Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters
Page 92
CHAPTER XCI
When Claverhouse left Stirling, he had but sixty horse. In little morethan a month he was at the head of seventeen hundred men. He obtainedreinforcements from Ireland. The Macdonalds, and the Camerons, and theGordons, were all his. A vassal of the Marquis of Athol had declared forhim even in the castle of Blair, and defended it against the clan of hismaster. An event still more strange was produced by the spell of hispresence,--the clansmen of Athol deserted their chief, and joined hisstandard. He kindled the hills in his cause, and all the life of theNorth was gathering around him.
Mackay, with the Covenanters, the regiments from Holland, and theCameronians, went from Perth to oppose his entrance into the Lowlands.The minds of men were suspended. Should he defeat Mackay, it was plainthat the crown would soon be restored to James Stuart, and the woes ofScotland come again.
In that dismal juncture I was alone; for Quintin Fullarton, with all theCameronians, was with Mackay.
I was an old man, verging on threescore.
I went to and fro in the streets of Edinburgh all day long, inquiring ofevery stranger the news; and every answer that I got was some newtriumph of Dundee.
No sleep came to my burning pillow, or if indeed my eyelids for veryweariness fell down, it was only that I might suffer the stings ofanxiety in some sharper form; for my dreams were of flames kindlingaround me, through which I saw behind the proud and exulting visage ofDundee.
Sometimes in the depths of the night I rushed into the street, and Ilistened with greedy ears, thinking I heard the trampling of dragoonsand the heavy wheels of cannon; and often in the day, when I saw threeor four persons speaking together, I ran towards them, and broke in upontheir discourse with some wild interrogation, that made them answer mewith pity.
But the haste and frenzy of this alarm suddenly changed: I felt that Iwas a chosen instrument; I thought that the ruin which had fallen on meand mine was assuredly some great mystery of Providence: I rememberedthe prophecy of my grandfather, that a task was in store for me, thoughI knew not what it was; I forgot my old age and my infirmities; Ihastened to my chamber; I put money in my purse; I spoke to no one; Ibought a carabine; and I set out alone to reinforce Mackay.
As I passed down the street, and out at the West-port, I saw the peoplestop and look at me with silence and wonder. As I went along the road,several that were passing inquired where I was going so fast? but Iwaived my hand and hurried by.
I reached the Queensferry without, as it were, drawing breath. Iembarked; and when the boat arrived at the northern side I had fallenasleep; and the ferryman, in compassion, allowed me to slumberunmolested. When I awoke I felt myself refreshed. I leapt on shore, andwent again impatiently on.
But my mind was then somewhat calmer; and when I reached Kinross Ibought a little bread, and retiring to the brink of the lake, dipped itin the water, and it was a savoury repast.
As I approached the Brigg of Earn I felt age in my limbs, and though thespirit was willing, the body could not; and I sat down, and I mournedthat I was so frail and so feeble. But a marvellous vigour was soonagain given to me, and I rose refreshed from my resting-place on thewall of the bridge, and the same night I reached Perth. I stopped in astabler's till the morning. At break of day, having hired a horse fromhim, I hastened forward to Dunkeld, where he told me Mackay had encampedthe day before, on his way to defend the Pass of Killicrankie.
The road was thronged with women and children flocking into Perth interror of the Highlanders, but I heeded them not. I had but one thought,and that was to reach the scene of war and Claverhouse.
On arriving at the ferry of Inver, the field in front of the Bishop ofDunkeld's house, where the army had been encamped, was empty. Mackay hadmarched towards Blair-Athol, to drive Dundee and the Highlanders, ifpossible, back into the glens and mosses of the North; for he had learntthat his own force greatly exceeded his adversary's.
On hearing this, and my horse being in need of bating, I halted at theferry-house before crossing the Tay, assured by the boatman that Ishould be able to overtake the army long before it could reach themeeting of the Tummel and the Gary. And so it proved; for, as I came tothat turn of the road where the Tummel pours its roaring waters into theTay, I heard the echoing of a trumpet among the mountains, and soonafter saw the army winding its toilsome course along the river's brink,slowly and heavily, as the chariots of Pharaoh laboured through thesands of the Desert; and the appearance of the long array was as themany-coloured woods that skirt the rivers in autumn.
On the right hand, hills, and rocks, and trees rose like the ruins ofthe ramparts of some ancient world; and I thought of the epochs when thedays of the children of men were a thousand years, and when giants wereon the earth, and all were swept away by the flood; and I felt as if Ibeheld the hand of the Lord in the cloud weighing the things of time inHis scales, to see if the sins of the world were indeed become again sogreat as that the cause of Claverhouse should be suffered to prevail.For my spirit was as a flame that blazeth in the wind, and my thoughtsas the sparks that shoot and soar for a moment towards the skies with aglorious splendour, and drop down upon the earth in ashes.