Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters

by John Galt

  CHAPTER LXX

  From the day of the desolation of his daughter, my brother seldom heldany communion with me; but I observed that with Michael he had muchbusiness, and though I asked no questions, I needed not to be told thatthere was a judgment and a doom in what they did. I was thereforefearful that some rash step would be taken at the burial of Bell; for itwas understood that all the neighbours, far and near, intended to bepresent to testify their pity for her fate. So I spoke to Mr Witherspoonconcerning my fears, and by his exhortations the body was borne to thekirk-yard in a solemn and peaceable manner.

  But just as the coffin was laid in the grave, and before a spadeful ofearth was thrown, a boy came running crying, "Sharp's kill't!--theapostate's dead!" which made every one turn round and pause; and whilewe were thus standing, a horseman came riding by, who confirmed thetidings, that a band of men whom his persecutions had made desperate,had executed justice on the apostate as he was travelling in hiscarriage with his daughter on Magus-moor. While the stranger was tellingthe news, the corpse lay in the grave unburied; and dreadful to tell!when he had made an end of his tale, there was a shout of joy andexultation set up by all present, except by Michael and my brother. Theystood unmoved, and I thought--do I them any wrong?--that they lookeddisconsolate and disappointed.

  But though the judgment on James Sharp was a cause of satisfaction toall covenanted hearts, many were not yet so torn by the persecution asentirely to applaud the deed. I shall not therefore enter upon theparticulars of what was done anent those who dealt his doom, for theywere not of our neighbourhood.

  The crime, however, of listening peacefully in the fields to the truthsof the Gospel became, in the sight of the persecutors, every day moreand more heinous, and they gave themselves up to the conscience-soothingtyranny of legal ordinances, as if the enactment and execution of bloodylaws, contrary to those of God, and against the unoffending privilegesof our nature, were not wickedness of as dark a stain as the murderer'suse of his secret knife. Edict and proclamation against field-preachingsand conventicles came following each other, and the latest was thefiercest and fellest of all which had preceded. But the cause of truth,and the right of communion with the Lord, was not to be given up: "It isnot for glory," we said in the words of those brave Scottish barons thatredeemed, with King Robert the Bruce, their native land from thethraldom of the English Edward, "nor is it for riches, neither is it forhonour, but it is for liberty alone we contend, which no true man willlose but with his life;" and therefore it was that we would not yieldobedience to the tyranny, which was revived with new strength by thedeath of James Sharp, in revenge for his doom, but sought, in despite ofdecrees and statutes, to hear THE WORD where we believed it was bestspoken.

  The laws of God, which are above all human authority, require that weshould worship him in truth and in holiness, and we resolved to do so tothe uttermost, and prepared ourselves with arms to resist whoever mightbe sent to molest us in the performance of that the greatest duty. Butin so exercising the divine right of resistance, we were not called uponto harm those whom we knew to be our adversaries. Belting ourselves fordefence, not for war, we went singly to our places of secret meeting inthe glens and on the moors, and when the holy exercise was done, wereturned to our homes as peacefully as we went thither.

  Many a time I have since thought, that surely in no other age or landwas ever such a solemn celebration of the Sabbath as in those days. Thevery dangers with which we were environed exalted the devout heart;verily it was a grand sight to see the fearless religious man movingfrom his house in the grey of the morning, with the Bible in his hand,and his sword for a staff, walking towards the hills for many a wearymile, hoping the preacher would be there, and praying as he went thatthere might be no molestation.

  Often and often on those occasions has the Lord been pleased to shelterhis worshippers from their persecutors by covering them with the mantleof His tempest; and many a time at the dead of night, when the windswere soughing around, and the moon was bowling through the clouds, wehave stood on the heath of the hills and the sound of our psalms hasbeen mingled with the roaring of the gathering waters.

  The calamities which drove us thus to worship in the wilderness, andamidst the storm, rose to their full tide on the back of the death ofthe arch-apostate James Sharp; for all the religious people in the realmwere in a manner regarded by the government as participators in themethod of his punishment. And Claverhouse, whom I have now to speak of,got that special commission on which he rode so wickedly, to put to thesword whomsoever he found with arms at any preaching in the fields; sothat we had no choice in seeking to obtain the consolations of religion,which we then stood so much in need of, but to congregate in suchnumbers as would deter the soldiers from venturing to attack us. This itwas which caused the second rising, and led to the fatal day ofBothwell-brigg, whereof it is needful that I should particularly speak,not only on account of the great stress that was thereon laid by thepersecutors, in making out of it a method of fiery ordeal to afflict thecovenanted, but also because it was the overflowing fountain-head of thedeluge that made me desolate. And herein, courteous reader, should aughtof a fiercer feeling than belongs to the sacred sternness of truth andjustice escape from my historical pen, thou wilt surely pardon the same,if there be any of the gracious ruth of Christian gentleness in thybosom; for now I have to tell of things that have made the annals of theland as red as crimson and filled my house with the blackness of ashesand universal death.

  For a long period there had been, from the causes and circumstancespremised, sore difficulties in the assembling of congregations, and thesacrament of the Supper had not been dispensed in many parts of theshire of Ayr from the time of the Highland host; so that there was agreat longing in the hearts of the covenanted to partake once again ofthat holy refreshment; and shortly after the seed-time it began to beconcerted, that early in the summer a day should be set apart, and aplace fixed for the celebration of the same. About the time of theinterment of my brother's desolated daughter, and the judgment of thedeath executed on James Sharp, it was settled that the moors ofLoudon-hill should be the place of meeting, and that the first Sabbathof June should be the day. But what ministers would be there was notsettled; for who could tell which, in those times, would be spared fromprison?

  It was, however, forethought and foreseen, that the assemblage ofcommunicants would be very considerable; for, in order that there mightbe the less risk of molestation, a wish that it should be so was putforth among us, to the end that the King's forces might swither todisperse us. Accordingly, with my disconsolate brother and son, I wentto be present at that congregation, and we carried our arms with us, aswe were then in the habit of doing on all occasions of public testimonyby worship.

  In the meantime a rent had been made in the Covenant, partly by theover-zeal of certain young preachers, who, not feeling, as we did, thatthe duty of presbyterians went no farther than defence and resistance,strove, with all the pith of an effectual eloquence, to exasperate theminds of their hearers into hostility against those in authority; and ithappened that several of those who had executed the judgment on JamesSharp, seeing no hope of pardon for what they had done, leaguedthemselves with this party, in the hope of thereby making head againsttheir pursuers.

  I have been the more strict in setting down these circumstantials,because in the bloody afterings of that meeting they were altogetherlost sight of; and also because the implacable rage with whichClaverhouse persecuted the Covenanters has been extenuated by somediscreet historians, on the plea of his being an honourable officer,deduced from his soldierly worth elsewhere; whereas the truth is, thathis cruelties in the shire of Ayr, and other of our western parts, wereless the fruit of his instructions, wide and severe as they were, thanof his own mortified vanity and malignant revenge.