Chapter VII: Conclusion (2)

It was easier for Effie to say she would die to save her parents, than that she would comply with the wish of her mother; but the feeling appeal of her parent increased her agony, which induced another paroxysm of hysterical sobs--the only answer she could yet make to her mother.

"Effie doesna care for either you or me, Betty," said David, "or she wad hae little hesitation aboot marryin a guid, fresh, clean, rich, auld man, to save her faither and mother frae poverty and starvation. I see nae great sacrifice i' the matter. Her young heart mayna rejoice i' the pleasures o' a daft love, but her guid sense will be gratified by a feelin o' duty far aboon the vain, frawart freaks o' a silly, giddy, youthfu passion. Let her refuse Laird Cherrytrees, an' when Lewie Campbell comes hame, the owrecome bread o' the funeral o' her faither may grace a waddin bought wi' the price o' his life."

"Dinna speak that way, faither," cried Effie, lifting up her hands; "I canna stand that. You said ye wadna force me, an' ye _are_ forcin me. Oh, my puir heart, wha or what will support ye when grief for my parents turns me against ye? Faither, faither, when I am dead, Laird Cherrytrees will be again yer friend. A little time will do't: will ye no wait?"

"Hunger waits only eight days, as the sayin is," replied he, "an ye'll live mair than that time, I hope an' trow. I will be dead afore ye, Effie, an' ye'll hae the consolation, as ye maybe drap a tear on the mossy grey stane that covers the Mearnses i' the kirkyard o' our parish, to think, if ye shouldna like to say, in case ye micht be heard--though thinkin an' speakin's a' ane to God--that 'that stane was lifted ten years suner than it micht hae been, because I liked Lewie Campbell better than auld Laird Cherrytrees.'"

"An' it's no likely," said the mother, "that I wad be there to hear Effie mak sae waefu a speech. If I binna lyin wi' the Mearns, I'll be wi' the Cherrytrees o' Mossnook--nae relations o' the Burnbanks, though maybe as guid a family. But, afore I'm mixed wi' the dust o' that auld hoose, Effie--an' it mayna be lang--ye may join the twa Cherrytrees, an' let the gravestanes o' the Mearns, as weel as the Mossnooks, lie yet a score years langer withoot bein moved. It's a pity to disturb the lang grass. Its sough i' the nichtwind keeps the bats frae pickin the auld banes, an' maybe it may save yer mother's, if ye send her there afore her time."

Effie's feelings could no longer withstand these appeals. Her sobbing ceased suddenly; and, starting up from her seat, she looked to the old clock that stood against the wall of the cottage. She noticed that it was upon the hour of the Laird's usual visit.

"It is twelve o'clock, faither," she said, firmly--"this hoor decides the fate o' Effie Mearns."

Walking to the door, she placed herself in the position she used to occupy when she intended to welcome her father's friend. Now she was to welcome a husband. Laird Cherrytrees was, as might have been expected, allowing Donald to take his liberty of the road-side, grazing while he was busy reconnoitering the cottage. The moment he saw the form of Effie standing where he had for several long days wished to see her, he pulled up Donald's bridle with the alacrity of youth, and, striking his sides with his unarmed heels, made all the speed of a bridegroom to get to his bride. The sight of the object he had gazed upon so unceasingly for so long a time, and whom he had strained his eyes in vain to see during these eventful days, operated like a charm on the old lover. He discovered at first sight the red, swollen eyes of Effie; but he was too happy in thinking he had been successful, as he had no doubt he had, to meditate on the struggle which produced his bliss. Having taken a long draught of the fountain of his hopes and happiness, and feasted his eyes on the face of the maiden, who attempted to smile through her tears, which he did sitting on his horse, and, without speaking a word--for, loquacious in politics or rural economy, he was mute in love--he dismounted, while Effie, as usual, held the reins. He lost no time in getting into his chair, falling back into it like a breathless traveller who has at last attained the end of his journey. David and Betty, who construed Effie's conduct into a consent, took an early opportunity, while she was still at the door, of letting the happy Laird know that their daughter, as they conceived, was inclined to the match. The Laird received the intelligence as if it had been too much for mortal to bear. He was at first beyond the vulgar habit of speech. He sighed, turned his eyes in their sockets, groaned, and wrung his hands. On recovering himself, he exclaimed----

"Whar is she, Betty? Let me see the dear creature. David, ye'll hae Ravelrigg; it's the best o' them a'. Whan is't to be, Betty? Ye maun fix the day; an' ye maun brak the thing to Lucy, and to Jenny Mucklewham; for I hae nae pooer. Let me see her--let me see the sweet creature this instant."

Effie, at the request of her mother, came in and resumed her seat on the three-footed stool. Her eyes were still swollen, and she looked sorrowfully at her father. The Laird fixed his eyes on her; but his loquacity was gone. He had not a word to say; but his "glowrin" was in some degree changed, being accompanied by a soft smile of self-complacency and contentment, and freed from the nervous irritability with which he used to solicit with his eyes a look from the object of his affections. His visit this day was shorter than it used to be. Next day, Betty was to visit Burnbank, to arrange for the marriage.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate girl resigned herself as a self-sacrifice into the hands of her mother. Bound with the silken bands of filial affection, she renounced all desire of exercising her own free-will, or indulging in those feelings of the female heart which are deemed so strong as to demand the sacrifice often of all other earthly considerations. The fate of Iphiginia has occupied the pens and tongues of pitying mortals for thousands of years. A lovely woman sacrificed for a fair wind, doomed to have the blood that mantled in the blushing cheeks of beauty sprinkled on the altar of a false religion, is a spectacle which the imagination cannot contemplate without a participation of the strongest sympathies of the heart; yet there are, in the common every-day world we now live in, many a scene in the act of being performed, where, though there is no bloodshed and no smoking altar exhibited, the sacrifice is not less than that of the Grecian victim. Our blessed, holy altar of matrimony is often, by the wayward feelings of man--for we here say nothing of vice or corrupt conduct--made more cruel than those of Moloch and Chiun. There is many a bloodless Iphiginia in those days, whose sufferings are unknown and unsung, because confined to the heart that broke over them and concealed them in death. The young, tender, and devoted female, who, for the love she bears to her parents, consents to intermarry with rich age, to embrace dry bones, to extend her sympathies to churlishness, caprice, and ill-nature, or, what is worse, to the asthmatic giggle of a superannuated love, while all the while her heart, cheated of its tribute and swelling with indignation, requires to be watched by her with vigilance and firmness, the cruelty of which she herself feels--presents a form of self-sacrifice possessing claims on the pity of mankind beyond those of the boasted self-immolation of ancient devotees.

The silence and dejection of our bride were construed, by her parents, into that seemly and becoming sedateness which sensible young women think it proper to assume on the eve of so important a change in their condition as marriage; while the happy bridegroom had come to that time of life when he is pleased with submission, though it be expressed through tears. No chemical menstruum has so much power in the dissolution of the hardest metals as the self-complacency of an old lover has in construing, according to his wishes, the actions, words, or looks of the young woman who is destined to be his bride. Silence and tears are expressive of happiness as well as of grief; and, so long as the desire of the ancient philosopher is uncomplied with by the gods, and there is no window to the heart, that organ in the young victim may break while the sexagenarian bridegroom is enjoying the imputed silent, restrained happiness of the object of his ill-timed affection.

The sadness and melancholy of the apparently-resigned Effie Mearns had no effect on the noise and show of the preparations for her marriage with her old lover. The marriages of old men are well known to be celebrated with higher bugle notes from the trumpet of fame than any others. A sumptuous dinner was to be given to the neighbouring lairds, and the cotters were to be fed and regaled on the green opposite to the mansion. Dancing and music were to add their charms to the gay scene; and it was even alleged that the light of a bonfire would lend its peculiar aid, in raising the joy of the guests, predisposed to hilarity by plenteous potations, to the proper height suited to the conquest of the old bridegroom over, at once, a young woman and old Time.

For days previous to the eventful one, Effie Mearns was not heard to open her lips. She looked on all the gay preparations for her marriage as if they had been the mournful acts of the undertaker employed in laying the silver trimming on the coffin lid of a lover. The bedside of her sick parent, who was still unable to rise, was the place where she sat "shrouded in silence." She heard the conversations of her father and mother about the progress of the preparations, without exhibiting so much interest as to show that she understood them. Misgivings crossed the minds of the old couple, and brought tears to their eyes, as they contemplated the animated corpse that sat there, waiting the nod of the master of ceremonies, and ready to perform the part assigned to it in the forthcoming orgies of mournful joy; but they had gone too far to recede, and it was even a subject of satisfaction to them that the period of the celebration was so near, for otherwise they might have had reason to fear that their daughter would not have survived the intermediate time. When the bridegroom called, his ears were alarmed by the voices of the parents, who saw the necessity of endeavouring to hide the condition of their daughter; and he was satisfied, if he got, free and unrestrained, "a feast of the eyes." His love was still expressed by silent gazing; for it was too deep in his old heart for either words or tears; if, indeed, there was moisture enough in the seat of his affection for the suppliance of the _softest_ expression of the soft passion.

The eventful day arrived. The marriage was to take place in the cottage, where David Mearns still lay confined to bed. The sick man wore a marriage favour attached to the breast of his shirt!--for Laird Cherrytrees would be contented with no less a demonstration of his participation in his unparalleled happiness. The still silent bride _submitted_ passively to all the acts of her nimble dressers, whose laugh seemed to strike her ears like funeral bells; yet she tried--poor victim! to smile, though the clouded beam came through a tear which, by its steadfastness, seemed to belong to the orb. The bridegroom came at the very instant when he ought to have come--the hand of the clock not having had time to leave the mark of notation. He was dressed in the style of his earliest days, with cocked hat, laced coat, and a sky-blue vest, embroidered in the richest manner; while a new wig, ordered from the metropolis, imparted to him the freshness of youth. His cheek was flushed with the blood which joy had forced, for a moment, from where it was more needed, at the drying fountain of life; and his eye spoke a happiness which his parched tongue could not have achieved, without causing shame even to himself. Everything was new, spruce, perking, self-complacent. The clergyman next came, and all was prepared.

Throughout all this time and all these preparations, not the slightest change had been observed on the bride. After she was dressed, she took her seat again, silently by the side of her father's sickbed, where she sat like a statue. The ceremony was now to commence, and she stood up, when required by the clergyman, as if she obeyed the command of an executioner. It was noticed that she seemed to incline to be as near as possible to her father's bed; and her unwillingness or inability to come forward forced the clergyman and the bridegroom some paces from the situation they at first held. The ceremony proceeded till it came to the part where the consent of the parties is asked. The happy bridegroom pronounced his response, quick, sharp, and with an air of conceit, which brought a smile to the faces of the parties present. There was now a pause for the consent of the bride. All eyes were fixed on her death-like face. A severe struggle was going on in her bosom; yet her countenance was unmoved, and no one conjectured that she suffered more than sensitive females often do in her situation. The clergyman repeated his question. There was still a pause--the eyes of all were riveted on her. "I _canna_, I _canna_!" at last she exclaimed, in a voice of agony, and fell back on the bed--a corpse!

Six months after the death of Effie Mearns, Lucy Cherrytrees was married, without faint or swoon, to Lewis Campbell, who returned home, in spite of his reported death. The union was against the consent of the Laird, who soon died of either a broken heart or old age--no doctor could have told which.

[Footnote 1: This story will suggest the remembrance of a popular ballad, but the similarity is casual; for the circumstances are here true, if they may not be found of every-day occurrence somewhere about the temple of Mammon.--ED.]

GLEANINGS OF THE COVENANT.

XIV.--JAMES RENWICK.

In the times in which we live, party spirit is carried very far. Many honest tradesmen, merchants, and shopkeepers, are ruined by their votes at elections. The ordinary intercourse of social life is obstructed and deranged. Friends go up to the polling station with friends, but separate there, and become, it may be, the most inveterate enemies. This, our later reformation of 1832, has cost us much; but our sufferings are nothing to those which marked the two previous reformations from Popery and Prelacy. In the one instance, fire and faggot were the ordinary means adopted for defending political arrangements; in the other, the gallows and the maiden did the same work, and the boots and the thumbikins acted as ministering engines of torture. The whole of society was convulsed; men's blood boiled in their veins at the revolting sights which were almost daily obtruding upon their attention; and their judgments being greatly influenced by their feelings, it is not to be wondered at that they should, in a few instances, have overshot, as it were, the mark--have sacrificed their lives to the support of opinions which appear now not materially different from those which their enemies pressed upon their acceptance. It is a sad mistake to suppose that the friends of Presbytery, during the fearful twenty-eight years' persecution of Charles and James, died in the support of certain doctrines and forms of church government merely. With these were, unhappily, or rather, as things have turned out, fortunately, combined, political or civil liberty, the establishment and support of a supreme power, vested in King, Lords, and Commons--instead of being vested, by usurpation, merely in the King alone. By avoiding to call Parliaments, and by obtaining supplies of money from France and otherwise, the two last of the Stuart Despots had, in fact, broken the compact of Government, and had exposed themselves all along, through the twenty-eight years of persecution, to dethronement for high treason. This was the strong view taken by those who fought and who fell at Bothwell Bridge, and this was the view taken by nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Scotland--of the descendants and admirers of Bruce and Wallace--of Knox and Carstairs. James Renwick, the last of the martyrs in the cause of religion and liberty, was executed in Edinburgh in his twenty-sixth year. He was a young man of liberal education, conducted both at the college of Edinburgh, and Groningen, abroad--of the most amiable disposition, and the most unblemished moral character--yet, simply because he avowed, and supported, and publicly preached doctrines on which, in twelve months after his execution, the British Government was based, he was adjudged to the death, and ignominiously executed in the presence of his poor mother and other relatives, as well as of the Edinburgh public. Mr Woodrow, in his history of this man's life, alludes to some papers which he had seen, containing notices of Mr Renwick's trials and hair-breadth escapes; prior to his capture and execution--which, however, he refrains from giving to the public. It so happens that, from my acquaintance with a lineal descendent of the last of the Martyrs, I have it in my power, in some measure, to supply the deficiency; his own note, or memorandum-book, being still in existence, though it never has been, nor ever will, probably, be published.

It was in the month of January 1688, that Mr Renwick was preaching, after nightfall, to a few followers, at Braid Craigs, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. The night was stormy--a cold east wind, with occasional blasts of snow--whilst the moon, in her second quarter, looked out, at intervals, on plaids and bonnets nestled to the leeward of rocks and furze. It was a piteous sight to view rational and immortal creatures reduced to a state upon the level with the hares and the foxes. Renwick discoursed to them from the point of a rock which protruded over the lee side of the Craigieknowe. His manner was solemn and impressive. He was a young man of about twenty-five years of age; and his mother, Elspeth Carson, sat immediately before him--an old woman of threescore and upwards--in her tartan plaid and velvet hood. Her son had been born to a larger promise, and had enjoyed an excellent academic education; and much it had originally grieved the old woman's heart to find all her hopes of seeing him minister of her native parish of Glencairn, blasted; but his conscience would not allow him to conform; and she had followed him in his wanderings and field-preachings, through Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and all along by the Pentland Hills, to Edinburgh, where a sister of hers was married, and lived in a respectable way on the Castle Hill. This evening, after psalm-singing and prayer, Mr. Renwick had chosen for his text these words, in the fourth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Revelation--"Come out of her, my people." The kindly phrase, "my people," was beautifully insisted upon.

"There ye are," said Renwick, stretching out his hand to the darkening sleet; "there ye are, a poor, shivering, fainting, despised, persecuted remnant, whom the great ones despise, and the men of might, and of war, and of blood, cut down with their swords, and rack with their tortures. Ye are, like ye'r great Master, despised and rejected of men; but the Master whom ye serve, and whom angels serve with veiled faces, and even He who created and supports the sun, the moon, and the stars, He--blessed be His name!--is not ashamed to acknowledge ye, under all your humiliation, as _His_ people. 'Come out of her,' says He, '_my people_.' O, sirs, this is a sweet and a loving invitation. Ye are '_His people_,' the sheep of His pasture, after all; and who would have thought it, that heard ye, but yesterday, denounced at the cross of Edinburgh as traitors, and rebels, and non-conformists, as the offscourings of the earth, the filth and the abomination in the eyes and in the nostrils of the great and the mighty? 'Come out!' says the text, and out ye have come--'done ere ye bade, guid Lord!' Ye may truly and reverentially say--Here we are, guid Lord; we have come out from the West Port, and from the Grassmarket, and from the Nether Bow, and from the Canongate--out we have come, because we are thy people. We know thy voice, and thy servants' voice, and a stranger and a hireling, with his stipend and his worldly rewards, will we not follow; but we will listen to him whose reward is with him; whose stipend is Thy divine approbation; whose manse is the wilderness; and whose glebe land is the barren rock and the shelterless knowe. Come out of _her_. There _she_ sits," (pointing towards Edinburgh, now visible in the scattered rays of the moon,) "there she sits, like a lady, in her delicacies, and her drawing-rooms, and her ball-rooms, and her closetings, and her abominations. Ye can almost hear the hum of her many voices on the wings of the tempest. There she sits in her easy chair, stretching her feet downwards, from west to east, from castle to palace! But she has lost her first love, and has deserted her covenanted husband. She hath gone astray--she hath gone astray!--and He who made her hath denounced her--He whose she was in the day of her betrothment, hath said--She is no longer mine; 'come out of her, my people'--be not misled by her witcheries, and her dalliance, and her smiles--be not terrified by her threats, and cruelties, and her murderings--she is drunk, she is drunk--and with the most dangerous and intoxicating beverage, too--she is drunk with the blood of the saints. When shipwrecked and famishing sailors kill each other, and drink the blood, it is written that they immediately become mad, and, uttering all manner of blasphemies, expire! Thus it is with the 'Lady of the rock'--she is now in her terrible blasphemies, and will, by and by, expire in her frenzy. And who sits upon her throne?--even the bloody Papist, who misrules these unhappy lands--he, the usurper of a throne from which by law he is debarred--even the cruel and Papistical _Duke_, whom men, in their folly or in their fears, denominate 'KING'--he, too, is doomed--the decree hath gone forth, and he will perish with her, because he would not _come out_."

"Will he, indeed, Mr Bletherwell? But there are some here who must perish first." So said the wily and infuriated Claverhouse, as he poured in his men by a signal from the adjoining glen, (where the lonely hermitage now stands in its silent beauty,) and in an instant had made Renwick, and about ten of his followers--the old woman, his mother, included--prisoners. This was done in an instant, for the arrangements had been made prior to the hour of meeting, and Claverhouse, attired in plaid and bonnet, had actually sat during the whole discourse, listening to the speaker till once he should utter something treasonable, when, by rising on a rock, and shaking the corners of his plaid, he brought the troop up from their hiding-places, amidst the whins and the broom by which the glen was at that time covered. Renwick, seeing all resistance useless, and indeed forbidding his followers, who were not unprovided for the occasion, to fire upon the military, marched onwards, in silence, towards Edinburgh. As they passed along by the land now denominated "Canaan," they halted at a small public-house kept by a woman well known at the time by the nickname of "Red-herrings," on account of her making frequent use of these viands to stimulate a desire for her strong drink. Over her door-way, indeed, a red-herring and a foaming tankard were rudely sketched on a sign-board, (like cause and effect, or mere sequence!) in loving unity. The prisoners were accommodated with standing-room in Tibby's kitchen; while the soldiers, with their leader, occupied the ben-room and the only doorway--thus securing their prisoners from all possibility of escape. Refreshments, such as Tibby could muster, consisting principally of brandy and ale, mixed up in about equal proportions of each, were distributed amongst the soldiers--who were, in fact, from their long exposure in the open air, in need of some such stimulants; whilst the poor prisoners were only watched, and made a subject of great merriment by the soldiers. The halt, however, was very temporary; but, temporary as it was, it enabled several of the members of the field-meeting to reach Edinburgh, and to apprise their friends, and what is termed the mob of the streets, of the doings at "Braid Craigs." Onwards advanced the party--soldiers before and behind, and their captives in the middle--till they reached the West Port, at the foot of the Grassmarket. It was near about ten o'clock, and the streets were in a buz with idle 'prentices, bakers' boys, shoemakers' lads, &c. The march along the Grassmarket seemed to alarm Clavers, for he halted his men, made them examine their firelocks, spread themselves all around the prisoners, and, advancing himself in front, and on his famous black horse, with drawn sword and holster pistols, seemed to set all opposition at defiance. The party had already gained the middle of that narrow and winding pass, the West Bow, when a waggon, heavily loaded with stones, was hurled downwards upon the party, with irresistible force and rapidity--Clavers's horse shied, and escaped the moving destruction; but it came full force into the very midst of the soldiers, who, from a natural instinct, turned off into open doors and side closes; in this they were imitated by the poor prisoners, who were better acquainted with the localities of the West Bow than the soldiery. In an instant afterwards, a dense and armed mob rushed headlong down the street, carrying all before them, and shouting aloud, "Renwick for ever! Renwick for ever!" This was taken as a hint by the prisoners, who, in an instant, had mixed with the mob; or sunk, as it were, through the earth, into dark passages and cellars. "Fire!" was Claverhouse's immediate order, so soon as the human torrent had reached him; and _fire_ some of the soldiers did, but not to the injury of any of the prisoners, but to that of a person--a bride, as it turned out--who, in her curiosity or fear, had looked from a window above; she was shot through the head, and died instantly. But, in the meantime, the rescue was complete--Claverhouse, afraid manifestly of being shot from a window, galloped up the brae, and made the best of his way to the Castle, there to demand fresh troops to quell what he called an insurrection: whilst, in the meantime, the men, after a very temporary search or pursuit, marched onwards, with their muskets presented to the open windows, in case any head should protrude. But no heads were to be seen; and the soldiers escaped to the guard-house (to the Heart of Midlothian) in safety. Here, however, a scene ensued of a most heart-rending nature. Scarcely had the men grounded their muskets in the guard-house, when a seeming maniac rushed upon them with an open knife, and cut right and left like a fury. He was immediately secured, but not till after many of the soldiers were bleeding profusely. They thrust him immediately, bound hand and foot, into the black-hole, to await the decision of next morning; but next morning death had decided his fate--he had manifestly died of apoplexy, brought on by extreme excitement. His mother, who had followed her son when he issued forth deprived seemingly of reason, having lost sight of him in the darkness, had learned next morning of his fate and situation. She came, therefore, with the return of light, to the prison door, and had been waiting hours before it was opened. At last Clavers arrived, and ordered the maniac to be brought into his presence, and that of the Court, for examination. But it was all over; and the distorted limbs and features of a young and handsome man were all the mark by which a fond mother could certify the identity of an only son. From this poor woman's examination, it turned out that her son was to have been married on that very day to a young woman whom he had long loved; but that he had been called to see her corpse, after she was shot by the soldiery, and had rushed out in the frantic and armed manner already described. The poor woman, from that hour, became melancholy; refused to take food; and, always calling upon the names of her "bonny murdered bairns," was found dead one morning in her bed.

In the meantime, James Renwick had made the best of his way down the Cowgate, and across, by a narrow wynd, into the Canongate, where a friend of his kept a small public-house. He had gone to bed; but his wife was still at the bar, and two men sat drinking in a small side apartment. He asked immediately for her husband, and was recognised, but with a wink and a look which but too plainly spoke her suspicion of the persons who were witnesses of his entrance. Hereupon he called for some refreshment, as if he had been a perfect stranger, and, seating himself at a small table, began to read in a little note-book which he took from his side pocket--"four, five, six, seven--yes, seven," said he--"and it has cost me seven pounds my journey to Edinburgh." This he said so audibly as to be heard by the persons who were sitting in the adjoining box, that they might regard him as a stranger, and unconnected with Edinburgh. But, as he afterwards expressed it, he deeply repented of the attempt to mislead. The Lord, he said, had justly punished him for distrusting his power to extricate him, as he had already done, from his troubles. The men, after one had accosted him in a friendly tone about the weather, or some indifferent subject, took their departure; and Mrs Chalmers and he, now joined by the husband, enjoyed one hour's canny crack ere bedtime, over some warm repast. The whole truth was made known to them; but, though perfectly trustworthy themselves, they expressed a doubt of their customers, who were known to be little better than hired informers, who went about to public-houses, at the expense of the Government, listening and prying if they could find any evidence against the poor Covenanters. Next day, even before daylight, the house was surrounded by armed men, and Renwick was demanded by name. Mr Chalmers did not deny that he was in the house, but said that he came to him as to a distant relation, and that he was no way connected with his doctrines or opinions. In the meantime, Renwick was aroused, and had resolved to sell his life as dearly as possible. He was a young and an active man, and trusted, as he owned with great regret afterwards, to his strength and activity, rather than to the mercy and the wisdom of his Maker. So, rushing suddenly down stairs, and throwing himself, whilst discharging a pistol, (which, however, did no harm), into the street, he was out of sight in a twinkling; but, in passing along, his hat fell off; and this circumstance drew the attention and suspicion of every one whom he passed, to his appearance. One foot, in particular, pressed hard upon him from behind, and a voice kept constantly crying, "Stop thief!--stop thief!" He ran down a blind alley, on the other side of the Canongate, and was at last taken, without resistance, by three men, one of whom--and it was the one who had all along pursued him--was the person who had accosted him last night in the public-house, respecting the weather. He was immediately carried to prison, where he remained--visited indeed by his mother--till next assizes, when he was tried, condemned, and afterwards executed--the Last of the Martyrs!

The conversation which he had with his mother, his public confessions of faith, and adherence to the covenanted cause, as well as his last address, drowned at the time in the sound of drums--all these are given at full length in Woodrow, (the edition of Dr Burns of Paisley), to which I must refer the reader who is curious upon such subjects. In this valuable work will likewise be found the inscription placed upon a very handsome cippus, or monument of stone, erected to his memory. We give it to the reader. There is another, if we mistake not, in the Greyfriars of Edinburgh, somewhat in the same style. They are both equally simple and touching.

In memory of the late
REVEREND JAMES RENWICK,
the last who suffered to the death for attachment to the
Covenanted Cause of Christ
in Scotland.
Born near this spot, 15th February, 1662,
and executed at the
Grassmarket, Edinburgh,
1688.
"The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance."
Ps. cxli. and 6.
Erected by subscription, 1828.

The late James Hastings, Esq. gave a donation of the ground. The subscriptions, amounting to about L100, were collected at large from Christians of all denominations; and the gentleman who took the most active part in suggesting and carrying through the undertaking, was the Rev. Gavin Mowat, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation at Whithorn, and formerly at Scar-brig, in Penpont, Dumfries-shire. The monument is placed upon the farm of Knees, at no great distance from the farm-house where the martyr was born. It stands upon an eminence, from which it may be seen at the distance of several miles down the glen, in which the village of Monyaive is situated. It was visited last summer by the author of this narrative; when the resolution, which has now been very imperfectly fulfilled, was taken.

XV.--OLD ISBEL KIRK.

Isbel Kirk lived in Pothouse, Closeburn, in that very house where that distinguished scholar, the late Professor Hunter of St Andrew's, was born. She had never been married, and lived in a small lonely cottage, with no companions but her cat and cricket, which chirped occasionally from beneath the hudstone, against which her peat-fire was built. There sat old, and now nearly blind, Isbel Kirk, spinning or carding wool, crooning occasionally an old Scotch song, or, it might be, one of David's psalms, and enjoying at intervals her pipe, a visit from her next neighbour, Nancy Nivison, or her champit-potatoes--a luxury which the west country, and that alone, has hitherto enjoyed. Two old Irish women had settled some time before this on the skirts of the opposite brae, where they had built a small turf cabin, and lived nobody could well tell how. They were generally understood to make a kind of precarious living, by going about the country periodically, giving _pigs_ or crockery-ware in exchange for wool. Isbel Kirk was a most simple, honest creature, living on little, but procuring that little by her industry in spinning sale yarn, weaving garters, and using her needle occasionally, to assist the guidwife of Gilchristland in shirt-making for a large family. But the M'Dermots were the aversion of everybody, and seldom visited even by the guidman of Barmoor, on whose farm, or rather on the debatable skirts of it, they had sat down, almost in spite of his teeth. He was a humane man; and, though he loved not such visitors, yet he tolerated the nuisance, as his wife reckoned them skilled in curing children's diseases, and in spaeing the young women's fortunes. John Watson pastured sheep, where corn harvests now wave in abundance; and his flocks spread about to the doors of the M'Dermots and Isbel Kirk. These flocks gradually decreased, and much suspicion was attached to his Irish and heathenish neighbours, for they attended no place of worship, not even the conformed Curate's; but there was no proof against them. At last, a search was suddenly and secretly instituted under the authority of the Laird of Closeburn; and, although much wool was found, still there were no entire fleeces, nor any means left of bringing it home to the M'Dermots.

"Na, na, guidman," said the elder of the two harridans. "Na--ye needna stir aboot the kail-pot in that way--ye'll find naething there but a fine bit o' the dead braxy I gat frae the guidman o' Gilchristland, for helping the mistress wi' her kirn, that wadna mak butter; but there are folks that ye dinna suspect, and that are maybe no that far off either, wha could very weel tell ye gin they liked whar yer braw gimmer yows gang till."

Being pushed to be more particular, they were seemingly compelled at last to intimate that auld Isbel Kirk, she and her friend, Nanny Nivison, could give an account of the stolen sheep, if they liked. The guidman would not credit such allegations; but the old women persisted in their averment, and even offered to give the guidman of Barmoor occular demonstration of the guilt of the twa _saunts_, as they called them. A few days passed, and still a lamb or an old sheep would disappear--they melted away gradually, and the guidman began to think that his flocks must be bewitched, and that the devil himself must keep a kitchen somewhere about the Chaise Craig, over which Archy Tait had often seen the _old gentleman_ driving six-in-hand about twelve o'clock at night. Returning, therefore, one morning to the M'Dermots, and renewing the conversation respecting Isbel Kirk and Nanny Nivison, it was agreed that one of the Irish sisterhood should walk over to Isbel's with him next forenoon, and that she would give him evidence of the fate of his flocks. Isbel was sitting before her door, in the sunshine of a fine spring morning, when the guidman and Esther M'Dermot arrived. She welcomed them kindly into her small but clean and neat cottage; and, with all the despatch which her blindness would permit of, dusted for their use an old-fashioned chair, and a round stool, which served the double purpose of stool and table. The conversation went on as usual about the weather, and the last sufferer in the cause of the Covenant, when Esther M'Dermot went into a dark corner, and forthwith drew out into the guidman's view, and to his infinite astonishment, a sheep's head, which bore the well-known mark of the farm on its ears.

"Look there, guidman," said Esther, "isna that proof positive of the way in which your braw hirsel is disposed of? By Jasus and the holy St Patrick! and here is a foot too, and twa horns!"

Poor Isbel Kirk could scarcely be made to apprehend the meaning of all this--indeed she could scarcely see the evidences of her guilt--and assured the guidman, in the most unequivocal manner imaginable, that she was innocent as the child unborn; indeed, she said, what should she do with dead sheep, or how should she get hold of them, seeing she was old and blind, and had not enjoyed a bit of mutton, or any other flesh, meat, since the new year?

"Ay," responded old Esther; "but ye hae friends that can help ye; dinna I whiles see, after dark, twa tall figures stealing o'er your way frae the Whitside linn yonder! I'se warrant they dinna live on deaf nits, after lying a' day in a dark and damp cave." Isbel held up her hands in prayer, entreating the Lord to be merciful to her and to his ain inheritance, and to discomfit the plans of his and her enemies.

"Ye may pray," said Elspat, "as ye like, but ye'll no mak the guidman here distrust his ain een, wi' yer praying and yer Whiggery." This last suggestion of the nightly visitors staggered Mr Watson not a little; he well knew how friendly old Isbel was to the poor Covenanters, and brought himself to conclude, under the weighty and conclusive evidence before him, that Isbel might have persuaded herself that she was rendering God good service by feeding his chosen people with the best of his flock. Isbel could only protest her innocence and ignorance of the way in which these evidences against her came there; whilst the guidman and Esther took their leave--he threatening that the matter should not rest where it was, and the old Irish jade pretending to commiserate Isbel on the unfortunate discovery.

Next morning, the pothouse was surrounded, and carefully searched by a detachment of Lag's men, to whom information of Isbel's harbouring rebels had been (the reader may guess how) communicated. Having been unsuccessful in their search, they put the poor blind creature to the torture, because she would not discover, or, perhaps, could not reveal, the retreat of the persecuted people. A burning match was put betwixt her fingers, and she was firmly tied to a bedpost, whilst the fire was blown into a flame by one of the soldiers. Not a feature in Isbel's countenance changed; but her lips moved, and she was evidently deeply absorbed in devotional exercise.

"Come, come, old Bleary," said one, "out with it! or we will roast you on the coals, like a red herring, for Beelzebub's breakfast."

"Ye can only do what ye're permitted to do," said the poor sufferer, now writhing with pain, and suffering all the agonies of martyrdom. "Ye may burn this poor auld body, and reduce it to its natural dust; but ye will never hear my tongue betray any of the poor persecuted remnant."

It is horrible to relate, but the fact cannot be disputed, that these monsters stood by and blew the match till the poor creature's fingers were actually burnt off--yet she only once cried for mercy; but, when they mentioned the conditions, she fainted; and thus nature relieved her from her sufferings. When she came again to herself, she found that they had killed the only living creature which she could call companion, and actually hung the body of the dead cat around her neck; but they were gone, and her hands were untied.

During the ensuing night a watch was set upon poor Isbel's house, thinking, as the persecutors did, that they would catch the nightly visitants, who were yet ignorant of their friend's sufferings in their behalf. The men lay concealed among brackens, on the bank opposite to the pothouse, and near to Staffybiggin, the residence of the M'Dermots. To their surprise, a figure, about twelve o'clock, came warily and stealthily around a flock of sheep which lay ruminating in the hollow. It was a female figure, if not the devil in a female garb. They continued to keep silent and lie still. At last they saw the whole flock driven over and across a thick-set bush of fern. One of the sheep immediately began to struggle; but it was manifestly held by the foot--in a few instants, two figures were seen dragging it into M'Dermot's door. This naturally excited their surprise, and, rushing immediately into the hut, they found the two old women in the act of preparing in a pit--which, during the day time, was concealed--mutton for their own use. The murder was now out. These wretched women had been in the habit, for some years, of supplying themselves from the Barmoor flocks; the one lying flat down upon her back amongst the furze, and the other driving the sheep over her breast. Thus the sister who caught, had an opportunity of selecting; and the best of the wedders had thus from time to time disappeared.

Poor Isbel Kirk!--her innocence was now fully established; but it was too late. Her kind friend Nanny Nivison attended her in her last illness, and the guidman of Barmoor paid every humane attention. But the ruffians of a mistaken and ill-advised government had deranged her nervous system. Besides, the burn never properly healed; it at last mortified, and she died almost insensible, either of pain or presence. Her soul seemed to have left its frail tabernacle ere life was extinct. The example we have here given is taken from that humble source, which the historian leaves open to the gleaner. Indeed, the histories of those times give but a very imperfect idea of the atrocities of that remarkable period. The cottage door must be opened to get at the truth; but the stately political historian seldom enters.

XVI.--THE CURLERS.

Winter 1684-5 was, like the last, cold, frosty, and stormy. The ice was on lake and muir from new year's day till the month of March. Curling was then, as it is still, the great winter amusement in the south and west of Scotland. The ploughman lad rose by two o'clock of a frosty morning, had the day's fodder threshed for the cattle, and was on the ice, besom in hand, by nine o'clock. The farmer, after seeing things right in the stable and the byre, was not long behind his servant. The minister left his study and his M.S., his concordance, and his desk, for the loch, and the rink, and the channel-stane. Even the laird himself was not proof against the temptation, but often preferred full twelve hours of rousing game on the ice, to all the fascinations of the drawing or the billiard-room, or the study. Even the schoolmaster was incapable of resisting the tempting and animating sound; and, at every peal of laughter which broke upon his own and his pupils' ears, turned his eyes and his steps towards the window which looked upon the adjoining loch; and, at last, entirely overcome by the shout over a contested shot; off he and his bevy swarmed, helter-skelter, across the Carse Meadow, to the ice. From all accounts which I have heard of it, this was a notable amongst many notable days. The factor was never in such play; the master greatly outdid himself; the laird played hind-hand in beautiful style; and Sutor John came up the rink "like Jehu in time o' need." Shots were laid just a yard, right and left, before and behind the tee; shots were taken out, and run off the ice with wonderful precision; guards, that most ticklish of all plays, were rested just over the hog-score, so as completely to cover the winner; inwicks were taken to a hair, and the player's stone whirled in most gracefully, (like a lady in a country dance), and settled, three-deep-guarded, upon the top of the tee. Chance had her triumphs as well as good play. A random shot, driven with such fury that the stone rebounded and split in two, deprived the opposite side of four shots, and took the game. The sky was blue as indigo, and the sun shot his beams over the Keir Hills in penetrating and invigorating splendour. Old women frequented the loch with baskets; boys and young lads skated gracefully around; the whisky-bottle did its duty; and even the herons at the spring-wells had their necks greatly elongated by the roaring fun. It was a capital day's sport. Little did this happy scene exhibit of the suffering and the misery which was all this while perpetrated by the men of violence. Clavers, the ever-infamous, was in Wigtonshire with his Lambs; Grierson was lying in his den of Lag, like a lion on the spring; Johnstone was on the Annan; and Winram on the Doon; whilst Douglas was here, and there, and everywhere, flying, like a malevolent spirit, from strath to strath, and from hill to dale. The snow lay, and had long been lying, more than a foot deep, crisp and white, over the bleak but beauteous wild; the sheep were perishing for want of pasture; and many poor creatures were in absolute want of the necessaries of life. (The potato, that true friend of the people, had not yet made its way to any extent into Scotland). Caves, dens, and outhouses were crowded with the persecuted flock. The ousted ministers were still lifting up their voice in the wilderness, and the distant hum of psalmody was heard afar amongst the hills, and by the side of the frozen stream and the bare hawthorn. What a contrast did all this present to the fun, frolic, and downright ecstacy of this day's sport! But the night came, with its beef and its greens, and its song, and its punch, and its anecdote, and its thrice-played games, and its warm words, and its half-muttered threats, and its dispersion about three in the morning.

"Wha was yon stranger?" said John Harkness to Sandy Gibson, as they met next day on the hill. "I didna like the look o' him; an' yet he played his stane weel, an' took a great lead in the conversation. I wish he mayna be a spy, after a'; for I never heard o' ony Watsons in Ecclefechan, till yon creature cast up."

"Indeed," said lang Sandy, "I didna like the creature--it got sae fou an' impudent, late at nicht; an' then that puir haverel, Will Paterson, cam in, an' let oot that the cave at Glencairn had been surprised, an' the auld minister murdered. If it be na the case--as I believe it isna hitherto--there was enough said last nicht to mak it necessary to hae the puir, persecuted saint informed o' his danger."

"An' that's as true," responded John; "an' I think you an' I canna do better than wear awa wast o'er whan the sun gaes down, an' let honest Mr Lawson ken that his retreat is known. That Watson creature--didna ye tent?--went aff, wi' the curate, a wee afore the lave; they were heard busy talking together, in a low tone of voice, as they went hame to the manse. I wonder what maks the laird--wha is a perfect gentleman, an' a friend, too, o' the Covenanted truth--keep company, on the ice, or off it, wi' that rotten-hearted, roupit creature, the curate o' Closeburn?"

"Indeed," replied the other, "he is sae clean daft aboot playing at channel-stane, that, I believe, baith him, an' the dominie, an' the factor--forby Souter Ferguson--would play wi' auld Symnie himself, provided he was a keen and a guid shot! But it will be mirk dark--an' there's nae moon--ere we mak Glencairn cave o't."

John Harkness and Sandy Gibson arrived at Monyaive, in Glencairn, a little after dark. The cave was about a mile distant from the town; and, with the view of refreshment, as well as of concerting the best way of avoiding suspicion, they entered a small ale-house kept by an old woman at the farther end of the bridge. They were shewn into a narrow and meanly-furnished apartment, and called for a bottle of the best beer, with a suitable accompaniment of bread and cheese. The landlady, by-and-by, was sent for, and was asked to partake of her own beverage, and questioned, in a careless and incidental manner, respecting the news. She looked somewhat embarrassed; and, fixing her eyes upon a keyhole, in a door which conducted to an adjoining apartment, she said, in a whisper--

"I ken brawly wha ye are, an maybe, too, what ye're after; but ye hae need to be active, lads; for there are those in that ither room that wadna care though a yer heads, as well as those o' some ither folks that shall be nameless were stuck on the West Port o' Edinbro."

In an instant, the two young farmers were _butt_ the house, and beside Tibby Haddow's peat fire. In the course of a short, and, to all but themselves, an inaudible conversation, they learned that Lag himself, disguised as a common soldier, was in the next room, in close colloquy with a person clothed in grey duffle, with a broad bonnet on his head. From the description of the person, the two Closeburnians had no manner of doubt that the information obtained last night, in regard to the existence of a place of refuge in Glencairn, was now in the act of being communicated.

"At one o'clock!" said a well-known voice--it was that of Lag, to a certainty.

"Yes, at one," responded the stranger, Watson--whose voice was equally well-known to the farmers--"at one!" And they parted--the one going east, and the other west--and were lost in the darkness of night.