a' the misguided folk concernt in the rising are doom't to die. But hae ye heard the names of the prisoners, or where they belong to?"

"They're o' the s.h.i.+re o' Ayr, somewhere frae the skirts o' Irvine or Kilwinning; and I was likewise told their names, but they're no of a familiarity easy to be remembered."

The horror which fell upon me at hearing this made me forget my own peril, and I sprung out of the place of my concealment, and cried,--

"Do you ken if any of them was of the name of Gilhaize?"

Ardgowan's man was astounded at seeing me standing before him in so instanter a manner, and before making any response, he looked at Gideon Kemp with a jealous and troubled eye.

"Nay," said I, "you shall deal honestly with me, and from this spot you shall not depart till you have promised to use nae scaith to this worthy man." So I took hold of him by the skirts of his coat, and added, "Ye're in the hands of one that tribulation has made desperate. I, too, am a rebel, as ye say, from Rullion-green, and my life is forfeited to the ravenous desires of those who made the laws that have created our offence. But fear no wrong, if you have aught of Christian compa.s.sion in you. Was Gilhaize the name of any of the prisoners?"

"I'll no swear't," was his answer; "but I think it was something like that;--one of them, I think, they called Finnie."

"Robin Finnie," cried I, dropping his coat, "he was wi' my brother; I canna doubt it;" and the thought of their fate flooded my heart, and the tears flowed from my eyes.

The better nature of Ardgowan's man was moved at the sight of my distress, and he said to Gideon Kemp,--

"Ye needna be fear't, Gideon; I hope ye ken mair o' me than to think I would betray either friend or acquaintance. But gang na' to the toun, for a' yon'er's in a state o' unco wi' the news o' what's being doing the day at Cartsd.y.k.e, and every body's in the hourly dread and fear o'

some o' the black-cuffs coming to devour them."

"That's spoken like yoursel, Johnnie Jamieson," said Gideon Kemp; "but this poor man," meaning me, "has had a day o' weary travel among the moors, and is greatly in need of refreshment and a place of rest. When the sword, Johnnie, is in the hand, it's an honourable thing to deal stoutly wi' the foe; but when forlorn and deject.i.t, and more houseless than the beasts of the field, he's no longer an adversary, but a man that we're bound by the laws of G.o.d and nature to help."

Jamieson remained for a short s.p.a.ce in a dubious manner, and looking mildly towards me, he said, "Gang you your ways, Gideon Kemp, and I'll ne'er say I saw you; and let your friend den himsel in the glen, and trust me: naebody in a' Inverkip will jealouse that ony of our house would help or harbour a covenanted rebel; so I'll can bring him to some place o' succour in the gloaming, where he'll be safer than he could wi'

you."

Troubled and sorrowful as I was, I could not but observe the look of soul-searching scrutiny that Gideon Kemp cast at Jamieson, who himself was sensible of his mistrust, for he replied,--

"Dinna misdoot me, Gideon Kemp; I would sooner put my right hand in the fire, and burn it to a cinder, than harm the hair of a man that was in my power."

"And I'll believe you," said I; "so guide me wheresoever you will."

"Ye'll never thrive, Johnnie Jamieson," added honest Gideon, "if ye're no sincere in this trust."

So after some little farther communing, the worthy farmer left us, and I followed Jamieson down the Daff-burn, till we came to a mill that stood in the hollow of the glen, the wheel whereof was happing in the water with a pleasant and peaceful din that sounded consolatory to my hearing after the solitudes, the storms and the accidents I had met with.

"Bide you here," said Jamieson; "the gudeman's ane o' your folk, but his wife's a thought camstrarie at times, and before I tak you into the mill I maun look that she's no there."

So he hastened forward, and going to the door, went in, leaving me standing at the sluice of the mill-lade, where, however, I had not occasion to wait long, for presently he came out, and beckoned to me with his hand to come quickly.

CHAPTER LX

Sauners Paton, as the miller was called, received me in a kindly manner, saying to Jamieson,--