CHAPTER XLIV.
A DESIRABLE GENERAL MEETING.
The next morning dawned colder and more chilly. The catch of the autumnof the year was in the air, and it nipped shrewdly till the sun lookedover the hills in the east. This was to be the great day of theSocieties' general meeting, which had been summoned in the wilds ofShalloch-on-Minnoch.[10]
[Footnote 10: Now, because men so readily forget, I may repeat how thatthe United Societies had grown in strength since Ayrsmoss, and nowneeded only a head to make a stand for the cause. It was a strange wayof the Providence of God, that it should come about that these littlemeetings for prayer in remote places of the land, should grow to be somighty a power for the pulling down of strongholds. At this time, thoughevery appearance in arms had been put down at Pentland, at Bothwell, andat Ayrsmoss, yet the Blue Banner itself had never been put down. Andeven now many a Malignant in the south and west trembled at the greatand terrible name of the "Seven Thousand."
The proclamations of the Societies, which were affixed to every kirkdoor and market cross in the south, caused many a persecutor andevil-wisher to quake and be silent. And the word that God was buildingfor Himself a folk on the hills of Scotland reached even to the LowCountries, and kept the Prince of Orange and his counsellors watchingwith eager eyes those things which were done by the Remnant over seas,till the appointed hour should come. Heading and hanging would not lastfor ever, and such is the binding power of persecution that for each onecut off by prison, or the hangman's cord, ten were sworn in to do thewill of the Societies. Till this present time most fatal dissension anddivision among themselves had been their undoing. But there was onecoming, now a willow wand of a student of Groningen in Holland, whoshould teach the Societies to be a wall of fire about their faith andtheir land.
To their conventions came commissioners from all parts of Scotland, butmainly from the southern and western shires, as well as from the Merse,and out of the bounds of Fife.]
Though the morn had dawned caller, with a white rime of frost lying onthe grass and for a little space making grey the leaves of the trees,the day of the great conventicle was one of great and lowering heat. Mymother was set to go--and Kate McGhie also. Wat must needs thereforeaccompany them, and I had a letter from Groningen which I behoved toread. With Anton Lennox, stout of heart even in his sickness, abode mylass, Maisie Lennox--of whom (though I looked to be back on the morrow)I took leave with reluctance and with a heavy and sinking heart.
For us who were used to making a herd's track across the hills, it wasnot a long step over the moors from Macaterick to the foot of theCraigfacie of Shalloch, where the General Meeting of the Societies wasto take place. But it was a harder matter for my mother.
She needed help over every little brink of a peat brow, and as we passedTonskeen, where there is a herd's house in the wild, far from man andvery quiet with God, I ran to get her a staff, which the shepherd's goodwife gladly gave. For there was little that would be refused to awanderer in these parts, when on his way to the Societies' Meeting.[11]
[Footnote 11: So grateful and inspiring were these gatherings, that manywent to their death recalling the grace and beauty of thesemeetings--"desirable general meetings"--they were in deed and sooth, atleast as I remember them.--(W. G., Afton, 1702.)]
Soon we left the strange, unsmiling face of Loch Macaterick behind, andtook our way towards the rocky clint, up which we had to climb. We wentby the rocks that are called the Rig of Carclach, where there is a passless steep than in other places, up to the long wild moor of theShalloch-on-Minnoch. It was a weary job getting my mother up the steepface of the gairy, for she had so many nick-nacks to carry, and so manyobserves to make.
But when we got to the broad plain top of the Shalloch Hill it waseasier to go forward, though at first the ground was boggy, so that wetook off our stockings and walked on the driest part. We left the burnof Knocklach on our left--playing at keek-bogle among the heather andbent--now standing stagnant in pools, now rindling clear over slatystones, and again disappearing altogether underground like a huntedCovenanter.
As soon as we came over the brow of the hill, we could see the folkgathering. It was wonderful to watch them. Groups of little black dotsmoved across the green meadows in which the farmsteading of theShalloch-on-Minnoch was set--a cheery little house, well thatched, andwith a pew of blue smoke blowing from its chimney, telling of warmhearts within. Over the short brown heather of the tops the groups ofwanderers came, even as we were doing ourselves--past the lonely copseat the Rowantree, by the hillside track from Straiton, up the littlerunlet banks where the heather was blushing purple, they wended theirways, all setting towards one place in the hollow. There already wasgathered a black cloud of folk under the rickle of stones that runsslidingly down from the steep brow of Craigfacie.
As we drew nearer we could see the notable Session Stone, a broad flatstone overhanging the little pourie burn that tinkles and lingers amongthe slaty rocks, now shining bone-white in the glare of the autumn sun.I never saw a fairer place, for the heights about are good for sheep,and all the other hills distant and withdrawn. It has not, indeed, theeye-taking glorious beauty of the glen of Trool, but nevertheless itlooked a very Sabbath land of benediction and peace that day of thegreat Societies' Meeting.
Upon the Session Stone the elders were already greeting one another,mostly white-headed men with dinted and furrowed faces, bowed and brokenby long sojourning among the moss-hags and the caves.
When we came to the place we found the folk gathering for prayer, beforethe conference of the chosen delegates of the societies. The women saton plaids that had been folded for comfort. Opposite the Session Stonewas a wide heathery amphitheatre, where, as on tiers of seats, rows ofmen and women could sit and listen to the preachers. The burnie's voicefilled up the breaks in the speech, as it ran small and black with thedrought, under the hollow of the bank. For, as is usual upon our moors,the rain and storm of the night had not reached this side of the hill.
I sat down on a lichened stone and looked at the grave, well-armed menwho gathered fast about the Session Stone, and on the delegates' side ofthe water. It was a fitting place for such a gathering, for only fromthe lonely brown hills above could the little cup of Conventicle beseen, nestling in the lap of the hill. And on all the moor tops thatlooked every way, couching torpid and drowsed in the hot sun, were to beseen the sentinels--pacing the heather like watchmen going round andtelling the towers of Zion, the sun flashing on their pikes and musketbarrels as they turned sharply, like men well-disciplined.
The only opening was to the south-west, but even there nothing but thedistant hills of Colmonell looked in, blue and serene. Down in thehollow there was a glint of melancholy Loch Moan, lying all abroad amongits green wet heather and stretches of yellow bent.
What struck me as most surprising in this assembly was the entireabsence of anything like concealment. From every quarter, up from thegreen meadows of the Minnoch Valley, over the scaurs of the Straitonhills, down past the craigs of Craigfacie, over from the deep howe ofCarsphairn, streams of men came walking and riding. The sun glinted ontheir war-gear. Had there been a trooper within miles, upon any of thecircle of the hills, the dimples of light could not have been missed.For they caught the sun and flecked the heather--as when one looks upona sparkling sea, with the sun rising over it and each wave carrying itsown glint of light with it upon its moving crest.
As I looked, the heart within me became glad with a full-grown joy. Solong had we of the Religion hidden like foxes and run like hares, thatwe had forgotten that there were so many in the like case, only needingdrawing together to be the one power in the land. But the time, thoughat hand, was not yet.
I asked of a dark long-haired man who stood near us, what was themeaning of such a gathering. He looked at me with a kind of pity, and Isaw the enthusiasm flash from his eye.
"The Seven Thousand!" he said; "ken ye not the Seven Thousand upon thehills of Scotland, that never bowed the knee to Baal?"
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"Pardon me, friend," said I, "long hiding on the mountains has made meignorant. But who are the Seven Thousand?"
"Have ye indeed hidden on the mountains and ken not that? Did ye neverhear of them that wait for the time appointed?"
I told him no.
"Then," said he, "who may you be that kens so little?"
I said that I was William Gordon, younger son of the persecuted house ofthe Gordons of Earlstoun.
"O, the Bull's brother!" said he, shortly, and turned him about to goaway. But Spitfire Wat was at his side, and, taking the dark man by theelbow, presently halted him and span him round so that he faced us.
"And who are you that speaks so lightly of my cousin of Earlstoun?" heasked.
I think Wat had forgotten that he was not now among his Cavalierblades--who, to do them justice, are ready to put every pot-housequarrel to the arbitrament of the sword, which is after all a better waythan disputation and the strife of tongues.
The dark man smiled. "Ye are hot, young sir," he said bitterly. "Thesemanners better befit the guard-room of Rob Grier of Lag than a gatheringof the Seven Thousand. But since ye ask my name, I am poor unworthyRobin Hamilton, on whom the Lord hath set His hand."
Then we knew that this dark-browed man was Sir Robert Hamilton, who withmy brother Sandy had been the Societies' Commissioner to the LowCounties, and who was here at Shalloch-on-Minnoch to defend his action.He was also brother of Jean Hamilton, Sandy's wife, and of a yet moresombre piety.
Then, though I knew well that he had been the rock on which the Covenantship split at Bothwell, and a stone of stumbling in our counsels eversince, yet, because he looked so weary and broken with toils, travels,and watchings, my heart could not choose but go out to him.
As he looked and said nothing, a more kindly light came into his eye ashe gazed at Wat. "Ye will be Black Bess of Lochinvar's son--a tacked-onCovenant man. But I doubt not a kindly lad, for all ye are so brisk withyour tongue and ready with your blade. I have seen the day when it wouldhave done me a pleasure to step out with you, in days that were full ofthe pride of the flesh. I do not blame you. To fight first and askwherefore after, is the Gordon all over. But do not forget that thisday, here on the wild side of the Shalloch-on-Minnoch, there arewell-nigh a thousand gentlemen of as good blood as your own. Homespuncloth and herds' plaidies cover many a man of ancient name this day,that never thought to find himself in arms against the King, even forthe truth's sake."
Robert Hamilton spoke with such an air of dignity and sadness, that Watlifted his hand to his blue bonnet in token that he was pacified. Andwith a kindly nod the stranger turned among the throng that now filledall the spacious place of meeting.