Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

by John Galt

  CHAPTER LIII

  Saving the innocent alarm of the drum in the mist, our march to Lanerkwas without hinderance or molestation; and when we arrived there, it wasagreed and set forth, on the exhortation of the ministers who were withus, that the Solemn League and Covenant should be publicly renewed; and,to the end that no one might misreport the spirituality of our zeal andintents, a Protestation was likewise published, wherein we declared ouradherence and allegiance to the King undiminished in all temporalities;that we had been driven to seek redress by the sword for oppressions sogrievous, that they could be no longer endured; and that all we askedand sought for was the re-establishment of the presbyterian liberty ofworship, and the restoration of our godly pastors to their Gospel rightsand privileges.

  The morrow after was appointed for the covenanting, and to be held as aday of fasting and humiliation for our own sins, which had provoked theLord to bring us into such state of peril and suffering; and it was asacred consolation, as Mr Semple showed in his discourse on theoccasion, that, in all our long and painful travels from Dumfries, wehad been guided from the commission of any offence, even towards thosewhose hearts were not with us, and had been brought so far on our way asblameless as a peaceable congregation going in the lown of a Sabbathmorning to worship their Maker in the house of prayer.

  But neither the sobriety of our demeanour, nor the honest protestationof our cause, had any effect on the obdurate heart of the apostate JamesSharp, who happened, by reason of the Lord Rothes going to London, to bethen in the chief chair of the privy-council at Edinburgh. He knew thedeserts of his own guilt, and he hated us, even unto death, for the woeshe had made us suffer. The sough, therefore, of our approach was to theconsternation of his conscience as the sound of the wheels of anavenging God, groaning heavily in their coming with the weight of theengines of wrath and doom. Some said that he sat in the midst of thecounsellors like a demented man; and others, that he was seen flying toand fro, wringing his hands, and weeping, and wailing, and gnashing histeeth. But though all power of forethought and policy was taken fromhim, there were others of the council who, being less guilty, were moregoverned, and they took measures to defend the capital against us. Theycommanded the gates to be fenced with cannon, and working on the terrorsof the inhabitants with fearful falsehoods of crimes that were nevercommitted, thereby caused them to band themselves for the protection oftheir lives and property, while they interdicted them from all egress,in so much that many who were friendly to us were frustrated in theirdesire to come with the aid of their helps and means.

  The tidings of the preparations for the security of Edinburgh, with theunhappy divisions and continual controversies in our councils, betweenthe captains and the ministers, anent the methods of conducting theraid, had, even before we left Lanerk, bred much sedition among us, andan ominous dubiety of success. Nevertheless, our numbers continued toincrease, and we went forward in such a commendable order of battle,that, had the Lord been pleased with our undertaking, there was noreason to think the human means insufficient for the end. But in themysteries of the depths of His wisdom He had judged, and for the greatpurposes of His providence He saw that it was meet we should yet suffer.Accordingly, even while we were issuing forth from the port of the town,the face of the heavens became overcast, and a swift carry and a risingwind were solemn intimations to my troubled spirit that the hearteningof His countenance went no farther with us at that time.

  Nor indeed could less than a miracle in our behalf have availed; for theyear was old in November, the corn was stacked, the leaf fallen, andNature, in outcast nakedness, sat, like the widows of the martyrs,forlorn on the hills: her head was bound with the cloud, and she mournedover the desolation that had sent sadness and silence into all herpleasant places.

  As we advanced the skies lowered, and the blast raved in the leaflessboughs; sometimes a passing shower, as it travelled in the storm,trailed its watery skirts over our disheartened host, quenching the zealof many,--and ever and anon the angry riddlings of the cruel hail stillmore and more exasperated our discontent. I observed that the men beganto turn their backs to the wind, and to look wistfully behind, and tomutter and murmur to one another. But still we all advanced, gradually,however, falling into separate bands and companies, like the ice of theriver's stream breaking asunder in a thaw.

  In the afternoon the fits of the wind became less vehement; the cloudswere gathered more compactly together, and the hail had ceased, but therain was lavished without measure. The roads became sloughs,--our feetwere drawn heavily out of the clay,--the burns and brooks raged frombank to brae,--and the horses swithered at the fords, in so much, thattowards the gloaming, when we were come to Bathgate, several of ourbroken legions were seen far behind; and when we halted for the night,scarcely more than half the number with whom we had that morning leftLanerk could be mustered, and few of those who had fallen behind cameup. But still Captain Learmont thought, that as soon as the men hadtaken some repose after that toilsome march, we should advance outrightto Edinburgh. Wallace, however, objected, and that night was spentbetween them and the ministers in thriftless debate; moreover, ourhardships were increased; for, by the prohibition of the privy-councilagainst the egress of the inhabitants of the city, we were, as I havesaid, disappointed of the provisions and succour we had trusted toreceive from them, and there was no hope in our camp, but onlybitterness of spirit and the breathings of despair.

  Seeing, what no man could hide from his reason, our cause abandoned ofthe Lord, I retired from the main body of the host, and sat alone on arock, musing with a sore heart on all that had come so rashly to pass.It was then the last hour of the gloaming, and every thing around wasdismayed and dishevelled. The storm had abated, and the rain was over,but the darkness of the night was closing fast in, and we were environedwith perils. A cloud, like the blackness of a mort-cloth, hung over ourcamp; the stars withheld their light, and the windows of the castleshone with the candles of our enemies, who, safe in their stronghold,were fresh in strength and ready for battle.

  I thought of my home, of the partner of my anxieties and cares, of thechildren of our love, and of the dangers of their defencelessness, and Imarvelled with a weeping spirit at the manner in which I had beensnatched up, and brought, as it were in a whirlwind, to be an actor in ascene of such inevitable woe. Sometimes, in the passion of that grief, Iwas tempted to rise, and moved to seek my way back to the nest of myaffections. But as often as the thought came over my heart, with itssoft and fond enticements, some rustle in the camp of the weary men whohad borne in the march all that I had borne, and many of them in thecause far more, yea, even to the martyrdom of dear friends, I bowed myhead and prayed for constancy of purpose and fortitude of mind, if thearm of flesh was ordained to be the means of rescuing the Gospel, anddelivering poor Scotland from prelatic tyranny, and the thraldom of ananti-Christian usurpation in the kingly power.

  While I was thus sitting in this sad and solitary state, none doubtingthat before another night our covenanted army would be, as the hail thatsmote so sorely on our march, seen no more, and only known to have beenby the track of its course on the fields over which we had passed, alight broke in upon the darkness of my soul, and amidst high and holyexperiences of consolation, mingled with awe and solemn wonder, I beheldas it were a bright and shining hand draw aside the curtain of time, anddisclose the blessings of truth and liberty that were ordained to risefrom the fate of the oppressors, who, in the pride and panoply ofarbitrary power, had so thrown down the temple of God, and laid wasteHis vineyard.

  I saw that from our hasty enterprise they would be drawn to commit stillmore grievous aggressions, and thereby incur some fearful forfeiture ofthe honours and predominancy of which they had for so many years shownthemselves so unworthy; and I had a foretaste in that hour of thefulfilment of my grandfather's prophecy concerning the tasks that werein store for myself in the deliverance of my native land. So that,although I rose from the rock whereon I was sitting, in the clearconviction that
our array would be scattered like chaff before the wind,I yet had a blessed persuasion that the event would prove in the end alink in the chain, or a cog in the wheel, of the hidden enginery withwhich Providence works good out of evil.