moving about the land, enforcing theiridiotical and wicked laws at the point of the sword. We say idioticaladvisedly, for what could give stronger evidence of mental incapacitythan the attempt to enforce a bond upon all landed proprietors, obligingthemselves and their wives, children, and servants, as well as all theirtenants and cottars, with their wives, children, and servants, toabstain from conventicles, and not to receive, assist, or even speak to,any forfeited persons, intercommuned ministers, or vagrant preachers,but to use their utmost endeavours to apprehend all such? Those whotook this bond were to receive an assurance that the troops should notbe quartered on their lands--a matter of considerable importance--forthis quartering involved great expense and much destruction of propertyin most cases, and absolute ruin in some.
After the battle of the Pentland Hills (in 1666), in which theCovenanters, driven to desperation, made an unsuccessful effort to throwoff the tyrannical yoke, severer laws were enacted against them. Theirwily persecutor, also being well aware of the evil influence ofdisagreement among men, threw a bone of contention among them in theshape of royal acts of _Indulgence_, as they were styled, by which acertain number of the ejected ministers were permitted to preach oncertain conditions, but only within their own parishes. To preach at aseparate meeting in a private house subjected the minister to a fine of5000 merks (about 278 pounds). To preach in the fields was to incur thepenalty of death and confiscation of property. And these arbitrary lawswere not merely enacted for intimidation. They were rigorouslyenforced. The curates in many cases became mere spies and Governmentinformers. Many of the best men in the land laid down their livesrather than cease to proclaim the Gospel of love and peace and goodwillin Jesus Christ. Of course their enemies set them down as self-willedand turbulent fanatics. It has ever been, and ever will be, thus withmen who are indifferent to principle. They will not, as well as cannot,understand those who are ready to fight, and, if need be, die for truth!Their unspoken argument seems to be: "You profess to preach peace,love, submission to authority, etcetera; very good, stand to yourprinciples. Leave all sorts of carnal fighting to us. Obey us.Conform humbly to our arrangements, whatever they are, and all will bewell; but dare to show the slightest symptom of restiveness under whatyou style our injustice, tyranny, cruelty, etcetera, and we will teachyou the submission which you preach but fail to practise by means offire and sword and torture and death!"
Many good men and true, with gentle spirits, and it may be somewhatexalted ideas about the rights of Royalty, accepted the Indulgence asbeing better than nothing, or better than civil war. No doubt, also,there were a few--neither good men nor true--who accepted it because itafforded them a loophole of escape from persecution. Similarly, on theother side, there were good men and true, who, with bolder hearts,perhaps, and clearer brains, it may be, refused the Indulgence as apresumptuous enactment, which cut at the roots of both civil andreligious liberty, as implying a right to withhold while it professed togive, and which, if acquiesced in, would indicate a degree of abjectslavery to man and unfaithfulness to God that might sink Scotland into acondition little better than that of some eastern nations at the presentday. Thus was the camp of the Covenanters divided. There were alsomore subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and inboth camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst theyoung men, of that powerful element--love of excitement and danger fortheir own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes farin all ages to neutralise the efforts and hamper the energies of thewise.
Besides the acts of Indulgence, another and most tyrannical measure,already mentioned, had been introduced to crush if possible thePresbyterians. _Letters of intercommuning_ were issued against a greatnumber of the most distinguished Presbyterians, including several ladiesof note, by which they were proscribed as rebels and cut off from allsociety. A price, amounting in some instances to 500 pounbds sterling,was fixed on their heads, and every person, not excepting their nearestof kin, was prohibited from conversing with or writing to them, or ofaiding with food, clothes, or any other necessary of life, on pain ofbeing found guilty of the same crimes as the intercommuned persons.
The natural result of such inhuman laws was that men and women inhundreds had to flee from their homes and seek refuge among the dens andcaves of the mountains, where many were caught, carried off to prison,tried, tortured, and executed; while of those who escaped their foes,numbers perished from cold and hunger, and disease brought on by lyingin damp caves and clefts of the rocks without food or fire in allweathers. The fines which were exacted for so-called offences temptedthe avarice of the persecutors and tended to keep the torch ofpersecution aflame. For example, Sir George Maxwell of Newark was fineda sum amounting to nearly 8000 pounds sterling for absence from hisParish Church, attendance at conventicles, and disorderly baptisms--iueufor preferring his own minister to the curate in the baptizing of hischildren! Hundreds of somewhat similar instances might be given. Up tothe time of which we write (1678) no fewer than 17,000 persons hadsuffered for attending field meetings, either by fine, imprisonment, ordeath.
Such was the state of matters when the party of dragoons under commandof Sergeant Glendinning rode towards the Mitchells' cottage, which wasnot far from Black's farm. The body of soldiers being too small toventure to interrupt the communion on Skeoch Hill, Glendinning had beentold to wait in the neighbourhood and gather information while hisofficer, Captain Houston, went off in search of reinforcements.
"There's the auld sinner himsel'," cried the Sergeant as the party camein sight of an old, whitehaired man seated on a knoll by the side of theroad. "Hallo! Jock Mitchell, is that you? Come doon here directly, Iwant to speak t'ye."
The old man, being stone deaf, and having his back to the road, was notaware of the presence of the dragoons, and of course took no notice ofthe summons.
"D'ye hear!" shouted the Sergeant savagely, for he was ignorant of theold man's condition.
Still Mitchell did not move. Glendinning, whose disposition seemed tohave been rendered more brutal since his encounter with Wallace, drew apistol from his holster and presented it at Mitchell.
"Answer me," he shouted again, "or ye're a deed man."
Mitchell did not move... There was a loud report, and next moment thepoor old man fell dead upon the ground.
It chanced that Ramblin' Peter heard the report, though he did notwitness the terrible result, for he was returning home from theMitchells' cottage at the time, after escorting Jean Black and AggieWilson thither. The two girls, having been forbidden to attend thegathering on Skeoch Hill, had resolved to visit the Mitchells and spendthe Sabbath with them. Peter had accompanied them and spent the greaterpart of the day with them, but, feeling the responsibility of hisposition as the representative of Andrew Black during his absence, hadat last started for home.
A glance over a rising ground sufficed to make the boy turn sharp roundand take to his heels. He was remarkably swift of foot. A few minutesbrought him to the cottage door, which he burst open.
"The sodgers is comin', grannie!" (He so styled the old woman, thoughshe was no relation.)
"Did ye see my auld man?"
"No."
"Away wi' ye, bairns," said Mrs. Mitchell quickly but quietly. "Oot bythe back door an' doon the burnside; they'll niver see ye for thebusses."
"But, grannie, we canna leave you here alone," remonstrated Jean with ananxious look.
"An' I can fecht!" remarked Peter in a low voice, that betrayed neitherfear nor excitement.
"The sodgers can do nae harm to _me_," returned the old woman firmly."Do my bidding, bairns. Be aff, I say!"
There was no resisting Mrs. Mitchell's word of command. Hastening outby the back door just as the troopers came in sight, Peter and hiscompanions, diving into the shrubbery of the neighbouring streamlet,made their way to Black's farm by a circuitous route. There the girlstook shelter in the house, locking the door and barring the windows,while Peter, diverging to the left, made fo
r the hills like a huntedhare.
Andrew was standing alone at his post when the lithe runner came insight. Will Wallace had left him by that time, and was listeningentranced to the fervid exhortations of Dickson of Rutherglen.
"The sodgers!" gasped Peter, as he flung himself down to rest.
"Comin' this way, lad?"
"Na. They're at the Mitchells."
"A' safe at the ferm?" asked Andrew quickly.
"Ay, I saw the lasses into the hoose."
"Rin to the meetin' an' gie the alarm. Tell them to send Wallace an'Quentin here wi' sax stoot men--weel airmed--an' anither sentry, for I'mgaun awa'."
Almost before the sentence was finished Ramblin' Peter was up and away,and soon the