Andrew Black and his companion stood for some time listening, with bowed heads, to the slow sweet music that floated towards them. They were too far distant to hear the words of prayer that followed, yet they continued to stand in reverent silence for some time, listening to the soundBlack with his eyes closed, his young companion gazing wistfully at the distant landscape, which, from the elevated position on which they stood, lay like a magnificent panorama spread out before them. On the left the level lands bordering the rivers Cairn and Nith stretched away to the Solway, with the Cumberland mountains in the extreme distance; in front and on the right lay the wild, romantic hill-country of which, in after years, it was so beautifully written:
O bonnie hills of Galloway oft have I stood to see,
At sunset hour, your shadows fall, all darkening on the lea;
While visions of the buried years came oer me in their might
As phantoms of the sepulchreinstinct with inward light!
The years, the years when Scotland groaned beneath her tyrants hand!
And twas not for the heather she was called the purple land.
And twas not for her loveliness her children blessed their God
But for secret places of the hills, and the mountain heights untrod.
Who was the old man I found in what you call your hidy-hole? asked Wallace, turning suddenly to his companion.
Im no sure that I have a right to answer that, said Black, regarding Will with a half-serious, half-amused look. Hooever, noo that yeve taen 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 Ill trust ye on better grunds than that. I believe ye to be an honest man, and thats enough for me. Weel, ye maun ken, its saxteen year since I howkit the hidy-hole below my hoose, an wad ye believe it?theyve no fund it oot yet! Not even had a suspeecion ot, though the sodgers hae been sair puzzled, mony a time, aboot hoo I managed to gie them the slip. An monys the puir body, baith gentle and simple, that Ive gien food an shelter to whae was very likely to hae perished o cauld an hunger, but for the hidy-hole. Among ithers Ive 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 Ive done, its a gallows in the Gressmarkit as high as Hamans wad be ereckit for me, an my heed an hauns, may be, would be bleachin on the Nether Bow. Humph! but theyve 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 doins o that black-hearted Cooncil, Im 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 hes an awfu stickler for justice. Ise 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 hert needs mair instruction than yer heed. Hm! maybe hes right. Hooever, hes 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 its 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.
Im 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 enemys 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 landsa matter of considerable importancefor this quartering involved great expense and much destruction of property in most cases, and absolute ruin in some.