Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters
Page 73
CHAPTER LXXII
Before proceeding farther at this present time with the doleful tale ofmy own sufferings, it is required of me, as an impartial historian, tonote here a very singular example of the spirit of piety which reignedin the hearts of the Covenanters, especially as I shall have to showthat such was the cruel and implacable nature of the Persecution, thattime had not its wonted influence to soften in any degree its rigour.Thirteen years had passed from the time of the Pentland raid; and surelythe manner in which the country had suffered for that rising might, inso long a course of years, have subdued the animosity with which we werepursued; especially, as during the Earl of Tweeddale's administrationthe bonds of peace had been accepted. But Lauderdale, now at the head ofthe councils, was rapacious for money; and therefore all offences, if Imay employ that courtly term, by which our endeavours to taste of thetruth were designated,--all old offences, as I was saying, were renewedagainst us as recent crimes, and an innocent charity to the remains ofthose who had suffered for the Pentland raid was made a reason, afterthe battle of Bothwell-brigg, to revive the persecution of those who hadbeen out in that affair.
The matter particularly referred to arose out of the followingcircumstances:
The number of honest and pious men who were executed in differentplaces, and who had their heads and their right hands with which theysigned the Covenant at Lanerk cut off, and placed on the gates of townsand over the doors of tolbooths, had been very great. And it was verygrievous, and a sore thing to the friends and acquaintances of thosemartyrs, when they went to Glasgow, or Kilmarnock, or Irvine, or Ayr, ontheir farm business, to tryst or market, to see the remains of persons,whom they so loved and respected in life, bleaching in the winds and therains of Heaven. It was, indeed, a matter of great heart-sadness, tobehold such animosity carried beyond the grave; and few they were whocould withstand the sight of the orphans that came thither, pointing outto one another their fathers' bones, and weeping as they did so, andvowing, with an innocent indignation, that they would avenge theirmartyrdom.
Well do I remember the great sorrow that arose one market-day in Irvine,some five or six years after the Pentland raid, when Mrs M'Coul came,with her four weans and her aged gudemother, to look at the relics ofher husband, who was martyred for his part in that rising. The boneswere standing, with those of another martyr of that time, on a shelfwhich had been put up for the purpose, below the first wicket-hole inthe steeple, just above the door. The two women were very decent intheir apparel, rather more so than the common country wives. Thegudemother, in particular, had a cast of gentility both in her look andgarments; and I have heard the cause of it expounded, from her havingbeen the daughter of one of the Reformation preachers in theGospel-spreading epoch of John Knox. She had a crimson satin plaid overher head, and she wore a black silk apron and a grey camlet gown. Withthe one hand she held the plaid close to her neck, and the youngestchild, a lassie of seven years or so, had hold of her by the fore-fingerof the other.
Mrs M'Coul was more of a robust fabric, and she was without any plaid,soberly dressed in the weeds of a widow, with a clean cambrichandkerchief very snodly prined over her breast. The children werelikewise beinly apparelled, and the two sons were buirdly and braveladdies, the one about nine, and the other maybe eleven years old.
It would seem that this had been the first of their pilgrimages ofsorrow; for they stood some time in a row at the foot of the tolboothstair, looking up at the remains, and wondering, with tears in theireyes, which were those they had come to see.
Their appearance drew around them many onlookers, both of the countryfolk about the Cross and inhabitants of the town; but every onerespected their sorrow, and none ventured to disturb them with anyquestions; for all saw that they were kith or kin to the godly men whohad testified to the truth and the Covenant in death.
It happened, however, that I had occasion to pass by, and some of thetown's folk who recollected me, said whisperingly to one another, butloud enough to be heard, that I was one of the persecuted; whereupon MrsM'Coul turned round and said to me, with a constrained composure,--
"Can ye tell me whilk o' yon's the head and hand o' John M'Coul, thatwas executed for the covenanting at Lanerk?"
I knew the remains well, for they had been pointed out to me and I hadseen them very often, but really the sight of the two women and thefatherless bairns so overcame me that I was unable to answer.
"It's the head and the hand beside it, that has but twa fingers left, onthe Kirkgate end o' the shelf!" replied a person in the crowd, whom Iknew at once by his voice to be Willy Sutherland the hangman, although Ihad not seen him from the night of my evasion. And here let me notforget to set down the Christian worth and constancy of that simple andgodly creature, who, rather than be instrumental in the guilty judgmentby which John M'Coul and his fellow-sufferer were doomed to die, didhimself almost endure martyrdom, and yet never swerved in his purpose,nor was abated in his integrity, in so much, that when questionedthereafter anent the same by the Earl of Eglinton, and his Lordship,being moved by the simplicity of his piety, said, "Poor man, you didwell in not doing what they would have had you to do."
"My Lord," replied Willy, "you are speaking treason! and yet youpersecute to the uttermost, which shows that you go against the light ofyour conscience."
"Do you say so to me, after I kept you from being hanged?" said hisLordship.
"Keep me from being drowned, and I will still tell you the verity." Thewhich honesty in that poor man begat for him a compassionate regard thatthe dignities of many great and many noble in that time could nevercommand.
When the sorrowful M'Couls had indulged themselves in their melancholycontemplation, they went away, followed by the multitude with silenceand sympathy, till they had mounted upon the cart which they had broughtwith them into the town. But from that time every one began to speak ofthe impiety of leaving the bones so wofully exposed; and after theskirmish at Drumclog, where Robin M'Coul, the eldest of the twostriplings above spoken of, happened to be, when Mr John Welsh, withthe Carrick men that went to Bothwell-brigg, was sent into Glasgow tobury the heads and hands of the martyrs there, Robin M'Coul came with aparty of his friends to Irvine to bury his father's bones. I was notmyself present at the interment, being, as I have narrated, confined tomy bed by reason of my wound. But I was told by the neighbours, that itwas a very solemn and affecting scene. The grieved lad carried therelics of his father in a small box in his hands, covered with a whitetowel; and the godly inhabitants of the town, young and old, and of alldenominations, to the number of several hundreds, followed him to thegrave where the body was lying; and Willy Sutherland, moved by a simplesorrow, was the last of all; and he walked, as I was told, alone,behind, with his bonnet in his hand; for, from his calling, he countedhimself not on an equality with other men. But it is time that I shouldreturn from this digression to the main account of my narrative.