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

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!”

Many good men and true, with gentle spirits, and it may be somewhat exalted ideas about the rights of Royalty, accepted the Indulgence as being better than nothing, or better than civil war. No doubt, also, there were a few—neither good men nor true—who accepted it because it afforded them a loophole of escape from persecution. Similarly, on the other side, there were good men and true, who, with bolder hearts, perhaps, and clearer brains, it may be, refused the Indulgence as a presumptuous enactment, which cut at the roots of both civil and religious liberty, as implying a right to withhold while it professed to give, and which, if acquiesced in, would indicate a degree of abject slavery to man and unfaithfulness to God that might sink Scotland into a condition little better than that of some eastern nations at the present day. Thus was the camp of the Covenanters divided. There were also more subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and in both camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst the young men, of that powerful element—love of excitement and danger for their own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes far in all ages to neutralise the efforts and hamper the energies of the wise.

Besides the acts of Indulgence, another and most tyrannical measure, already mentioned, had been introduced to crush if possible the Presbyterians. Letters of intercommuning were issued against a great number of the most distinguished Presbyterians, including several ladies of note, by which they were proscribed as rebels and cut off from all society. A price, amounting in some instances to 500 pounbds sterling, was fixed on their heads, and every person, not excepting their nearest of kin, was prohibited from conversing with or writing to them, or of aiding with food, clothes, or any other necessary of life, on pain of being found guilty of the same crimes as the intercommuned persons.

The natural result of such inhuman laws was that men and women in hundreds had to flee from their homes and seek refuge among the dens and caves of the mountains, where many were caught, carried off to prison, tried, tortured, and executed; while of those who escaped their foes, numbers perished from cold and hunger, and disease brought on by lying in damp caves and clefts of the rocks without food or fire in all weathers. The fines which were exacted for so-called offences tempted the avarice of the persecutors and tended to keep the torch of persecution aflame. For example, Sir George Maxwell of Newark was fined a sum amounting to nearly 8000 pounds sterling for absence from his Parish Church, attendance at conventicles, and disorderly baptisms—i.e. for preferring his own minister to the curate in the baptizing of his children! Hundreds of somewhat similar instances might be given. Up to the time of which we write (1678) no fewer than 17,000 persons had suffered for attending field meetings, either by fine, imprisonment, or death.

Such was the state of matters when the party of dragoons under command of Sergeant Glendinning rode towards the Mitchells’ cottage, which was not far from Black’s farm. The body of soldiers being too small to venture to interrupt the communion on Skeoch Hill, Glendinning had been told to wait in the neighbourhood and gather information while his officer, Captain Houston, went off in search of reinforcements.

“There’s the auld sinner himsel’,” cried the Sergeant as the party came in sight of an old, whitehaired man seated on a knoll by the side of the road. “Hallo! Jock Mitchell, is that you? Come doon here directly, I want to speak t’ye.”

The old man, being stone deaf, and having his back to the road, was not aware of the presence of the dragoons, and of course took no notice of the summons.

“D’ye hear!” shouted the Sergeant savagely, for he was ignorant of the old man’s condition.

Still Mitchell did not move. Glendinning, whose disposition seemed to have been rendered more brutal since his encounter with Wallace, drew a pistol from his holster and presented it at Mitchell.

“Answer me,” he shouted again, “or ye’re a deed man.”

Mitchell did not move... There was a loud report, and next moment the poor old man fell dead upon the ground.

It chanced that Ramblin’ Peter heard the report, though he did not witness the terrible result, for he was returning home from the Mitchells’ cottage at the time, after escorting Jean Black and Aggie Wilson thither. The two girls, having been forbidden to attend the gathering on Skeoch Hill, had resolved to visit the Mitchells and spend the Sabbath with them. Peter had accompanied them and spent the greater part of the day with them, but, feeling the responsibility of his position as the representative of Andrew Black during his absence, had at last started for home.

A glance over a rising ground sufficed to make the boy turn sharp round and take to his heels. He was remarkably swift of foot. A few minutes brought him to the cottage door, which he burst open.

“The sodgers is comin’, grannie!” (He so styled the old woman, though she was no relation.)

“Did ye see my auld man?”

“No.”

“Away wi’ ye, bairns,” said Mrs Mitchell quickly but quietly. “Oot by the back door an’ doon the burnside; they’ll niver see ye for the busses.”

“But, grannie, we canna leave you here alone,” remonstrated Jean with an anxious look.

“An’ I can fecht!” remarked Peter in a low voice, that betrayed neither fear nor excitement.

“The sodgers can do nae harm to me,” returned the old woman firmly. “Do my bidding, bairns. Be aff, I say!”

There was no resisting Mrs Mitchell’s word of command. Hastening out by the back door just as the troopers came in sight, Peter and his companions, diving into the shrubbery of the neighbouring streamlet, made their way to Black’s farm by a circuitous route. There the girls took shelter in the house, locking the door and barring the windows, while Peter, diverging to the left, made for the hills like a hunted hare.

Andrew was standing alone at his post when the lithe runner came in sight. Will Wallace had left him by that time, and was listening entranced to the fervid exhortations of Dickson of Rutherglen.

“The sodgers!” gasped Peter, as he flung himself down to rest.

“Comin’ this way, lad?”

“Na. They’re at the Mitchells.”

“A’ safe at the ferm?” asked Andrew quickly.

“Ay, I saw the lasses into the hoose.”

“Rin to the meetin’ an’ gie the alarm. Tell them to send Wallace an’ Quentin here wi’ sax stoot men—weel airmed—an’ anither sentry, for I’m gaun awa’.”

Almost before the sentence was finished Ramblin’ Peter was up and away, and soon the alarming cry arose from the assembly, “The dragoons are upon us!”

Instantly the Clydesdale men mounted and formed to meet the expected onset. The men of Nithsdale were not slow to follow their example, and Gordon of Earlstoun, a tried and skilful soldier, put himself at the head of a large troop of Galloway horse. Four or five companies of foot, also well armed, got ready for action, and videttes and single horsemen were sent out to reconnoitre. Thus, in a moment, was this assembly of worshippers transformed into a band of Christian warriors, ready to fight and die for their families and liberties.

But the alarm, as it turned out, was a false one. Glendinning, informed by spies of the nature of the gathering, was much too sagacious a warrior to oppose his small force to such overwhelming odds. He contented himself for the present with smaller game.

After continuing in the posture of defence for a considerable time, the assembly dispersed, those who were defenceless being escorted by armed parties to the barns and cottages around. As they retired from the scene the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain, which had been restrained all day, came down in torrents, and sent the Cairn and Cluden red and roaring to the sea.

But long before this dispersion took place, Andrew Black, with Quentin Dick, Will Wallace, Ramblin’ Peter, and six sturdy young men, armed with sword, gun, and pistol, had hurried down the hill to succour the Mitchells, if need be, and see to the welfare of those who had been left behind in the farm.