CHAPTER VII.
THE FIELD OF BOTHWELL BRIG.
"Gentlemen," cried a stern, calm voice, "gentlemen, is it thus that yeamuse yourselves when ye are upon the King's service?"
I turned about, and lo! it was the voice of John Graham of Claverhouse,high-pitched to the carrying note of command--of the man whom all theSouth and West knew then as the great persecutor, and all the Northafterwards as the great captain who stood for his master when all theothers forsook him and fled. I admit that my heart beat suddenly feeblebefore him, and as for my lads who were with me, I think they gavethemselves up for dead men. Though slender and not tall, Claversnevertheless looked noble upon the black horse which had carried him ata gallop down the burnside from Garryhorn. His eyes were full of fire,his bearing of gallantry. Yet methought there was something relentlessabout the man--something that friend might one day feel the bite of aswell as foe. For this was the man who, at his master's word, was nowdriving Scotland before him as sheep are driven into buchts on thehillside. But Scotland did not easily take to praying according to Actof Parliament, and I minded the witty old gentlewoman's word toClaverhouse himself, "Knox didna win his will without clavers, an'aiblins Clavers winna get his withoot knocks." It was a witty saying anda true, and many a day I lay in the moss-hags and wished that I had saidit.
Yet I think we of the Ancient Province never felt so keenly thebitterness of his oppression, though mostly it was without bowels ofmercy, as we did the riding and driving of Robert Grier of Lag, ofDouglas of Morton, of Queensberry and Drumlanrig, that were ofourselves--familiar at our tables, and ofttimes near kinsmen as well.
What John Graham did in the way of cess and exaction, and even ofshooting and taking, was in some measure what we had taken our count andreckoning with. But that men who knew our outgoings and incomings, ourstrengths and fastnesses, who had companied with us at kirk and market,should harry us like thieves, made our hearts wondrously hot and angrywithin us. For years I never prayed without making it a petition that Imight get a fair chance at Robert Grier--if it were the Lord's will. Andindeed it is not yet too late.
But it was Claverhouse that had come across us now.
"You would kill more King's men!" he cried to Wat Gordon; "you that havecome hither to do your best to undo the treason of your forebears. Mylad, that is the way to get your head set on the Netherbow beside yourfather's. Are there no man-sworn Whigs in the West that true men mustfall to hacking one another?"
He turned upon Inglis as fiercely:
"Cornet, are you upon duty? By what right do you fall to brawling withan ally of the country? Have we overly many of them in this accursedland, where there are more elephants and crocodiles in Whig-riddenGalloway than true men on whom the King may rely?"
But Inglis said never a word, being pale from the draining of his wound.I looked for him to denounce me as a rebel and a spy; but he was whollysilent, for the man after all was a man.
"How began ye this brawling?" quoth Claverhouse, looking from one to theother of them, minding me no more than I had been a trippinghedge-sparrow.
"We had a difference, and cast up our fathers to one another," at lastsaid Inglis, half sullenly.
"It were best to let fathers a-be when you ride on his Majesty's outpostduty, Cornet Inglis. But you are wounded. Fall out and have your hurtexamined."
"It is a flea-bite," quoth Peter Inglis, stoutly.
"A man this!" thought I. For I loved courage.
Yet nevertheless, he dismounted, and John Scarlet helped him off withhis coat upon the short heather of the brae-face.
"And whom may we have here?" cried Claverhouse, as Inglis wentstumblingly to the hillside upon the arm of John Scarlet. He turned hisfine dark eyes full upon me as he spoke, and I thought that I had neverseen any man look so handsome. Yet, for all that, fear of the greatenemy of our house and cause sat cold in my vitals. Though I deny notthat his surpassing beauty of person took my eye as though I had been awoman--the more perhaps because I had little enough of my own.
But my kinsman Wat Gordon was no whit dismayed. He dusted his silkendoublet front, swept his white-feathered hat in the air in reverence,and introduced me to the formidable captain as one that has goodstanding and knows it well:
"My cousin, William Gordon, younger son of the House of Earlstoun!"
"Ah," said Claverhouse, smiling upon me not so ill-pleased, "I haveheard of him--the home stayer, the nest-egg. He that rode not toBothwell with 'the Earl'[3] and 'the Bull.' Whither rides he now thusearly?"
[Footnote 3: The laird of Earlstoun was often called in jest "theEarl."]
"He rides, Colonel Graham, to bury his father."
I thought my cousin was too bold thus to blurt out my mission, to thechief of them that had killed him whom I went to seek, but he was wiserthan I in this matter.
Claverhouse smiled, and looked from the one to the other of us.
"You Gordons have your own troubles to get your fathers buried," hesaid. "I suppose you will claim that this cub also is a good King'sman?"
"He is well affected, colonel," said Lochinvar gaily; "and there arenone too many likeminded with him in these parts!"
"Even the affectation does him monstrous credit," quoth Clavers,clapping Walter on the shoulder; "it is much for a Gordon in thiscountry to affect such a virtue as loyalty. I wonder," he went on,apparently to himself, "if it would be possible to transplant youGordons, that are such arrant rebels here and so loyal in the North. Itwere well for the land if this could be done. In the North a few dozenWhigs would do small harm; here ten score King's men melled and marriedwould settle the land and keep the King's peace."
Then he looked at my cousin with a certain uncommon gracious affectionthat sat well on him--all the more that he showed such a thing butrarely.
"Well, Wat, for your sake let young Earlstoun go bury his father inpeace, an it likes him. The more Whigs buried the better pleased willJohn Graham be. If he will only bury his brother also when he is aboutit, he will rid the earth of a very pestilent fellow!"
"There is no great harm in Sandy," returned Lochinvar briskly andeasily. From his whole demeanour I saw that he was in good estimationwith Colonel Graham, and was accustomed to talk familiarly with him.
Perhaps the reason was that Claverhouse found himself much alone inGalloway. When he ordered a muster of the lairds and the well affected,only Grier of Lag and Fergusson of Craigdarroch came in, and even theybrought but few at their back. Then again these rough-riding, harddrinkers of Nithside had little in common with John Graham. ButLochinvar was well trained by his mother, and had been some time aboutthe court. It was, doubtless, a relief to the high-bred soldier to speakto him after the foul oaths and scurril jests of the country cavaliers.
"Why," said Claverhouse, "as you say, there is no great harm in Sandy;but yet Sandy hath a stout arm and can lay well about him when it comesto the dunts. Sandy's arm is stronger than Sandy's wit."
All this time I had not spoken, for so with a look my cousin Lochinvarhad warned me to let him speak for me; but now I broke the silence.
"I am obliged to you, Colonel Graham," I said, "for your permission togo and bury my dead."
"Ay," said Claverhouse, with a certain courteous disdain that wasnatural to him, but which he dropped when he spoke to the youngLochinvar, "ay, you are no doubt greatly obliged to me; but your father,though a rebel, fought us fairly and deserves clean burial. A Whig isaye best buried at any rate," he continued, gathering up his reins asone that prepares to ride away.
"Lochinvar," he cried, in his voice of command, "take Cornet Inglis'spost and duty, since you have disabled him. But mark me well, let therebe no more tullying and brawling, or I shall send you all to bridewell.Hark you, young Wullcat of Lochinvar, I cannot have my officers cut upwhen they should be hunting Whigs--and" (looking at me) "preparing themfor burial."
I think he saw the hatred in my eyes, when he spoke thus of my fatherlying stiff at a dyke back, for he lifted his hat to me quaintly as hewent
.
"A good journey to you, and a fair return, young Castle Keeper!" he saidwith a scorning of his haughty lip.
Yet I think that he had been greater and worthier had he denied himselfthat word to a lad on my errand.
Of our further progress what need that I tell? Hour after hour I heardthe horses' feet ring on the road dully, as though I had been deep underground myself, and they trampling over me with a rush. It irked me thatit was a fine day and that my men, Hugh Kerr and John Meiklewood, wouldnot cease to speak with me. But all things wear round, and in time wecame to the place, where one had told Sandy as he fled that he had seenWilliam Gordon of Earlstoun lie stark and still.
There indeed we found my father lying where he had fallen in the angleof a great wall, a mile or two south of the field of Bothwell. He had nofewer than six wounds from musket balls upon him. As I looked I couldsee the story of his end written plain for the dullest to read. He hadbeen beset by a party of dragoons in the angle of a great seven-footmarch dyke in which there was no break. They summoned him to surrender.He refused, as I knew he would; and, as his manner was, he had riskedall upon a single-handed charge.
As we heard afterwards, he had come at the troopers with such fury thathe killed three and wounded another, besides slaying the horse that laybeside him, before, with a storm of bullets, they stopped him in hischarge. Thus died, not unworthily, even while I was bringing in the kyein the evening at Earlstoun, William Gordon, a father of whom, in lifeand death, no son need be ashamed.
And where we found him, there we buried him, wrapping him just as hewas, in the shrouds my mother had sent for her well-beloved. Hugh Kerrwas for taking his sword out of his hand to keep at home as an heirloom.But I thought no. For his hand was stiffened upon it where the blood hadrun down his wrist. And besides, it had been his friend while he livedand when he died, and it was hard to part him with that which had beento him as the sword of the Lord and of Gideon. So we buried his swordand him together, laying the little red Bible, stained and spotted withhis blood, open upon his breast. Then we happed him up, and I, who couldat that time fight but little, put up a short prayer over him--thoughnot, of course, like a minister, or one bred to the trade. And I thoughtas I rode away that it was better to leave him the sword, than thatSandy should get it to prate about at his general meetings. Even as itwas he could not let him be, but in the after days of quiet he must havehim up to coffin him, and bury in the kirkyard of Glassford. Yet to doSandy justice, he had the grace to leave him the sword in his hand.
Now my father had not fallen on the battlefield itself, but rather whenhastening thither, for indeed he never saw the bridge, nor had hand inthe guiding of the host, whose blood Robert Hamilton poured out as onethat pours good wine upon the ground.
Yet because we were so near, we risked the matter and rode over to seethe narrow passage of the Bridge where they had fought it so stoutly allday long. Here and there lay dead men yet unburied; but the countrymenwere gradually putting the poor bodies in the earth. Some of them laysingly, but more in little clusters where they set their backsdesperately to one another, and had it out with their pursuers that theymight die fighting and not running. Still the pursuit had not beenunmerciful, for there were few that had fallen beyond the long avenuesof the Palace oaks.
But when we came to the banks of the river, and looked down upon thebridge-head we saw the very grass dyed red, where the men had been shotdown. And on the brae-sides where Hamilton had drawn them up when hecalled them from the bridge-end, they had fallen in swathes like barley.But it was not a heartsome sight, and we turned our rein and rode away,weary and sad within.