Hunted and Harried by R. M. Ballantyne (the top 100 crime novels of all time .TXT) 📖

some degree of comfort in return; for strong sympathy and fellowship in sorrow had induced him to reveal the fact that he loved Margaret Wilson, who at that time lay in prison with her young sister Agnes, awaiting their trial in Wigtown.

Seated one night by the carrier’s desolated hearth, where several friends had assembled to mourn with the widow, Quentin was about to commence family worship, when he was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Ramblin’ Peter. The expression of his face told eloquently that he brought bad news. “The Wilsons,” he said, “are condemned to be drowned with old Mrs McLachlan.”

“No’ baith o’ the lasses,” he added, correcting himself, “for the faither managed to git ane o’ them off by a bribe o’ a hundred pounds—an’ that’s every bodle that he owns.”

“Which is to be drooned?” asked Quentin in a low voice.

“Marget—the auldest.”

A deep groan burst from the shepherd as the Bible fell from his hands.

“Come!” he said to Peter, and passed quickly out of the house, without a word to those whom he left behind.

Arrived in Wigtown, the wretched man went about, wildly seeking to move the feelings of men whose hearts were like the nether millstone.

“Oh, if I only had siller!” he exclaimed to the Wilsons’ father, clasping his hands in agony. “Hae ye nae mair?”

“No’ anither plack,” said the old man in deepest dejection. “They took all I had for Aggie.”

“Ye are strang, Quentin,” suggested Peter, who now understood the reason of his friend’s wild despair. “Could ye no’ waylay somebody an’ rob them? Surely it wouldna be coonted wrang in the circumstances.”

“Sin is sin, Peter. Better death than sin,” returned Quentin with a grave look.

“Aweel, we maun just dee, then,” said Peter in a tone of resignation.

Nothing could avert the doom of these unfortunate women. Their judges, of whom Grierson, Laird of Lagg, was one, indicted this young girl and the old woman with the ridiculous charge of rebellion, of having been at the battles of Bothwell Bridge and Airsmoss and present at twenty conventicles, as well as with refusing to swear the abjuration oath!

The innocent victims were carried to the mouth of the river Bladenoch, being guarded by troops under Major Winram, and followed by an immense crowd both of friends and spectators. Quentin Dick and his little friend Peter were among them. The former had possessed himself of a stick resembling a quarter-staff. His wild appearance and bloodshot eyes, with his great size and strength, induced people to keep out of his way. He had only just reached the spot in time. No word did he speak till he came up to Major Winram. Then he sprang forward, and said in a loud voice, “I forbid this execution in the name of God!” at the same time raising his staff.

Instantly a trooper spurred forward and cut him down from behind.

“Take him away,” said Winram, and Quentin, while endeavouring to stagger to his feet, was ridden down, secured, and dragged away. Poor Peter shared his fate. So quickly and quietly was it all done that few except those quite close to them were fully aware of what had occurred. The blow on his head seemed to have stunned the shepherd, for he made no resistance while they led him a considerable distance back into the country to a retired spot, and placed him with his back against a cliff. Then the leader of the party told off six men to shoot him.

Not until they were about to present their muskets did the shepherd seem to realise his position. Then an eager look came over his face, and he said with a smile, “Ay, be quick! Maybe I’ll git there first to welcome her!”

A volley followed, and the soul of Quentin Dick was released from its tenement of clay.

Peter, on seeing the catastrophe, fell backwards in a swoon, and the leader of the troop, feeling, perhaps, a touch of pity, cast him loose and left him there. Returning to the sands, the soldiers found that the martyrdom was well-nigh completed.

The mouth of the Bladenoch has been considerably modified. At this time the river’s course was close along the base of the hill on which Wigtown stands. The tide had turned, and the flowing sea had already reversed the current of the river. The banks of sand were steep, and several feet high at the spot to which the martyrs were led, so that people standing on the edge were close above the inrushing stream. Two stakes had been driven into the top of the banks—one being some distance lower down the river than the other. Ropes of a few yards in length were fastened to them, and the outer ends tied round the martyrs’ waists—old Mrs McLachlan being attached to the lower post. They were then bidden prepare for death, which they did by kneeling down and engaging in fervent prayer. It is said that the younger woman repeated some passages of Scripture, and even sang part of the 25th Psalm.

At this point a married daughter of Mrs McLachlan, named Milliken, who could not believe that the sentence would really be carried out, gave way to violent lamentations, and fainted when she saw that her mother’s doom was fixed. They carried the poor creature away from the dreadful scene.

The old woman was first pushed over the brink of the river, and a soldier, thrusting her head down into the water with a halbert, held it there. This was evidently done to terrify the younger woman into submission, for, while the aged martyr was struggling in the agonies of death, one of the tormentors asked Margaret Wilson what she thought of that sight.

“What do I see?” was her reply. “I see Christ in one of His members wrestling there. Think ye that we are sufferers? No! it is Christ in us; for He sends none a warfare on his own charges.”

These were her last words as she was pushed over the bank, and, like her companion, forcibly held, down with a halbert. Before she was quite suffocated, however, Winram ordered her to be dragged out, and, when able to speak, she was asked if she would pray for the King.

“I wish the salvation of all men,” she replied, “and the damnation of none.”

“Dear Margaret,” urged a bystander in a voice of earnest entreaty, “say ‘God save the King,’ say ‘God save the King.’”

“God save him if He will,” she replied. “It is his salvation I desire.”

“She has said it! she has said it!” cried the pitying bystanders eagerly.

“That won’t do,” cried the Laird of Lagg, coming forward at the moment, uttering a coarse oath; “let her take the test-oaths.”

As this meant the repudiation of the Covenants and the submission of her conscience to the King—to her mind inexcusable sin—the martyr firmly refused to obey. She was immediately thrust back into the water, and in a few minutes more her heroic soul was with her God and Saviour.

The truth of this story—like that of John Brown of Priesthill, though attested by a letter of Claverhouse himself (See Dr Cunningham’s History of the Church of Scotland, volume two, page 239.)—has been called in question, and the whole affair pronounced a myth! We have no space for controversy, but it is right to add that if it be a myth, the records of the Kirk-sessions of Kirkinner and Penninghame—which exist, and in which it is recorded—must also be mythical. The truth is, that both stories have been elaborately investigated by men of profound learning and unquestionable capacity, and the truth of them proved “up to the hilt.”

As to Graham of Claverhouse—there are people, we believe, who would whitewash the devil if he were only to present himself with a dashing person and a handsome face! But such historians as Macaulay, McCrie, McKenzie, and others, refuse to whitewash Claverhouse. Even Sir Walter Scott—who was very decidedly in sympathy with the Cavaliers—says of him in Old Mortality: “He was the unscrupulous agent of the Scottish Privy Council in executing the merciless seventies of the Government in Scotland during the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second;” and his latest apologist candidly admits that “it is impossible altogether to acquit Claverhouse of the charges laid to his account.” We are inclined to ask, with some surprise, Why should he wish to acquit him? But Claverhouse himself, as if in prophetic cynicism, writes his own condemnation as to character thus: “In any service I have been in, I never inquired further in the laws than the orders of my superior officer.” An appropriate motto for a “soldier of fortune,” which might be abbreviated and paraphrased into “Stick at nothing!”

Coupling all this with the united testimony of tradition, and nearly all ancient historians, we can only wonder at the prejudice of those who would still weave a chaplet for the brow of “Bonnie Dundee.”

Turning now from the south-west of Scotland, we direct attention to the eastern seaboard of Kincardine, where, perched like a sea-bird on the weatherbeaten cliffs, stands the stronghold of Dunnottar Castle.

Down in the dungeons of that rugged pile lies our friend Andrew Black, very different from the man whose fortunes we have hitherto followed. Care, torment, disease, hard usage, long confinement, and desperate anxiety have graven lines on his face that nothing but death can smooth out. Wildly-tangled hair, with a long shaggy beard and moustache, render him almost unrecognisable. Only the old unquenchable fire of his eye remains; also the kindliness of his old smile, when such a rare visitant chances once again to illuminate his worn features. Years of suffering had he undergone, and there was now little more than skin and bone of him left to undergo more.

“Let me hae a turn at the crack noo,” he said, coming forward to a part of the foul miry dungeon where a crowd of male and female prisoners were endeavouring to inhale a little fresh air through a crevice in the wall. “I’m fit to choke for want o’ a breath o’ caller air.”

As he spoke a groan from a dark corner attracted his attention. At once forgetting his own distress, he went to the place and discovered one of the prisoners, a young man, with his head pillowed on a stone, and mire some inches deep for his bed.

“Eh, Sandy, are ye sae far gane?” asked Black, kneeling beside him in tender sympathy.

“Oh, Andry, man—for a breath o’ fresh air before I dee!”

“Here! ane o’ ye,” cried Black, “help me to carry Sandy to the crack. Wae’s me, man,” he added in a lower voice, “I could hae carried you ye wi’ my pirlie ance, but I’m little stronger than a bairn noo.”

Sandy was borne to the other side of the dungeon, and his head put close to the crevice, through which he could see the white ripples on the summer sea far below.

A deep inspiration seemed for a moment to give new life—then a prolonged sigh, and the freed happy soul swept from the dungeons of earth to the realms of celestial, light and liberty.

“He’s breathin’ the air o’ Paradise noo,” said Black, as he assisted to remove the dead man from the opening which the living were so eager to reach.

“Ye was up in the ither dungeon last night,” he said, turning to the man who had aided him; “what was a’ the groans an’ cries aboot?”

“Torturin’ the puir lads that tried to escape,” answered the man with a dark frown.

“Hm! I thoucht as muckle. They were gey hard on them, I dar’say?”

“They were that! Ye see, the disease that’s broke oot amang them—whatever it is—made some o’ them sae desprit that they got through the wundy that looks to the sea an’ creepit alang the precipice. It was a daft-like thing to try in the daylight; but certain death would hae been their lot, I suspec’, if they had ventured on a precipice like that i’ the dark. Some women washin’ doon below saw