Robert Michael Ballantyne - Hunted and Harried

“Who was the old man I found in what you call your hidy-hole?” asked Wallace, turning suddenly to his companion.

“I’m no’ sure that I have a right to answer that,” said Black, regarding Will with a half-serious, half-amused look. “Hooever, noo that ye’ve ta’en service wi’ me, and ken about my hidy-hole, I suppose I may trust ye wi’ a’ my secrets.”

“I would not press you to reveal any secrets, Mr Black, yet I think you are safe to trust me, seeing that you know enough about my own secrets to bring me to the gallows if so disposed.”

“Ay, I hae ye there, lad! But I’ll trust ye on better grunds than that. I believe ye to be an honest man, and that’s enough for me. Weel, ye maun ken, it’s saxteen year since I howkit the hidy-hole below my hoose, an’ wad ye believe it?—they’ve no fund it oot yet! Not even had a suspeecion o’t, though the sodgers hae been sair puzzled, mony a time, aboot hoo I managed to gie them the slip. An’ mony’s the puir body, baith gentle and simple, that I’ve gien food an’ shelter to whae was very likely to hae perished o’ cauld an’ hunger, but for the hidy-hole. Among ithers I’ve often had the persecuited ministers doon there, readin’ their Bibles or sleepin’ as comfortable as ye like when the dragoons was drinkin’, roarin’, an’ singin’ like deevils ower their heids. My certies! if Clavers, or Sherp, or Lauderdale had an inklin’ o’ the hunderd pairt o’ the law-brekin’ that I’ve done, it’s a gallows in the Gressmarkit as high as Haman’s wad be ereckit for me, an’ my heed an’ hauns, may be, would be bleachin’ on the Nether Bow. Humph! but they’ve no’ gotten me yet!”

“And I sincerely hope they never will,” remarked Wallace; “but you have not yet told me the name of the old man.”

“I was comin’ to him,” continued Black; “but wheniver I wander to the doin’s o’ that black-hearted Cooncil, I’m like to lose the threed o’ my discoorse. Yon is a great man i’ the Kirk o’ Scotland. They ca’ him Donald Cargill. The adventures that puir man has had in the coorse o’ mair nor quarter o’ a century wad mak’ a grand story-buik. He has no fear o’ man, an’ he’s an awfu’ stickler for justice. I’se warrant he gied ye some strang condemnations o’ the poors that be.”

“Indeed he did not,” said Wallace. “Surely you misjudge his character. His converse with me was entirely religious, and his chief anxiety seemed to be to impress on me the love of God in sending Jesus Christ to redeem a wicked world from sin. I tried to turn the conversation on the state of the times, but he gently turned it round again to the importance of being at peace with God, and giving heed to the condition of my own soul. He became at last so personal that I did not quite like it. Yet he was so earnest and kind that I could not take offence.”

“Ay, ay,” said Black in a musing tone, “I see. He clearly thinks that yer he’rt needs mair instruction than yer heed. Hm! maybe he’s right. Hooever, he’s a wonderfu’ man; gangs aboot the country preachin’ everywhere altho’ he kens that the sodgers are aye on the look-oot for him, an’ that if they catch him it’s certain death. He wad have been at this communion nae doot, if he hadna engaged to preach somewhere near Sanquhar this vera day.”

“Then he has left the hidy-hole by this time, I suppose?”

“Ye may be sure o’ that, for when there is work to be done for the Master, Donal’ Cargill doesna let the gress grow under his feet.”

“I’m sorry that I shall not see him again,” returned the ex-trooper in a tone of regret, “for I like him much.”

Now, while this conversation was going on, a portion of the troop of dragoons which had been out in search of Andrew Black was sent under Glendinning (now a sergeant) in quest of an aged couple named Mitchell, who were reported to have entertained intercommuned, i.e. outlawed, persons; attended conventicles in the fields; ventured to have family worship in their cottages while a few neighbours were present, and to have otherwise broken the laws of the Secret Council.

This Council, which was ruled by two monsters in human form, namely, Archbishop Sharp of Saint Andrews and the Duke of Lauderdale, having obtained full powers from King Charles the Second to put down conventicles and enforce the laws against the fanatics with the utmost possible rigour, had proceeded to carry out their mission by inviting a host of half, if not quite, savage Highlanders to assist them in quelling the people. This host, numbering, with 2000 regulars and militia, about 10,000 men, eagerly accepted the invitation, and was let loose on the south and western districts of Scotland about the beginning of the year, and for some time ravaged and pillaged the land as if it had been an enemy’s country. They were thanked by the King for so readily agreeing to assist in reducing the Covenanters to obedience to “Us and Our laws,” and were told to take up free quarters among the disaffected, to disarm such persons as they should suspect, to carry with them instruments of torture wherewith to subdue the refractory, and in short to act very much in accordance with the promptings of their own desires. Evidently the mission suited these men admirably, for they treated all parties as disaffected, with great impartiality, and plundered, tortured, and insulted to such an extent that after about three months of unresisted depredation, the shame of the thing became so obvious that Government was compelled to send them home again. They had accomplished nothing in the way of bringing the Covenanters to reason; but they had desolated a fair region of Scotland, spilt much innocent blood, ruined many families, and returned to their native hills heavily laden with booty of every kind like a victorious army. It is said that the losses caused by them in the county of Ayr alone amounted to over 11,000 pounds sterling.

The failure of this horde did not in the least check the proceedings of Sharp or Lauderdale or their like-minded colleagues. They kept the regular troops and militia moving about the land, enforcing their idiotical and wicked laws at the point of the sword. We say idiotical advisedly, for what could give stronger evidence of mental incapacity than the attempt to enforce a bond upon all landed proprietors, obliging themselves and their wives, children, and servants, as well as all their tenants and cottars, with their wives, children, and servants, to abstain from conventicles, and not to receive, assist, or even speak to, any forfeited persons, intercommuned ministers, or vagrant preachers, but to use their utmost endeavours to apprehend all such? Those who took this bond were to receive an assurance that the troops should not be quartered on their lands—a matter of considerable importance—for this quartering involved great expense and much destruction of property in most cases, and absolute ruin in some.

After the battle of the Pentland Hills (in 1666), in which the Covenanters, driven to desperation, made an unsuccessful effort to throw off the tyrannical yoke, severer laws were enacted against them. Their wily persecutor, also being well aware of the evil influence of disagreement among men, threw a bone of contention among them in the shape of royal acts of Indulgence , as they were styled, by which a certain number of the ejected ministers were permitted to preach on certain conditions, but only within their own parishes. To preach at a separate meeting in a private house subjected the minister to a fine of 5000 merks (about 278 pounds). To preach in the fields was to incur the penalty of death and confiscation of property. And these arbitrary laws were not merely enacted for intimidation. They were rigorously enforced. The curates in many cases became mere spies and Government informers. Many of the best men in the land laid down their lives rather than cease to proclaim the Gospel of love and peace and goodwill in Jesus Christ. Of course their enemies set them down as self-willed and turbulent fanatics. It has ever been, and ever will be, thus with men who are indifferent to principle. They will not, as well as cannot, understand those who are ready to fight, and, if need be, die for truth! Their unspoken argument seems to be: “You profess to preach peace, love, submission to authority, etcetera; very good, stand to your principles. Leave all sorts of carnal fighting to us. Obey us. Conform humbly to our arrangements, whatever they are, and all will be well; but dare to show the slightest symptom of restiveness under what you style our injustice, tyranny, cruelty, etcetera, and we will teach you the submission which you preach but fail to practise by means of fire and sword and torture and death!”