The enclosure at the south-western corner of Greyfriars Churchyard, which had been chosen as the prison of the men who were spared after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, was a small narrow space enclosed by very high walls, and guarded by a strong iron gate—the same gate, probably, which still hangs there at the present day.
There, among the tombs, without any covering to shelter them from the wind and rain, without bedding or sufficient food, with the dank grass for their couches and graves for pillows, did most of these unfortunates—from twelve to fifteen hundred—live during the succeeding five months. They were rigorously guarded night and day by sentinels who were held answerable with their lives for the safe keeping of the prisoners. During the daytime they stood or moved about uneasily. At nights if any of them ventured to rise the sentinels had orders to fire upon them. If they had been dogs they could not have been treated worse. Being men, their sufferings were terrible—inconceivable. Ere long many a poor fellow found a death-bed among the graves of that gloomy enclosure. To add to their misery, friends were seldom permitted to visit them, and those who did obtain leave were chiefly females, who were exposed to the insults of the guards.
A week or so after their being shut up here, Andrew Black stood one afternoon leaning against the headstone of a grave on which Quentin Dick and Will Wallace were seated. It had been raining, and the grass and their garments were very wet. A leaden sky overhead seemed to have deepened their despair, for they remained silent for an unusually long time.
“This is awfu’!” said Black at last with a deep sigh. “If there was ony chance o’ makin’ a dash an’ fechtin’ to the end, I wad tak’ comfort; but to be left here to sterve an’ rot, nicht an’ day, wi’ naethin’ to do an’ maist naethin’ to think on—it’s—it’s awfu’!”
As the honest man could not get no further than this idea—and the idea itself was a mere truism—no response was drawn from his companions, who sat with clenched fists, staring vacantly before them. Probably the first stage of incipient madness had set in with all of them.
“Did Jean give you any hope yesterday?” asked Wallace languidly; for he had asked the same question every day since the poor girl had been permitted to hold a brief conversation with her uncle at the iron gate, towards which only one prisoner at a time was allowed to approach. The answer had always been the same.
“Na, na. She bids me hope, indeed, in the Lord—an’ she’s right there; but as for man, what can we hope frae him?”
“Ye may weel ask that!” exclaimed Quentin Dick, with sudden and bitter emphasis. “Man indeed! It’s my opeenion that man, when left to hissel’, is nae better than the deevil. I’ faith, I think he’s waur, for he’s mair contemptible.”
“Ye may be right, Quentin, for a’ I ken; but some men are no’ left to theirsel’s. There’s that puir young chiel Anderson, that was shot i’ the lungs an’ has scarce been able the last day or twa to crawl to the yett to see his auld mither—he’s deeing this afternoon. I went ower to the tombstane that keeps the east wund aff him, an’ he said to me, ‘Andry, man,’ said he, ‘I’ll no’ be able to crawl to see my mither the day. I’ll vera likely be deid before she comes. Wull ye tell her no’ to greet for me, for I’m restin’ on the Lord Jesus, an’ I’ll be a free man afore night, singing the praises o’ redeeming love, and waitin’ for her to come?’”
Quentin had covered his face with his hands while Black spoke, and a low groan escaped him; for the youth Anderson had made a deep impression on the three friends during the week they had suffered together. Wallace, without replying, went straight over to the tomb where Anderson lay. He was followed by the other two. On reaching the spot they observed that he lay on his back, with closed eyes and a smile resting on his young face.
“He sleeps,” said Wallace softly.
“Ay, he sleeps weel,” said Black, shaking his head slowly. “I ken the look o’ that sleep. An’ yonder’s his puir mither at the yett. Bide by him, Quentin, while I gang an’ brek it to her.”
It chanced that Mrs Anderson and Jean came to the gate at the same moment. On hearing that her son was dead the poor woman uttered a low wail, and would have fallen if Jean had not caught her and let her gently down on one of the graves. Jean was, as we have said, singularly sympathetic. She had overheard what her uncle had said, and forthwith sat down beside the bereaved woman, drew her head down on her breast and tried to comfort her, as she had formerly tried to comfort old Mrs Mitchell. Even the guards were softened for a few minutes; but soon they grew impatient, and ordered them both to leave.
“Bide a wee,” said Jean, “I maun hae a word wi’ my uncle.”
She rose as she spoke, and turned to the gate.
“Weel, what luck?” asked Black, grasping both her hands through the bars.
“No luck, uncle,” answered Jean, whimpering a little in spite of her efforts to keep up. “As we ken naebody o’ note here that could help us, I just went straight to the Parliament Hoose an’ saw Lauderdale himsel’, but he wouldna listen to me. An’ what could I say? I couldna tell him a lee, ye ken, an’ say ye hadna been to conventicles or sheltered the rebels, as they ca’ us. But I said I was sure ye were sorry for what ye had done, an’ that ye would never do it again, if they would only let you off—”
“Oh, Jean, Jean, ye’re a gowk, for that was twa lees ye telt him!” interrupted Black, with a short sarcastic laugh; “for I’m no’ a bit sorry for what I’ve done; an’ I’ll do’t ower again if ever I git the chance. Ne’er heed, lass, you’ve done your best. An’ hoo’s mither an’ Mrs Wallace?”
“They’re baith weel; but awfu’ cast doon aboot you, an’—an’—Wull and Quentin. An’—I had maist forgot—Peter has turned up safe an’ soond. He says that—”
“Come, cut short your haverin’,” said the sentinel who had been induced to favour Jean, partly because of her sweet innocent face, and partly because of the money which Mrs Black had given her to bribe him.
“Weel, tell Peter,” said Black hurriedly, “to gang doon to the ferm an’ see if he can find oot onything aboot Marion Clerk an’ Isabel Scott. I’m wae for thae lassies. They’re ower guid to let live in peace at a time like this. Tell him to tell them frae me to flee to the hills. Noo that the hidy-hole is gaen, there’s no’ a safe hoose in a’ the land, only the caves an’ the peat-bogs, and even they are but puir protection.”
“Uncle dear, is not the Lord our hiding-place until these calamities be overpast?” said Jean, while the tears that she could not suppress ran down her cheeks.
“Ye’re right, bairn. God forgi’e my want o’ faith. Rin awa’ noo. I see the sentry’s getting wearied. The Lord bless ye.”
The night chanced to be very dark. Rain fell in torrents, and wind in fitful gusts swept among the tombs, chilling the prisoners to the very bone. It is probable that the guards would, for their own comfort, have kept a slack look-out, had not their own lives depended a good deal on their fidelity. As it was, the vigil was not so strict as it might have been; and they found it impossible to see the whole of that long narrow space of ground in so dark a night. About midnight the sentry fancied he saw three figures flitting across the yard. Putting his musket through the bars of the gate he fired at once, but could not see whether he had done execution; and so great was the noise of the wind and rain that the report of his piece was not audible more than a few paces from where he stood, except to leeward. Alarms were too frequent in those days to disturb people much. A few people, no doubt, heard the shot; listened, perchance, for a moment or two, and then, turning in their warm beds, continued their repose. The guard turned out, but as all seemed quiet in the churchyard-prison when they peered through the iron bars, they turned in again, and the sentinel recharged his musket.
Close beside one of the sodden graves lay the yet warm body of a dead man. The random bullet had found a billet in his heart, and “Nature’s sweet restorer” had been merged into the sleep of death. Fortunate man! He had been spared, probably, months of slow-timed misery, with almost certain death at the end in any case.
Three men rose from behind the headstone of that grave, and looked sorrowfully on the drenched figure.
“He has passed the golden gates,” said one in a low voice. “A wonderful change.”
“Ay, Wull,” responsed another of the trio; “but it’s noo or niver wi’ us. Set yer heid agin’ the wa’, Quentin.”
The shepherd obeyed, and the three proceeded to carry out a plan which they had previously devised—a plan which only very strong and agile men could have hoped to carry through without noise. Selecting a suitable part of the wall, in deepest shadow, where a headstone slightly aided them, Quentin planted his feet firmly, and, resting his arms on the wall, leaned his forehead against them. Black mounted on his shoulders, and, standing erect, assumed the same position. Then Wallace, grasping the garments of his friends, climbed up the living ladder and stood on Black’s shoulders, so that he could just grip the top of the wall and hang on. At this point in the process the conditions were, so to speak, reversed. Black grasped Wallace with both hands by one of his ankles, and held on like a vice. The living ladder was now hanging from the top of the wall instead of standing at the foot of it, and Quentin—the lowest rung, so to speak—became the climber. From Wallace’s shoulders, he easily gained the top of the wall, and was able to reach down a helping hand to Black as he made his way slowly up Wallace’s back. Then both men hauled Wallace up with some trouble, for the strain had been almost too much for him, and he could hardly help himself.
At this juncture the sentinel chanced to look up, and, dark though it was, he saw the three figures on the wall a little blacker than the sky behind. Instantly the bright flash of his musket was seen, and the report, mingled with his cry of alarm, again brought out the guard. A volley revealed the three prisoners for a moment.
“Dinna jump!” cried Black, as the bullets whizzed past their heads. “Ye’ll brek yer legs. Tak’ it easy. They’re slow at loadin’; an’ ‘the mair hurry the less speed!’”
The caution was only just in time, for the impulsive Wallace had been on the point of leaping from the wall; instead of doing which he assisted in reversing the process which has just been described. It was much easier, however; and the drop which Wallace had to make after his friends were down was broken by their catching him in their arms. Inexperience, however, is always liable to misfortune. The shock of such a heavy man dropping from such a height gave them a surprise, and sent them all three violently to the ground; but the firing, shouting, and confusion on the other side of the wall caused them to jump up with wonderful alacrity.
“Candlemaker Raw!” said Black in a hoarse whisper, as they dashed off in different directions, and were lost in blackness of night.
With a very sad face, on which, however, there was an air of calm resignation, Mrs Black sat in her little room with her Bible open before her. She had been reading to Mrs Wallace and Jean, preparatory to retiring for the night.
“It’s awful to think of their lying out yonder, bedless, maybe supperless, on a night like this,” said Mrs Wallace.
Jean, with her pretty face in that condition which the Scotch and Norwegian languages expressively call begrutten, could do nothing but sigh.
Just then hurried steps were heard on the stair, and next moment a loud knocking shook the door.
“Wha’s that?” exclaimed Mrs Black, rising.
“It’s me, mither. Open; quick!”
Next moment Andrew sprang in and looked hastily round.
“Am I the first, mither?”
Before the poor woman could recover from her joy and amazement sufficiently to reply, another step was heard on the stair.
“That’s ane o’ them,” said Black, turning and holding the door, so as to be ready for friend or foe. He was right. Mrs Wallace uttered a little scream of joy as her son leaped into the room.
“Whaur’s Quentin?” asked Black.
The question was scarcely put when the shepherd himself bounded up the stair.
“They’ve gotten sight o’ me, I fear,” he said. “Have ye a garret, wummin—onywhere to hide?”
“No’ a place in the hoose big enough for a moose to hide in,” said Mrs Black with a look of dismay.
As she spoke a confused noise of voices and hurrying steps was heard in the street. Another moment and they were at the foot of the stair. The three men seized the poker, tongs, and shovel. Mrs Black opened her back window and pointed to the churchyard.
“Yer only chance!” she said.
Andrew Black leaped out at once. Wallace followed like a harlequin. Quentin Dick felt that there was no time for him to follow without being seen. Dropping his poker he sprang through the doorway, and, closing the door on himself, began to thunder against it, just as an officer leading some of the town-guard reached the landing.
“Open, I say!” cried Quentin furiously, “I’m sure the rebels cam in here. Dinna be keepin’ the gentlemen o’ the gaird waitin’ here. Open, I say, or I’ll drive the door in!”
Bursting the door open, as though in fulfilment of his threat, Quentin sprang in, and looking hastily round, cried, as if in towering wrath, “Whaur are they? Whaur are thae pestiferous rebels?”
“There’s nae rebels here, gentlemen,” said Mrs Black. “Ye’re welcome to seek.”
“They maun hae gaen up the next stair,” said Quentin, turning to the officer.
“And pray, who are you, that ye seem so anxious to catch the rebels?”
“Wha am I?” repeated Quentin with glaring eyes, and a sort of grasping of his strong fingers that suggested the idea of tearing some one to pieces. “Div ’ee no see that I’m a shepherd? The sufferin’s than I hae gaen through an’ endured on accoont o’ thae rebels is past— But c’way, sirs, they’ll escape us if we stand haverin’ here.”
So saying the bold man dashed down the stair and into the next house, followed by the town-guards, who did not know him. The prisoners’ guards were fortunately searching in another direction. A strict search was made in the next house, at which Quentin assisted. When they were yet in the thick of it he went quietly down-stairs and walked away from the scene, as he expressed it, “hotchin’”—by which he meant chuckling.
But poor Andrew Black and Will Wallace were not so fortunate. A search which was made in the outer churchyard resulted in their being discovered among the tombs, and they were forthwith conducted to the Tolbooth prison.
When Ramblin’ Peter, after many narrow escapes, reached the farm in Dumfries in a half-famished state, he sat down among the desolate ruins and howled with grief. Having thus relieved his feelings, he dried his eyes and proceeded in his usual sedate manner to examine things in detail. He soon found that his master had been wrong in supposing that the hidy-hole had been discovered or destroyed. As he approached the outer end of the tunnel a head suddenly appeared above ground, and as suddenly vanished.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Peter in surprise.
“Hallo!” echoed the head, and reappeared blazing with astonishment. “Is that you, Peter?”
“Ay, McCubine, that’s me. I thought ye was a’ deid. Hae ye ony parritch i’ the hole? I’m awfu’ hungry.”
“C’way in, lad: we’ve plenty to eat here, an guid company as weel—the Lord be thankit.”
The man led the way—familiar enough to Peter; and in the hidy-hole he found several persons, some of whom, from their costume, were evidently ministers. They paid little attention to the boy at first, being engaged in earnest conversation.
“No, no, Mr Cargill,” said one. “I cannot agree with you in the stern line of demarcation which you would draw between us. We are all the servants of the most high God, fighting for, suffering for, the truth as it is in Jesus. It is true that rather than bow to usurped power I chose to cast in my lot with the ejected; but having done that, and suffered the loss of all things temporal, I do not feel called on to pronounce such absolute condemnation on my brethren who have accepted the Indulgence. I know that many of them are as earnest followers of Christ as ourselves—it may be more so—but they think it right to bow before the storm rather than risk civil war; to accept what of toleration they can get, while they hope and pray for more.”
“In that case, Mr Welsh,” replied Cargill, “what comes of their testimony for the truth? Is not Christ King in his own household? Charles is king in the civil State. The oath which he requires of every minister who accepts the Indulgence distinctly recognises him—the king—as lord of the conscience, ruler of the spiritual kingdom of this land. To take such an oath is equivalent to acknowledging the justice of his pretensions.”
“They do not see it in that light,” returned Mr Welsh. “I agree with your views, and think our Indulged brethren in the wrong; but I counsel forbearance, and cannot agree with the idea that it is our duty to refuse all connection with them, and treat them as if they belonged to the ranks of the malignants. See what such opinions have cost us already in the overwhelming disaster at Bothwell Brig.”
“Overwhelming disaster counts for nothing in such a cause as this,” rejoined Cargill gravely. “The truth has been committed to us, and we are bound to be valiant for the truth—even to death. Is it not so, Mr Cameron?”
The young man to whom the old Covenanter turned was one of the most noted among the men who fought and died for the Covenant. An earnest godly young minister, he had just returned from Holland with the intention of taking up the standard which had been almost dropped in consequence of the hotter persecutions which immediately followed the battle of Bothwell Bridge.
“Of course you know that I agree with you, Mr Cargill. When you licensed me to preach the blessed Gospel, Mr Welsh, you encouraged me to independent thought. Under the guidance, I believe, of the Holy Spirit, I have been led to see the sinfulness of the Indulgence, and I am constrained to preach against it. Truly my chief concern is for the salvation of souls—the bringing of men and women and children to the Saviour; but after that, or rather along with that, to my mind, comes the condemnation of sin, whether public or private. Consider what the Indulgence and persecution together have done now. Have they not well-nigh stopped the field-preaching altogether, so that, with the exception of yourselves and Mr Thomas Douglas and a few others, there is no one left to testify? Part of my mission has been to go round among the ministers on this very point, but my efforts have been in vain as far as I have yet gone. It has been prophesied,” continued Cameron with a sad smile, “that I shall yet lose my head in this cause. That may well be, for there is that in my soul which will not let me stand still while my Master is dishonoured and sin is triumphant. As to the King, he may, so far as I know, be truly descended from the race of our kings, but he has so grievously departed from his duty to the people—by whose authority alone magistrates exist—and has so perjured himself, usurped authority in Church matters, and tyrannised in matters civil, that the people of Scotland do no longer owe him allegiance; and although I stand up for governments and governors, such as God’s Word and our covenants allow, I will surely—with all who choose to join me—disown Charles Stuart as a tyrant and a usurper.”
The discussion had continued so long that the ministers, as if by mutual consent, dropped it after this point, and turned to Ramblin’ Peter, who was appeasing his hunger with a huge “luggie o’ parritch.” But the poor boy had no heart to finish his meal on learning that Marion Clark and Isabel Scott—of whom he was very fond—had been captured by the soldiers and sent to Edinburgh. Indeed nothing would satisfy him but that he should return to the metropolis without delay and carry the bad news to his master.
That same night, when darkness rendered it safe, Cargill, Cameron, Welsh, and Douglas, with some of their followers, left Black’s place of concealment, and went off in different directions to risk, for a brief space, the shelter of a friendly cottage, where the neighbours would assemble to hear the outlawed ministers while one of them kept watch, or to fulfil their several engagements for the holding of conventicles among the secret places of the hills.
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