on this man had been minutely pre-arranged by the PrivyCouncil. We mention a few in order that the reader may the betterunderstand the inconceivable brutality of the Government against whichthe Scottish Covenanters had to contend. Besides the barbaritiesconnected with poor Cameron's head and hands, it was arranged thatHackston's body was to be drawn backward on a hurdle to the cross ofEdinburgh, where, in the first place, his right hand was to be struckoff, and after some time his left hand. Thereafter he was to be hangedup and cut down alive; his bowels to be taken out and his heart shown tothe people by the hangman, and then to be burnt in a fire on thescaffold. Afterwards his head was to be cut off, and his body, dividedinto four quarters, to be sent respectively to Saint Andrews, Glasgow,Leith, and Burntisland.
In carrying out his fiendish instructions the bungling executioner was along time mangling the wrist of Hackston's right arm before he succeededin separating the hand. Hackston quietly advised him to be more carefulto strike in the joint of the left. Having been drawn up and let fallwith a jerk, three times, life was not extinct, for it is said that whenthe heart was torn out it moved after falling on the scaffold.
Several others who had been with Cameron were betrayed at this time, byapostate comrades, tried under torture, and executed; and thepersecution became so hot that field-preaching was almost extinguished.The veteran Donald Cargill, however still maintained his ground.
This able, uncompromising, yet affectionate and charitable man hadprepared a famous document called the "Queensferry Paper," of which ithas been said that it contains "the very pith of sound constitutionaldoctrine regarding both civil and ecclesiastical rights." Once,however, he mistook his mission. In the presence of a largecongregation at Torwood he went so far as to excommunicate Charles theSecond; the Dukes of York, Lauderdale, and Rothes; Sir Cu McKenzie andDalziel of Binns. That these despots richly deserved whateverexcommunication might imply can hardly be denied, but it is equallycertain that prolonged and severe persecution had stirred up poorCargill upon this occasion to overstep his duty as a teacher of love toGod and man.
Heavily did Cargill pay for his errors--as well as for his long andconscientious adherence to duty. Five thousand merks were offered forhim, dead or alive. Being captured, he was taken to Edinburgh on the15th of July, and examined by the Council. On the 26th he was tried andcondemned, and on the 27th he was hanged, after having witnessed a goodconfession, which he wound up with the words: "I forgive all men thewrongs they have done against me. I pray that the sufferers may be keptfrom sin and helped to know their duty."
About this time a _test_ oath was ordered to be administered to all menin position or authority. The gist of it was that King Charles theSecond was the only supreme governor in the realm over all causes, aswell ecclesiastical as civil, and that it was unlawful for any subjectupon pretence of reformation, or any pretence whatever, to enter intocovenants or leagues, or to assemble in any councils, conventicles,assemblies, etcetera, ecclesiastical or civil, without his specialpermission.
Pretty well this for a king who had himself signed the covenant--withoutwhich signing the Scottish nation would never have consented to assistin putting him on the throne! The greater number of the men in officein Scotland took the oath, though there were several exceptions--theDuke of Argyll, the Duke of Hamilton, John Hope of Hopetoun, the Duchessof Rothes, and others--among whom were eighty of the conforming clergywhose loyalty could not carry them so far, and who surrendered theirlivings rather than their consciences.
It would require a volume to record even a bare outline of the deeds ofdarkness that were perpetrated at this time. We must dismiss it all andreturn to the actors in our tale.
Will Wallace, after being recaptured, as already stated, was sent off tothe plantations in a vessel with about two hundred and fifty otherunfortunates, many of whom were seriously ill, if not dying, inconsequence of their long exposure in the Greyfriars' Churchyard.Packed in the hold of the ship so closely that they had not room to liedown, and almost suffocated with foul air and stench, the sufferingswhich they endured were far more terrible than those they experiencedwhen lying among the tombs; but God sent most of them speedydeliverance. They were wrecked on the coast of Orkney. At night theywere dashed on the rocks. The prisoners entreated to be let out oftheir prison, but the brutal captain ordered the hatches to be chaineddown. A tremendous wave cleft the deck, and a few of the more energeticmanaged to escape and reach the shore. The remainder--at least twohundred--were drowned in the hold. Will Wallace was among the saved,but was taken to Leith and transferred to another vessel. After severalmonths of tossings on the deep he reached his destination and was soldinto slavery.
Many months--even years--passed away, but no news reached CandlemakerRow regarding the fate of the banished people. As to Andrew Black, theonly change that took place in his condition during his long captivitywas his transference--unknown to his kindred--from the gloomy prison ofthe Bass Rock to the still gloomier cells of Dunnottar Castle.
During all this time, and for some years after, the persecutions werecontinued with ever-increasing severity: it seemed as if nothing shortof the extirpation of the Covenanters altogether was contemplated. Inshort, the two parties presented at this period an aspect of humanaffairs which may well be styled monstrous. On the one hand a peoplesuffering and fighting to the death to uphold law, and on the other atyrant king and arrogant ecclesiastics and nobles, with their paidslaves and sycophants, deliberately violating the same!
Quentin Dick and Ramblin' Peter had been drawn closer together bypowerful sympathy after the imprisonment of Black and the banishment ofWill Wallace. They were like-minded in their aspirations, though verydissimilar in physical and mental endowment. Feeling that Edinburgh wasnot a safe place in which to hide after his recent escape, Quentinresolved to return to Dumfries to inquire after, and if possible to aid,his friends there.
Peter determined to cast in his lot with him. In size he was still aboy though he had reached manhood.
"We maun dae our best to help the wanderers," said the shepherd, as theystarted on their journey.
"Ay," assented Peter.
Arrived in Galloway they were passing over a wide moorland region oneafternoon when a man suddenly appeared before them, as if he had droppedfrom the clouds, and held out his hand.
"What! McCubine, can that be you?" exclaimed Quentin, grasping theproffered hand. "Man, I _am_ glad to see ye. What brings ye here?"
McCubine explained that he and his friend Gordon, with four comrades,were hiding in the Moss to avoid a party of dragoons who were pursuingthem. "Grierson of Lagg is with them, and Captain Bruce is in command,"he said, "so we may expect no mercy if they catch us. Only the otherday Bruce and his men dragged puir old Tam McHaffie out o' his bed, tho'he was ill wi' fever, an' shot him."
Having conducted Quentin and Peter to the secret place where his friendswere hidden, McCubine was asked anxiously, by the former, if he knewanything about the Wilsons.
"Ay, we ken this," answered Gordon, "that although the auld folk haveagreed to attend the curates for the sake o' peace, the twa lassies haverefused, and been driven out o' hoose an' hame. They maun hae beenwanderin' amang the hills noo for months--if they're no catched by thistime."
Hearing this, Quentin sprang up.
"We maun rescue them, Peter," he said.
"Ay," returned the boy. "Jean Black will expect that for Aggie's sake;she's her bosom freend, ye ken."
Refusing to delay for even half an hour, the two friends hurried away.They had scarcely left, and the six hunted men were still standing onthe road where they had bidden them God-speed, when Bruce with hisdragoons suddenly appeared--surprised and captured them all. With thebrutal promptitude peculiar to that well-named "killing-time," four ofthem were drawn up on the road and instantly shot, and buried where theyfell, by Lochenkit Moor, where a monument now marks their resting place.
The two spared men, Gordon and McCubine, were then, without reasonassigned, bound
and carried away. Next day the party came to the CludenWater, crossing which they followed the road which leads to Dumfries,until they reached the neighbourhood of Irongray. There is a fieldthere with a mound in it, on which grows a clump of old oak-trees. Herethe two friends were doomed without trial to die. It is said that theminister of Irongray at that time was suspected of favourable leaningstoward the Covenanters, and that the proprietor of the neighbouring farmof Hallhill betrayed similar symptoms; hence the selection of theparticular spot between the two places, in order to intimidate both theminister and the farmer. This may well have been the case, for historyshows that a very strong and indomitable covenanting spirit prevailedamong the parishioners of Irongray as well as among the people of theSouth and West of Scotland generally. Indeed Wodrow, the historian,says that the people of